Speakup compared to the other linux/unix screen readers

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
Thank you for the response (both Willem and Hermann). For a bit more 
info, I had opensolaris in mind when asking the question. I know that 
quite a number of the non-linux unix systems tend to be server based 
systems, but I think opensolaris is trying to push in to the desktop 
market (desktop/laptop use is what I am wanting to use it for) and is 
gaining support for a number of sound cards (still not as good as linux).

As for orca, yes I have used it, in fact I am using it now to write this 
email in thunderbird, but there are times when orca goes slow and 
unresponsive (this is certainly becoming less and less) and orca and 
gnome has so many thing which can go wrong and possibly will go wrong at 
some point, I just feel more comfortable to have the knowledge that 
there is a good, solid and reliable screen reader I can fall back on to 
repair the system (on linux speakup fills this perfectly). In fact I 
like using speakup and brltty in a text console so much that for some 
tasks I choose to use a text console rather than orca in a 
gnome-terminal. As far as I know the version of brltty shipped with 
opensolaris cannot be used in a text console (when you have text 
consoles enabled), so I can't even fall back to Braille only access 
unless I can find another suitable screen reader for opensolaris.

Michael Whapples
On -10/01/37 20:59, Willem van der Walt wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 5 Aug 2009, Michael Whapples wrote:
>
>    
>> Hello,
>> With all the other unix systems available, I am wondering whether it is worth
>> learning about another text console screen reader so I could use non-linux
>> unix systems.
>>      
> You can use other Unix systems through ssh from a linux machine running
> speakup.
> IMHO Speakup is by far the most advanced and stable console screen reader.
> It would also depend on which unix system you want to use, as many of them
> runs on servers, not having sound cards.  If you want to run another
> pc-based unix, first see if emacspeak runs there and learn that.  Yasr
> might work and can be very handy to quickly get started, but if you are
> not going to be able to ssh into the machine, emacspeak will give higher
> productivity on the long term.
> Ironicly, you might find that Orca will run under more unixes than yasr or
> even emacspeak as it is a graphical screen reader running under gnome.
> Using gnome terminal, one can get a long way and I think if I had to work
> on another unix box directly, I would first try gnome terminal through
> orca before I would learn emacspeak.
> Emacspeak is more than an editor though. I would not go as far as its
> author to say that it is an auditive desktop, but it is quite powerful and
> if you take the time to learn all its functions, it can be a good or even
> the best tool for some tasks.
> Regards, Willem
>
>   My question is though, how do the alternatives compare to
>    
>> speakup? Things I am considering in how they compare are:
>> * How good are they to use
>> * How advanced are they (speakup has a variety of tracking modes, window to
>> read from, etc)
>> * How frequently updated are they (looking at the yasr website the last
>> release was over a year ago)
>>
>> So in comparing them is it worth looking at them or is speakup much better and
>> the lack of it would make working on the other unix systems a pain?
>>
>> I know about emacspeak, and its probably worth learning it for an advanced
>> editor, but I was more thinking about general screen readers like yasr.
>>
>> Michael Whapples
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>>
>>      
>