Main advantages of SBL over Speakup

Thu Feb 11 11:12:03 EST 2010

A bit off topic, but can you tell me which Dell business machine has a 
serial port? model?  I need a better machine for xp, but I need at least 
one and preferably two serial ports.
Thanks.
73
Butch Bussen
wa0vjr
open Node 3148
Las Vegas

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010, Trevor Astrope 
wrote:

> John, what I said is there is no advantage to having speakup in the kernel if 
> it cannot support serial synths on modern computers and I stand by my 
> statement that most modern computers do not come with serial ports. I know 
> there is a Dell business machine that does, but these are the exception, not 
> the rule and are also much more expensive.
>
> Basically, my point is speakup needs to support external serial ports and/or 
> usb serial ports going forward or it loses any advantage it has of being in 
> the kernel. If software speech is the only option for the majority of 
> computers, than there is really no point of speakup being in the kernel.
>
> Feel free to disagree, but I think my statements are accurate and you will 
> find that over time you will find fewer and fewer machines with built-in 
> serial ports, as usb was intended to replace rs232 serial ports and this is 
> happening today, although I do agree it isn't totally complete.
>
> On Thu, 11 Feb 2010, John G. Heim wrote:
>
>>  I just think you are over stating your case. I'm sure the speakup
>>  developers would love to support USB.   But your original  comment was
>>  that speakup doesn't support modern  motherboards -- which is just totally
>>  untrue.  You also said that having speakup in the kernel has "no
>>  advantage". Also untrue. I don't have a problem with your offereing the
>>  suggestion that speakup be modified to support USB hardware synths. I just
>>  think you shouldn't exaggerate the problems. After all, look at the
>>  subject line of this thread, "Main advantages of SBL over Speakup."  If
>>  we're going to compare sbl and speakup, lets be fair about it.
>>
>>  You made it sound like speakup is already obsolete. And that's just not
>>  true. Really, it seems to me to be a fairly small niche you are in. We
>>  both agree that most servers have serial ports, right? So your problem is
>>  that you have a desktop with no serial port but you have to have speech
>>  right away during boot? Why can't you just use software speech on your
>>  desktop? In fact, I'm unclear as to why it is so important to you that the
>>  workstations you support have hardware synth speech. As I said, all of the
>>  PCs in my department have serial ports (literally 100s of machines) but
>>  when I have to do support, I just use software speech. I'm not going to
>>  drag my hardware speech synth around with me unless I have to. Its so much
>>  easier just to grap a USB headset and fire up software speech.
>>
>>  Actually, some years ago, I posted a message to this list about how you
>>  could modify your udev rules to recognize when your USB headset is plugged
>>  into a machine and have it start software speech.  Each USB device has a
>>  unique serial number and you can write a udev rule to run a script to
>>  start speech when a device with a specific serial number is plugged in. So
>>  its possible to sit down at a PC at the login prompt, plug in your USB
>>  headset, and login with speech.
>>
>>  ---- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor Astrope" <astrope at tabbweb.com>
>>  To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."
>>  <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>  Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 1:09 PM
>>  Subject: Re: Main advantages of SBL over Speakup
>> 
>>
>>  John, yes I do manage servers and I do agree that having speakup in the
>>  kernel is immensely important if you have a serial port and synth.
>>
>>  Perhaps it is different where you are, but where I live, desktops with
>>  serial ports are extremely rare. The only ones I managed to find were some
>>  low end Acers. I also found some business machines with serial ports, but
>>  they are twice the cost for about half the performance as a consumer
>>  desktop machine and we don't buy them where I work.
>>
>>  Like Kelly mentioned earlier today, I also do not install speakup in the
>>  kernels of the servers I manage, but in the machine I use to manage the
>>  servers.
>>
>>  So, I respectfully disagree with you about the availability of serial
>>  ports in modern desktop machines and I stand by my statement that speakup
>>  as a kernel-level speech system will become less relevant over time unless
>>  it can support external serial ports and usb serial ports. In my opinion,
>>  this is where speakup development should be focused, as more and more
>>  people will face this issue as they upgrade their machines. But I am not a
>>  speakup developer, so I have no influence on the direction it takes. I can
>>  only offer my opinion, which I have stated several times on this list and
>>  I can only hope that speakup developers agree with it and take up the
>>  challenge.
>>
>>  In the meantime, I do have a job to do and I will need to decide whether I
>>  continue using speakup with software synth, which will make my job more
>>  difficult or use something else like orca or a mac, which still won't
>>  solve the problem of having access to early kernel messages, but may give
>>  me more flexability going forward.
>>
>>  On Wed, 10 Feb 2010, John G. Heim wrote:
>> 
>> >  Well, perhaps its a minor point but plenty of modern computers have 
>> >  serial
>> >  ports. I've never seen a server that didn't have a serial port. In fact,
>> >  except for laptops, I have yet to see a computer that doesn't have a 
>> >  serial
>> >  port. That includes the 200 or so desktop units we have where I work. 
>> >  Even
>> >  the machine I built myself has a serial port.
>> > 
>> >  It certainly is a huge over statement to say that having speakup in the
>> >  kernel  has no advantage. If you manage servers like I do, having 
>> >  speakup in
>> >  the kernel is just about the most important thing there is for a screen
>> >  reader. I don't really care that much about what happens after the 
>> >  machine is
>> >  booted. About the only time I need a run time screen reader is if 
>> >  something
>> >  is wrong with networking. But mostly, I can admin these machines 
>> >  remotely
>> >  after they boot.
>> > 
>> >  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor Astrope" 
>> >  <astrope at tabbweb.com>
>> >  To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>> >  <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>> >  Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 3:09 PM
>> >  Subject: Re: Main advantages of SBL over Speakup
>> > 
>> > 
>> >  Samuel, do you mean there is no kernel convention for accessing serial
>> >  ports or there is no speakup support for accessing serial ports 
>> >  according
>> >  to kernel conventions?
>> > 
>> >  It would be really great if speakup could use ttyS# devices, so speakup
>> >  would work with modern motherboards that do not have built-in serial
>> >  ports. The way I see it is speakup can only use software speech on 
>> >  modern
>> >  computers, so unless it can access external serial ports or usb serial
>> >  ports, there really is no advantage to speakup being in the kernel so 
>> >  far
>> >  as I can tell...
>> > 
>> >  On Tue, 9 Feb 2010, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>> > 
>> > >  Bill Cox, le Tue 09 Feb 2010 14:23:25 -0500, a écrit :
>> > > >  I hear that it doesn't follow kernel
>> > > >  programming conventions, for example in how it interfaces to the COM
>> > > >  ports.
>> > > 
>> > >  Yes, because no such thing exists (yet).
>> > > 
>> > >  Samuel
>> > >  _______________________________________________
>> > >  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
>> > 
>>
>>  _______________________________________________
>>  Speakup mailing list
>>  Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>>  http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>> 
>> 
>