General questions from someone who's never used Speakup...

[John Heim]

I think it all depends on what you want out of linux. Are you hoping to 
become a linux system administrator? If so, you'll want to get to know 
speakup -- it rocks. I use it every day. I even have speakup on my laptop as 
opposed to Windows 98. (It's a very old laptop.)

But if you're just looking for a way to read email and browse the web, I 
don't think you'll see a productivity increase by switching from a 
windows/jaws system to linux/speakup.

I've been telling all my blind friends who make their living doing computer 
support to get into linux. IMO, it's a great career move.  You're hardly 
handicapped at all in linux system administration. Almost everything is text 
based.

But if you're not a computer nerd, I wouldn't bother trying to learn 
linux/speakup. WWhen the GUI screen readers are better, then it might be 
worthwhile to switch.

I definately  think the way to get started is with an older machine. I have 
a LAN in my home running, well, everything... web server, dhcp, caching dns, 
samba. It even has 2 sound cards so I can record more than 1 radio program 
at a time. And it's just a pentium 450 with 384 Mb of ram.

I don't know what the laws are like where you live but in Madison, 
Wisconsin, you have to pay like $20 to dispose of a computer. So people are 
more than willing to give you an old computer that linux and speakup will 
run on just fine.  That's how I would start.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Homuth" <james at the-jdh.com>
To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, September 17, 2006 5:52 PM
Subject: General questions from someone who's never used Speakup...


>I do have linux experience, though not running it off my own machine,
> since until recently I'd been unaware of anything remotely decent so
> far as text-to-speech capabilities for it. What I'd like to know,
> however, is what kind of feedback/configurability is offered with the
> current version of Speakup? I should probably point out that, coming
> from Windows, I'm probably going to end up comparing this with
> whatever expectations I have after using JAWS and/or Window Eyes.
> I've been tossing around the idea of finding a spare machine just to
> fiddle around with linux and check out Speakup, at the very least,
> but I like to know what I'm getting into before I go and jump in with
> both feet. If anyone knows where I can get my hands on something like
> a demo of the program in action, or can maybe tell me what their
> experience with Speakup has been like, that'd be awesome. Email me on
> or off list, whichever.
>
> James
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>