vmware question

[Janina Sajka]

Actually, I think a hardware synth might be easier to configure for good
results.

The problem of using software speech is that you need to get all the
various timings properly configured, or speech becomes very choppy.

However, vmware can work with a Windows screen reader on a Linux host. I
understand there has also been the opposity reported here some years
hence--Speakup running ina Linux guest under a Windows host on vmware.

A word about your original question:

I'd suggest you have nothing to lose by attempting to configure vmware
by editing it's ascii config files. If I ever go back to working with
vmware, that is precisely what I intend. Let me explain.

The installation of vmware is quite straight forward. I have simply used
rpm files. You can also unpack a tarball and run make install.

There are perl scripts for basic vmware configuration, and these are
perfectly accessible with Speakup.

The next stage is not accessible. It is the matter of launching VMware
on the X desktop and configuring the virtual machine. For the sighted
user, this is a matter of having some 80% of the screen as the virtual
machine window, and the remaining 20% as the vmware control functions.
So, one configures via a tool bar with familiar buttons like start/stop,
files, edit, view, etc., etc.

Now, here's what's happening under the hood.

Wherever you choose to install vmware via the first few steps, you'll
find config files that are plain ASCII files. I see no reason why one
shouldn't try tweaking those by hand, even though there are warnings
plastered all over them. After all, what's to lose?

It gets even better. Once you configure and install abasic vm, you find
that this entire virtual machine is simply a file (possibly a partition,
but usually just a file) on your hd. So, for further expirimental
tweaking, you can return to known state by simply creating a back copy
of that file first. Now, it can be a very big file. E.g., if you say
"Give my virtual Windows machine a 6 Gb size," you'll have a 6Gb file
sitting there on Linux. But, you can see it, copy it, compress it, etc.,
etc.




Gregory Nowak writes:
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> On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 09:32:45AM -0400, Erik Heil wrote:
> > Obviously you wouldn't have it 
> > use a hardware synth, but you'd have to use some kind of software speech 
> > such as Eloquence or other MsAPI-compliant synth.
> > 
> 
> I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning. Assuming that the serial
> ports in the virtual machine map to the physical serial ports on the
> host system, there shouldn't be a problem with using a hardware synth
> as far as I can see.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina at freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040