speakup, 2.6.22, and the way forward

[John Heim]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg at romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 5:36 PM
Subject: Re: speakup, 2.6.22, and the way forward


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> On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 04:08:24PM -0500, John Heim wrote:
>> On the other hand, if linux doesn't talk at boot time, it will actually 
>> make
>> my job less secure. I need to be able to listen to boot messages. That's
>> what I do for a living.
>
> That's what dmesg is for. The only time really when it is necessary to
> hear boot messages as they occur, is if you're booting a fresh kernel
> you've just built, that may not be configured correctly, (I.E. not
> have the necessary ide/sata/scsi/whatever controller included, not have
> the root file system included, ETC.), and you need to hear the boot
> messages in case of a kernel panic, so that you can review the screen,
> and see where things blew-up.

Another one is where you messed up menu.lst.

These things come up all the time for me. We install Windows via a live CD. 
I modified the kernel on the live CD to include speakup so that I can tell 
what's going on during an install. Same for installing linux. Of course, I 
use Shane's modified debian install CD but I also use another open source 
project called FAI or "Fully Automated Install" to do mass installs. Again, 
it has a live CD to which  I added a speakup modified kernel. And most of 
our servers have custom kernels.

Being able to deal with these things on a pretty much level playing field 
with my sighted colleagues  has added a great deal to my prestige here at 
the department. If I had to constantly call someone over to get help I 
wouldn't have the reputation as the go-to guy that I do. I don't think I'm 
paranoid. I just think it looks really bad when the linux expert has to get 
help with a machine that won't boot. I'm supposed to be the guy they call 
when a linux machine won't boot. I'm not supposed to be the one calling for 
help.