Speakup compared to the other linux/unix screen readers

[al Sten-Clanton]

Hi, Michael.  I hope I'm writing to you off the list.

I still find that I can't use orca to do anything other than set it up.  I
just had somebody look at the screen I get when I log into gnome, and it's
very different from anything I had using Ubuntu or Fedora.  The alt-plus-f1
key combination did not give me a list of applications.  Alt-plus-f2 did not
give me the screen on which to type the name of a program to run.  I don't
even remember what my friend said was on the initial screen, but it sure was
a far cry from what we're supposed to get.  I think my repeated attempts to
install gnome and orca properly simply have failed.  Since you have
something working, is there anything you can suggest?  I understand if this
seems to you a troublesome and unsolvable mystery, but I thought it worth
asking.

Having used a machine with orca and ubuntu, I've found that I hate using
orca in a terminal.  (When I used Fedora, I at least had speakup.) Orca
tells me thinks I don't care about when the screen changes, and it can be
hard to find what I want to read.  I have to live with that in the systems
administration class I'm taking at the moment.  I sure don't want to live
without speakup, or something like it, on my own box.

Thanks for anything you can tell me.  I hope the rant wasn't too bothersome.

Al
-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 6:19 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Speakup compared to the other linux/unix screen readers

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
>>
>>
>>      
>    

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