installation of suse linux

Wed May 28 19:04:03 EDT 2008

Hey Darragh,

   I understand your wanting to work and improve accessibility and not  
live within your means, but right now for me and Novell, I am not  
having a very fun time, beeing as I am taking a timed course 2 days  
until my netware oes exam. It looks as though I will be renting a  
braille display to run suse..my braillenote was not detected  
automatically. That is fine, whenever you get a chance to seek more  
information for me, it's greatly appreciated. I just have had no luck  
with any feedback and google hasn't been helpful much either, but now  
I will email marco to see if he can be of some use in my findings. I  
am not a programmer but I certainly envy those who are. Math has never  
been my strong point so I will try to use what I have available to me.  
If you know, will sbl work even after suse is installed?

Thanks for all help
Cody
On May 27, 2008, at 10:40 PM, Darragh wrote:

> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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