installation of suse linux

Wed May 28 01:40:32 EDT 2008

Hay Cody, 

There's a few questions to get to there. 

Firstly, Blinux in OpenSuSE is under the project SBL.  This is managed by Marco Scambrax.  This primarily focuses on Braille however he's done some good work on incorporating speech into a lot of the SBL functions however getting it installed isn't the easiest thing in theworld to do.  Wll, not that it's difficult, but the documentation is very hard to come by if it even exists at all! This is certainly no reflection on Marco and the reasons for this were outlined in my previous mail. 

Speakup does not come with any of the OpenSuSE distributions or their variants.  However,  have written some instructions for getting Speakup compiled into the OpenSuSE kernel at www.digitaldarragh.com/linuxat.asp Look for the link on that page somewhere. 

If you have one of the supported Braille displays, SBL will work very nicely for you right from the start of installation however you'll need to a lot of searching to find out what they ar.  You could also search for contact details for Marco Scambrax and contact him directly.  He's always very helpful.  There's is also an SBL mailing list but it's very low traffic.  

Take a look at http://lists.opensuse.org You'll find a lot of discussion lists there.  

Bryen, one of the users and community members that is very active around the lists has been pushing accessibility a lot for version 11  I think his email address is suserocks at bryen.com or bryen at suserocks.com or something like that.  Again.  A bit of googling will help you out there. Sorry I'm kind of vague.  Writing this before running out the door to work. 

Key presses.  Well, from memory, ....... na.  I'll have to go through an installation and write them out for you.  I should get time in a week or two if that's ok for you. 
It's reasonably straight forward though.  At the boot prompt, the first option is boot from hard disk, the second is start install, the third is start install with safe options and I cant remember what the rest ar.  Go down one to start install, press enter then try using the alt and alt b buttons to move to the next and prior screens.  

I don't choose a place to work based on it's accessibility instead I try to bend my self or the accessibility to suit the work.  
I try to aim to want to do something then work on a way to do it instead of finding something to do that is possible with the  limitations of the assistive technology I have available. 

Make sense? 

Darragh
www.digitaldarragh.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-
> bounces at braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Cody Hurst
> Sent: 27 May 2008 22:16
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: installation of suse linux
> 
> Darragh,
> 
> I'm unsure what version of Suse we are going to be using, but I will
> guess suse enterprise. Does speakup/ssh still hold true for use
> enterprise? Does speakup come precompiled into suse? If you would, and
> i know this is a lot to answer, but can you give me a rundown of what
> I will have to do in order to start installing. I mean, boot commands,
> key presses, etc. I'm probably just going to tell my teacher I will
> need another machine to do this on. In real life, this will be on a
> real box, not vmware, which is my biggest nightmare for next year.
> I've never really took a liking to Novell anyway because of its
> techniques and layout. I find it extremely complex and confusing. I am
> going to be taking a Novell OES exam on Friday and that course wasn't
> pleasant to do. I do think Novell needs to use these other foundations
> and projects as mentors for accessibility but I can't make water into
> wine, so my guess is that I will not be seeing accessibility soon.
> 
> Can you perhaps give me a little insight on what in the world blinux
> is all about. Should I just give up on even trying to learn or use it?
> I've written 2 emails to the blinux list, and have not even once goten
> a response you can google my emails and you will find that I have no
> gotten any responses.
> 
> However, I think my tech instructor would benefit from this
> information, since you would know more than I have, which these issues.
> 
> If I may ask, why did you choose Novell as a place to be hired?
> 
> Thanks for all the help you can give, and I will be in touch with him.
> On May 26, 2008, at 10:46 PM, Darragh wrote:
> 
> > Cody,
> >
> > The only way you'll be able to do an independent installation of
> > OpenSuSE, Sles or Sled is via SSH.
> >
> > When you get OpenSuSE installed, You'll struggle against the
> > accessibility of YaST, the system tool and package manager and even
> > in Gnome, you'll find the weirdest and most stupid bugs because
> > although they have some great developers in ovell, they just don't
> > have the resources for Accessibility.  However, one good thing they
> > have done is employe one person to work on accessibility full time.
> > Marco Scambrax is his name and he's a very intelligent developer.
> > He's unfortunately fighting against the rest of the company so his
> > efferts do not reflect the end result.
> >
> > There are two versions of YaST.  The GTK+ and the NGurses versions.
> > Speakup will work to a reasonable degree in the text based version
> > but it's not great.  Mainly because there are a lot of different
> > controls for it to handle.
> >
> > In the graphical version, they've really come on in leaps and bounds
> > over the last few years thanks to the GTK+ version released in 10.3
> > however they've a very long way to come.  The GTK+ version was not
> > tested well with accessibility so I've ofund dozens of errors in it
> > that are all reported in bugzilla.  Some of these have been fixed
> > and distributed to 10.3 via online update however a lot have been
> > pushed forward to 11.
> >
> > Speaking of Eleven, OpenSuSE has a lot to live up to so one of the
> > first things I'll do is run it through it's paces but although I'm
> > optimistic, in reality, I know that there will still be a lot of
> > problems.
> >
> >
> > Sorry I cant be more positive.
> >
> >
> >
> > Darragh
> > www.digitaldarragh.com
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-
> >> bounces at braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Cody Hurst
> >> Sent: 26 May 2008 19:16
> >> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> >> Subject: installation of suse linux
> >>
> >> Hello list,
> >>
> >>   Next year I am going to be using suse for a Linux course, towards
> >> the second part of the ear. I have no other way of accessing the
> >> install, hwoever when a friend booted the first cd of the cd set he
> >> had seen some text scroll by that looked as if they were loading
> >> braille modules.
> >>
> >>   I have read about blinux, however the writings were old, and when
> >> trying to follow the instructions, they did not work. My only option
> >> is speakup, and a BNS. Is there a way that speakup can be included
> >> relatively soon so that I can do this course? This would not be just
> >> for me, but anyone wishing to install a professional grade OS in the
> >> field. This would greatly enhace accessibility for these
> individuals.
> >>
> >>   Please write back to me on or off list, describing what I can do
> >> otherwise if this is not possible.
> >>
> >> Cody
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Speakup mailing list
> >> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> >> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
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> 