Visualy impaired

[Ralph W. Reid]

Stoppard staggered into view and mumbled:
>
>Hi all,
>Not being able to look at a computer screen means that it is very difficult
>to get information on linux.
>
>I have found a 8.1 version of slackware and installing speakup sounds pretty
>tricky.  Particularly as i will not be able to look at the screen.
>
>I was wondering if there are other visualy impaired  users of speakup on
>this list or if it is for developers.  I have been using jaws to look at
>linux stuff most of the afternoon but the more i read the more it feels like
>its harder than blind folded brain surgery.  I am  starting to think i would
>be better off sticking with windows for the moment.
>
>I have been looking at a linux newbies questions web site for slackware but
>its not very accessable using jaws.
>
>If anyone has any ideas it would be much appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>Nigel

I am not sure where you are looking up Slackware since the latest
release is version 9.0, not 8.1.  If you can get to an ftp distribution
site for Slackware, you might want to check out the SPEAKUP_DOCS.TXT and
SPEAK_INSTALL.TXT files in the root directory for Slackware 9.0.  The
Slackware home ftp site is usually pretty swamped, so I recommend
using a mirror site instead (a list of mirror sites is available on
the Slackware home page at
<a href="http://www.slackware.com/">
this place
</a>).

I have been totally blind for over 20 years, so all of my experience with
Linux has been with Speakup and no vision.  The system I am using to
write this email does not even have a monitor connected to it, so
non-blind persons would have to get used to my old speech synthesizer
and Speakup before they could do much with this thing.  Here is a brief
history of my Linux experience, in case you still have any doubts
about a blind person getting the OS up and running:

January 2002:  Installed Slackware 8.0 Linux on a non-talking system,
using a DOS system as a terminal.

August 2002: Acquired a Pentium 133 MHz system and installed
Slackware 8.0 Linux with Speakup on it.  This was my first fully
talking Linux system.  I installed the old Accent PC speech card from
my DOS box into the relatively new system to get Linux up and talking.

March 2003 (or so):  I decided to upgrade my talkie Linux box to
Slackware 9.0.  This is my current system.

Clearly many details have been left out here, but as you can tell from
this basic history, Slackware Linux and Speakup are working well for
me.  The learning curve for Slackware can be a little steep for some
people at first, but if you keep plugging at it, you should get the
hang of things after a while.  One point that should be made is that
all of the major Linux distributions have initial default configurations
that make them functional out of the box--you will have to adjust things
for your own personal dial-up or network connections if you want to
connect the system to internet, but the other critical stuff should
mostly (or completely) come already set up well enough to get
started.  The more you work with the system, the more you will learn
from it, so jump in and get your feet wet.

I hope some of this rambling proves helpful.  Have a _great_ day!

-- 
Ralph.  N6BNO.  Wisdom comes from central processing, not from I/O.
rreid at sunset.net  http://personalweb.sunset.net/~rreid
Opinions herein are either mine or they are flame bait.
1 = x^0