still more on bug

[John Heim]

I think all you would need to do is write a device driver -- which is a 
little like saying all you need to do is build a big enough rocket and you 
can go to the moon. How's that joke go? How do you teach an elephant to 
dance the bossinova?first you teach him to samba and from there its easy.

Anyway, 25 years ago, I wrote linux device drivers for a living. But I 
haven't written a line of C in anger for 15 years. Not unless you count 
commenting out that line in the speakup synth.c program to get past the bug 
that started all this.

I intend to try to find a solution for that bug.  I don't want to step on 
anybody's toes but I figure the current developers won't mind if I take a 
look at that. But you can't barge into an open source project and just take 
over. For all we know, there may be top men working on it right now. There's 
no point in duplicating effort.  But I know no one is working on the bug I 
have been talking about because I've already asked. At one time, I'd have 
felt pretty qualified to take this on. Right now, I feel my best 
qualifications are that I'm still breathing and willing to give it a try.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler at tysdomain.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: still more on bug


>I think the responses you were refering to can be discarded and ignored. 
>The "shitmachine" comment as well as many others didn't do much to bolster 
>the poster's comments, and there wasn't much in the way of fact. Either 
>way, I think that said poster was speaking for a very small minority, as a 
>lot of people would like to see Speakup get more support.
>
> If I were a kernel guru, or had some way to hopping on that path to 
> enlightenment, I'd be more than willing to help out since I already know 
> c. I'm also lacking a USB synth, so that's another problem.
> From what I understand though, the USB subsystem would have to be enabled 
> for a USB synth to work. There's a lot more behind USB than serial; I know 
> this much from my work I've done on a toy operating system I've been 
> building. The external serial cards are also an issue, unless you can get 
> one that would fit in the internal PCI slot--that I am unsure of. PCMCIA 
> for example though is yet another system that has to be enabled. This is 
> still doable, but you're going to miss out on earlier boot messages.
>
> Something I've found of interest, though it requires another system to 
> catching boot messages is there is a networking boot setup in the kernel. 
> I'm not really sure "networking boot" accurately describes it, but here 
> are the docs:
> http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt
>
> Something else worth looking into, and I'm not really sure if it was 
> mentioned in this thread but it was for sure mentioned before is Speakup 
> in user space. I'd be 100% willing to at least help with something like 
> that, but I remember from previous conversations that there are reasons 
> why Speakup is in kernel space--the TTY access being one of them. How 
> possible would it be to promote speakup to User space (yeah, I guess that 
> would get rid of boot messages, but netconsole is always there), and then 
> just leave a thin layer behind in kernel space to provide the access to 
> the kernel that we need? From what I understand from the bit I've done, 
> there exists three points to access drivers from user space:
> - System calls, (though it's probably prefered that these are not used, 
> since installing a system call would require that you know what number it 
> would be. If something else were to install a syscall before you, you 
> couldn't have a constant number).
> - The proc FS, which Speakup already uses to get and set information.
> - A device in /dev.
>
> Could the TTY (and other access) be given through one of these so that the 
> user-space speakup could gather the information it needed? What are the 
> security implications of something like this? You obviously wouldn't want 
> to just allow raw TTY access, so I'm not sure if there would be a way to 
> limit this somehow.
>
> Just my two cents and ramblings. Like I said, if there was any way to make 
> this work out, I'd love to help out with it. I just don't think I know 
> enough about kernel programming to hop in the trenches and start fixing 
> the bugs. Both because I don't know much about kernel programming, and 
> from what I understand there is need for USB support and work for speakup 
> running on systems with more than one processor, neither of which I have.
>
> On 2/16/2012 3:45 PM, Albert Sten-Clanton wrote:
>> John, though the typing in my message below yours here was utterly lousy
>> (too many beers), such criticisms as I made were not directed towards 
>> you,
>> and I said as much there and in a later message.  Those concerning the
>> acceptance of software speech were in fact aimed at earlier comments from
>> somebody else.
>>
>> I most certainly and indisputably did not accuse you of saying that blind
>> people would have to build their own machines in order to get serial 
>> ports:
>> nothing you said gave any basis for such an assertion on my part, so I 
>> never
>> made it.  (Indeed, I had noted earlier yesterday that
>>
>> <www.pcsforeveruyone.com>
>>
>> May actually offer serial ports.)
>>
>> Furthermore, you are among the people to whom I recall expressing 
>> gratitude
>> yesterday for replying positively to my question whether a blind person
>> could build a machine.  I must apologize if I wrote badly, but I 
>> reiterate
>> that I was not criticizing anything you said, and did not even address a
>> couple of things you mention here.
>>
>> In sjhort, I have found your recent messages here concerning Speakup, 
>> serial
>> ports, and related matters helpful.  My concern here is that support for
>> hardware speech may become difficult to get down the road, maybe even
>> impossible for somebody not well-versed in kernel matters, and my 
>> impression
>> is that you may share this concern at least to some degree.
