Getting speakup talking on the Ssystem Rescue CD

[Andrew Hart]

Greg,

Thanks a lot.  That sure did it.  I didn't think it was supposed to be 
rocket science, but if there's no horse, the cart isn't going to move.

It is rather misleading though that they have a bold statement on the 
System Rescue CD home page saying that blind folks can use it, etc. 
Someone had mentioned partimage to me as a system backup utility and I 
thought all my Christmases had come at once when one of the first google 
hits I got from "partimage speakup" turned out to be speakupimage which 
lead me to system Rescue CD.

Fortunately, ntfs support is actually included in V0.3.7.  It's not the 
latest version of ntfs-3g, but it does appear to be a version the 
ntfs_3g site considers stable.  Hopefully it's not too buggy.

Now I'm off to do a bit of reading and playing.  Thanks muchly for the help.

Oh, and Adam, I didn't initially bother with nofb because the Rescue CD 
manual said that the kernel called rescuecd has the frame buffer, 
whatever that is, turned off by default.  Aparrently other kernels on 
the CD have it turned on.  I don't know if this is true of V0.3.7 
though.  I have booted it just once so far and, to be on the safe side, 
I included nofb per your example.  I ran it long enough to figure out 
how to mount my fat32 and ntfs partitions and to check that partimage 
runs.  It is going to be an interesting experience to have speech 
support throughout entire backup and restore operations for the first 
time since the days of MS DOS, Fastback and Conner Backup Executive!

Cheers,
Andrew.

Gregory Nowak wrote:
> The new versions of sysresccd don't include speakup, since all the
> speakup-related issues came up as of 2.6.22.x. I stopped maintaining
> the sysresccd kernel, since the time Francois was able to include the
> speakup-patched gentoo kernels. I would go back to maintaining it,
> except for the fact that I'm not running a gentoo system here, and
> don't really want to install one, just so I could build kernels for
> sysresccd and/or the iso itself.
> 
> I've been hearing enough complaints about getting speakup working in
> the newer versions, on and off this list privately, that I'll have to
> find the time soon to contribute relevant info myself, or bring this
> up to Francois' attention. Adam is right, go back to an older version
> for now. The last version that should work is sysresccd 0.3.7. If
> you're unable to download that for some reason, let me know, and I can
> get the iso to you. Also, the problem of speakup not shutting-up Adam
> describes stems from the fact that speakup is in the kernel, but the
> keyboard support doesn't get loaded until later on, because it's built
> as modules. To get around that, include "speakup_quiet=1" as a
> parameter to the kernel when booting. Hth.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 12:11:07PM -0400, Andrew Hart wrote:
>> Hi folks,
> 
>> I have just discovered the System Rescue CD and thought it could be
>> significantly better than my current system backup solution, DOS with  
>> DOS screen reader, external synth and command-line Ghost.
> 
>> I'm having some trouble getting speakup to start yabbering to me. Here's 
>> what I've done.
> 
>> I downloaded an iso of the System Rescue CD Version 1.02 and burnt it to
>> a CD.
>> I've attached an Artic Transport to Com1 on my notebook.
>> The notebook BIOS is configured to boot from CD before hard disk and the
>> rescue CD does seem to be booting.
>> When the disk stops spinning, I type
> 
>> rescuecd speakup_synth=txprt
> 
>> and belt the enter key, at which point the CD spins up again and
>> continues loading.  It seems to stop at some point and pause, but
>> eventually spins up again and exhibits head movement.  At some point
>> during this process the Artic utters something that sounds like "at" but
>> that's the only thing I ever hear from it.  It does this every time for
>> both 9600,n,8,1 and 9600,n,7,1 serial port parameters.
> 
>> I have looked through the Rescue CD manual and googled around the place
>> for info on getting speakup going with System Rescue CD, but there
>> appears to be no definitive step-by-step idiotproof guide for the first  
>> time blind user.  either that or I just didn't put the right magic  
>> string into google.  I did however find enough information which enabled  
>> me to construct the above option string to
>> give to the boot loader.
> 
>> So, I figured I'd try my luck here and see if anyone can give me a bit  
>> of guidance or can tell me where
>> I'm going wrong.
> 
>> It could be something as simple as me not actually entering the line at
>> the prompt.  I am only guessing that when the boot loader comes up that
>> I am being prompted for boot options and that I can type straight away.
>>  Perhaps I need to perform some other sequence of keystrokes first
>> before I can type at the prompt?  (I have read that this is the case  
>> with the Fidora
>> installer).  Or perhaps there's something else I'm not aware I need to
>> be including in the command line in order for Speakup to work correctly.
> 
>> Btw, The Artic Transport is working properly as I can get JAWS to talk
>> to it under windows XP.  Also, although I have tried 7 data bits, I'm  
>> assuming that Speakup expects the
>> Artic to be using its default serial parameters of 9600,n,8,1 when you  
>> select txprt
>> as the Speakup synth.
> 
>> Any help would be muchly appreciated.
> 
>> Cheers,
>> Andrew.
> 
>> P.S.  I'm aware that, depending on the answer to my problem, this thread  
>> could be OT for this list, but I'm hoping that since the real issue is  
>> getting Speakup to start giving speech feedback, my potential  
>> transgression will be looked upon with leaniency.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
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