What does it take to fork the kernel?

[Gregory Nowak]

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You've received several alternative answers to your original
questions, but I'll provide some answers below to the original questions, in case they would
still be of use.

On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 06:33:57AM -0500, Bill Cox wrote:
> First, is there some way to disable speaking
> by default during boot, and only enable it if the user asks for it?

Yes. Provide

speakup.quiet=1

on the kernel command line (I.E. in the boot loader config), and
speakup will stay quiet, until the user does something (I.E. reviews
the screen, starts typing, or whatever).

> The first sound Vinux normally makes is the login window chime.  I
> think it will confuse some users and possibly annoy others if they
> wind up listening to the boot messages, but I want the option to
> listen.

As has already been pointed out, this would only be an issue for those
using hardware speech.

> Second, do you know what it takes to maintain the kernel
> packages?  I'm also a novice debian packager.
> 

I use kernel-package myself for building custom kernels in
debian. aptitude show kernel-package should give you the gory details.

> Finally, I've been asked to make some changes in default speakup
> settings (turn cursor tracking off, and set punctuation to some).  Is
> the recommended way with speakupconf?

If you'll be using only one synth, like software speech, then I don't
see a problem with that. If however people expect to be able to use
any supported hardware synth at boot, then using speakupconf means
having a separate directory under /etc/speakup for each supported
synth. I think a far easier way would be to simply put

echo 3 >/sys/accessibility/speakup/punc_level

in a boot script somewhere, assuming that 3 is the correct value for some. I don't know of any way
to adjust cursor tracking through /sys/accessibility/speakup, this can
only be done with numpad+asterisk as far as I know, though I'd love to
be corrected on that one.

As to the comments wondering why you'd ever want to adjust cursor
tracking, there are some situations when I do. If I boot up, and want
to use lynx, or mplayer right after login, I'll turn cursor tracking
off. If I want to use tin, I'll set it to highlight tracking. What
ever the case, 90% of the time, I will change the state of cursor
tracking at some point during my first login session before I log back
out. So, while being able to set the state of cursor tracking at boot
wouldn't be urgent for me, it would be a nice feature to have, just
my $0.01 worth. Hth.

Greg


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