>>
>> Maybe using a reply to one of your messages was a bad idea; if so, for 
>> that
>> I apologize.  It was the vehicle I had, and, as I said above, I tried to 
>> be
>> clear that your comments were not the reason for my expressed concerns.
>>
>> Take care!
>>
>> Al
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca 
>> [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
>> On Behalf Of John Heim
>> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 12:23 PM
>> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>> Subject: Re: still more on bug
>>
>> Al, practically everything you wrote below counters arguements I never 
>> made.
>>
>> First, I didn't say blind people who want a machine with a serial port
>> should go out there and build one. I offered that as one possible 
>> solution
>> and, in fact, said it wasn't for everyone. It was the third option I 
>> listed.
>>
>> Secondly, I never said people shouldn't be satisfied with software 
>> speech.
>> I said hardware speech is necessary to some people for doing things like
>> rescuing down servers.  If you never have to do something like that and 
>> are
>> happy with software speech, obviously, its fine by me.
>>
>> Third, I never said ordinary users of speakup shouldn't ask for new
>> features.  In fact, that's exactly what I did myself when I said that
>> speakup is going to have to support USB hardware synths someday.  I 
>> merely
>> objected to someone elses suggestion that it wasn't likely to happen.  We
>> weren't discussing whether supporting USB synths is a good idea or even
>> whether its reasonable to ask for that feature. We were only disagreeing
>> about how likely we are to ever see it.
>>
>> From: "Albert Sten-Clanton"<albert.e.sten_clanton at verizon.net>
>> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'"
>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 6:41 PM
>> Subject: RE: still more on bug
>>
>>
>>> John, now much sight, if any, would you think is needed to build a PC
>>> with serial ports?
>>>
>>> Not a direct respons to you, but I suspect that, if a majroity of
>>> blind folks using Linux do indeed express a degree of satisfation
>>> iwhth software speech, it could gbe because they're stuck with it,
>>> much as most blind people use Windows because, as somebody said to me,
>>> "you can't fight the giant." Software speech does have its advantages,
>>> perhaps portability being the most notable one I can think of, but,
>>> for those who like to know hwat's kicking in as booting progresses,
>>> there's nothing like using Speakup with a hardware synthesizer.
>>> (Indeed, this is a key difference between using Speakup and a hardware
>>> synthesizer and dealing with a Windows machine--or DOS in the old
>>> days.) For those who would say either write the relevant code or shut
>>> the hell up, I'd say this:  if ordinary users don't count, then we can
>>> forget Linux ever even remotely approaching Windows or any other
>>> much-uused operating system in popularity.  As a believer in freedom,
>>> I would regard it as an undermining of Linux'
>>> S mission to declare that only the elite among us have any business
>>> declaring--commanding--our destiny.  (Even Microshaft doesn't do that,
>>> I
>>> think.)
>>>
>>> I appreciate your own efforts, so wish to be clear that the comments
>>> in the previous paragraph are aimed at a perspective that, as far as I
>>> can tell, does not seem to be yours at this pioint.  As a user who is
>>> unlikely to master the relevant code, I do not wish to be relegated to
>>> the status of one who must accept whatever the alleged majority wishes
>>> to inflict and the programmers wish to comply with.  I will
>>> reluctantly but dutifully crawl back to Windows, or find something
>>> else, if software freedom is not accompanied with top-notch software
>>> quality, or if we mere user mortals are commanded to take what we're
>>> given or wear muzzles.
>>>
>>> Al
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca
>>> [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
>>> On Behalf Of John Heim
>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 5:53 PM
>>> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>>> Subject: Re: still more on bug
>>>
>>> From: "Deedra Waters"<deedra at the-brannons.com>
>>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."
>>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 6:34 PM
>>>> I'm saying i know several who have worked on speakup over the years
>>>> and the folks who've maintained it lately can't fix it/haven't been
>>>> able to is probably the better wording here. As for me, no i'm no
>>>> coder at all but saying i'd be willing to work on it if i could code
>>>> my way out of a wet paper bag.
>>>>
>>> Well, don't be so negative, okay? First of all, the current group of
>>> developers are smart guys. I'm not saying they'll have it tomorrow but
>>> they may get around to it eventually. And if not, I'm sure someone
>>> will pick up the ball. Heck, it might even be me.
>>>
>>>> maybe you should tell del to start advertising the models with serial
>>>> ports?:P point is like i said the machines i've gotten which are
>>>> generally the shitmachines as i>  call dells haven't had them:P
>>> It might be a good idea for you to ask on this list for
>>> recommendations next time you need to buy a new PC. Its not difficult
>>> to get a PC with a serial port. Another suggestion I have is to check
>>> used computer stores. You might be able to find a slightly older
>>> high-end model for cheap there. Of course, there is also the option of
>>> building your own PC. I built my last two PCs myself. Admittedly, that
>>> is not for the faint of heart.
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>>
>>>
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>
>
> -- 
>
> Take care,
> Ty
> Web: http://tds-solutions.net
> The Aspen project: a light-weight barebones mud engine
> http://code.google.com/p/aspenmud
>
> Sent from my toaster.
>
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