Feisty SpeakUp

[John Heim]

I'm not sure what CLI is. Console log in?

I do systems support and programming for the Math Department at the U of 
Wisconsin. And I use speakup every day for just about everything you can do 
on a computer -- mail, web browsing, homework assignments. I even listen to 
music on my laptop.  I have a hardware synth that connects to the serial 
port so if i need to log into the console of a server, I can do that. Also, 
I use a live CD pretty regularly to do installs and rescues.  I always use 
the machine in character mode, never the GUI. I haven't even tried orca or 
gnopernicus because everything I do can be done in character mode.

A couple of things I would like:
1. To be able to easily recreate the iso image with customized boot 
parameters. This would allow me to make a live CD that "knows" that i have a 
hardware synth connected to ttyS0. No need to type in cheat codes at the 
boot prompt.

This is more than mere convenience. When a machine is down and the user (or 
my boss) is watching me boot it, it would be nice to not have to worry about 
missing the boot prompt or typing the cheat codes wrong

2. I'd like the live CD to start software speech automatically if no 
hardware synth has been specified at boot time. I think you could do this by 
checking the contents of /proc/speakup/synth_name and if it's 'none', then 
load software speech.  What I'm imagining  is that if a user goes into 
character mode, the machine starts talking. Speakup doesn't work in the GUI 
so if you press Ctrl+Alt+F2, you get a character console. Then it talks. 
That's the way my machines already work and I didn't have to do anything 
special.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Henrik Nilsen Omma" <henrik at ubuntu.com>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 9:05 AM
Subject: Feisty SpeakUp


> Hello,
>
> I'd like to ask for some input on a spec I'm doing for the next version
> of Ubuntu. We currently have speakup in the kernel but it's very far
> from Just Works. See:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Specs/FeistySpeakup
>
> I guess I first have to ask what the common use cases are. Is speakup
> largely used by system admins and developers working from the CLI? Is it
> valuable to have a Live CD that boots to the CLI with speakup? We
> currently don't have CLI Live CD AFAIK.
>
> The possible areas I could imagine improving usability are:
>
> * Server edition -- Currently has the speakup module, but not simple
> way to install or run live
> * The debian installer -- currently used on the alternate and server CDs
> * spoken boot -- have all the boot messages read out as you boot
> * Standard CLI, simple launch -- For those who prefer gnome it may be
> difficult to recover when X fails. It should be trivial to launch
> speakup in such cases: 'start-speakup'. An introduction with basic
> operating instructions should be read out.
> * anything else?
>
>
> Another point I want to emphasise is that if we do this it would be in
> the main Ubuntu distribution, not a special derivative. It is not just
> intended for advanced computer users, but beginners as well. The
> features should then also get picked up by Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Mephis, etc.
>
>
> Henrik
>
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>