slackware and accessibility packages

[Scott Ford]

Michael,
	I for one think that the idea is a great one.  I do not have a
hardware synth, and I do not have the knowledge, or interest to do the
technical work required to figure out how to set up a distribution or the
packages up like you describe.  I was introduced to Linux by slackware when
it was on a fist full of floppies.  I would be interested.  
Scott
  -----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 5:53 AM
To: speakup at braille.uwo.ca
Subject: slackware and accessibility packages

Hello,
I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).

I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
(eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).

Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?

From
Michael Whapples


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