[DNG] Devuan Minimal Live Images -- new version

[Chris Brannon]

Gregory Nowak <greg at gregn.net> writes:

> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 06:07:56PM -0700, Zachary Kline wrote:
>> Talking ArchLinux has a decent solution to this, but I’ve never seen anything like it employed for other distros.
>
> Good point which I haven't thought of. I haven't used talking
> arch. From what I understand though, it plays a file on all detected
> sound cards one by one asking the user to press enter to activate that
> particular sound card.

That's the quick and dirty solution I came up with about three years
ago.  I don't know if they've optimized it any further.

Getting this to work on an image that is meant for everybody seems like
a more difficult problem.  The best bet is to have a "speech"
option in the boot menu, rather than trying to overload the no
framebuffer option.
Or alternatively, does this image automatically log you into root on
tty1?  If so, just play a beep sound on all of the cards once the image
is booted, and let the user be responsible for starting Speakup
manually, perhaps by running a script named startspeakup.

When I did the first Talking Arch, my basic philosophy was that the user
should be able to boot with as little "blind typing" as possible,
preferably none at all.  At the time, I had a computer without a console
speaker, so I didn't have any way to know when I was at the boot prompt,
aside from trying to guess using the mechanical sound from my CD-ROM
drive.  When booting from USB, you don't even get the mechanical
feedback.  These days, I only use USB, and I carry a TalkingArch flash
drive in my wallet.

If you end up at a root shell as soon as a live image has been
booted, then it isn't too onerous to have to type something like
startspeakup, especially if you know you're sitting at a shell prompt.

Having to select your audio output every time is definitely a bit of a
chore.  I don't know of a good way around it.
Perhaps an option could be made available to only select among certain
classes of audio devices, like PCI, USB, or HDMI?
E.G., startspeakup --sound=pci only tries your PCI audio
devices, while ignoring all the rest?
Anyway, alsa selecting the wrong default audio device is a real problem
in the wild, and I don't know a better way to handle it than manual
selection.

-- Chris