Vinux

[Tony Baechler]

Ah, this I understand.  I was unaware that the live CD would come up 
talking.  That is a valid point and I can see why people would like 
that.  Oralux was supposed to do the same thing, but it didn't work for 
me.  Again, that opens up a bunch of other issues, such as what if there 
are multiple sound cards?  What if Linux doesn't support the driver for 
your sound card?  The advantage to something like grml is that you have 
more flexibility, even though it requires typing the right thing within 
the right number of seconds.  You can have software speech, hardware 
speech if you have a hardware synth, or no speech if you would rather 
use ssh, or a combination of the above.  I was working on someone else's 
machine when for no obvious reason, grml lost software speech.  I 
couldn't do much without speech, but it wasn't a problem.  I just set up 
dhcp, started an ssh server and finished from a different machine.  Yes, 
a new blind user won't know about that, but the point is that you aren't 
locked into one method of doing things, even though it does mean 
entering boot parameters.

I must say that I really like the way Debian handles this with the 
installation.  It beeps to let you know that it's booted and doesn't 
timeout right away.  It also is smart enough to install Speakup 
automatically if you use it to do the install.

John G. Heim wrote:
> The main reason for something like vinux is that a lot of people have 
> a hard time just getting started with linux. Over on a list for blind 
> sysadmins, the question comes up just about every time someone 
> mentions live CDs -- is there one that comes up talking without my 
> having to just the right key at just the right time.
>
> People are already struggling with linux, they don't want to have to 
> struggle to get speech started too.