[DNG] Devuan Minimal Live Images -- new version

Fri May 27 01:22:53 EDT 2016

I remember opensuse 11.0 had a speaking boot menu, there isn't much 
docks on it or even how to get it set up, but apparently they use either 
grub or G something the name escapes me at the moment, but if you hit 
f11 after the POST, and I believe a beep, it would speak and also speak 
as you arrowed threw what device/etc you wished to boot from.

On 05/26/2016 07:49 PM, Glenn wrote:
> I wish GRUB would do this by default, and perhaps do an increasing tone beep
> as one arrowed down the screen.
> Glenn
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shawn Kirkpatrick" <shawn at shawnk.ca>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux."
> <speakup at linux-speakup.org>
> Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2016 7:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [DNG] Devuan Minimal Live Images -- new version
>
>
> Just a couple of thoughts here.
> If you want to generate beeps once the system is booted then try the beep
> command. This command lets you play beeps at a specified frequency and
> length. I've found it very useful to have different tones indicate different
> things during the boot process.
> As for starting speakup, maybe have a small script to do this? Something
> that would involve typing only one command and would do all the steps
> needed. The less silent typing the better.
> I like the idea of having beeps at the isolinux prompt, I don't think I've
> seen a live cd do that before. I really wish isolinux could do different
> beep tones, then they could be used to indicate different items.
> Unfortunately some machines seem to have the beep disabled at boot so this
> may or may not work.
>
> On Thu, 26 May 2016, Gregory Nowak wrote:
>
>> Hi KatolaZ and the speakup list,
>> KatolaZ, I'm sending a cc to the speakup list, which is full of blind
>> GNU/Linux speakup user's. I have my own thoughts on your comments
>> below, but my preferences aren't everyone else's. So, I think it's a
>> really good idea to give you more feedback at this point in our
>> discussion. Fellow speakup listers, the images that KatolaZ is
>> working on can be found at:
>>
>> <http://devuan.kalos.mine.nu>
>>
>> As I type this, we have a beep at the isolinux boot prompt, which
>> sounds to me like three beeps. You can either press enter here, or
>> wait a few seconds more. If you are booting from a burned cd, it will
>> spin for a bit. If you are booting some other way, wait maybe three
>> minutes at most, probably less. Either way, then type "root", and
>> "toor" as the password to login. Then to start speakup, type:
>>
>> modprobe speakup_soft
>>
>> followed by
>>
>> service espeakup start
>>
>> You should then hopefully get software speech. The images also include
>> brltty, which is started by default, and configured for a usb
>> display. Since brltty and speakup both want to use the numpad, you
>> will have to do service brltty stop to stop brltty, so speakup can
>> control the numpad. The alternative is to use speakup's laptop layout,
>> which does work just fine. The images include yasr as well, which I
>> haven't tested yet.
>>
>> Comments are inline.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 06:54:09AM +0100, KatolaZ wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 03:33:05PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
>>>> Hi again,
>>>> as far as getting agetty to play ctrl+g ... I don't know of a way to
>>>> do that. You can however simply edit /etc/issue, and put a ctrl+g into
>>>> that. The way I do this in vi is to do vi /etc/issue.
>>>> Then I do "i" to insert at the beginning, and then I do ctrl+v ctrl+g
>>>> to insert a ctrl+g into the file. Then I just do esc, followed by
>>>> ":wq" to save the file.
>>>>
>>> Hi Greg,
>>>
>>> thanks you very much for your reply. I am actually trying to find a
>>> solution that is somehow configurable, but maybe that just putting a
>>> ^G in issue is just fine.
>>>
>>> I have also scripted a simple daemon that "beeps" every second during
>>> the boot, and emits a certain beep sequence when the boot is complete
>>> (basically, when getty has been spawned). I will now test it and if
>>> everything works fine I will include it in the next release.
>> Ok, thanks. I have tested so far with the
>> Devuan_1.0_Jessie-Beta_minimal-live_amd64-20160523_0028.iso image. At
>> the boot prompt, there are what seem to be three beeps one after the
>> other. I'm personally think that's probably longer than it needs to
>> be. I would say that a single beep is good enough. I'm also not sure
>> that progress during boot is necessary. I think that a beep at the
>> isolinux boot prompt, and another at the login prompt would be enough,
>> but that's just my personal opinion, others might find progress beeps
>> useful. I don't think such a a thing has been tried on a livecd before.
>>
>>> I was also thinking of "marking" the bootloader entries with beeps,
>>> but I don'w know what is the best way to do that. Basically, at the
>>> moment we have a single beep in each of the "bootable" entries. Maybe
>>> it might be useful to have 1 beep for the first entry, 2 for the
>>> second one, and so on? I am not sure though, since we also have in the
>>> boot menu two or three "special" entries (one is memtest, the other is
>>> a call to the chainloader, to boot whatever is found in the first
>>> disk), which should be somehow marked differently.
>>>
>> I have always found it sufficient to know what was in
>> the boot menu, and to count arrow key presses to get what I wanted to
>> get to. Having different beeps for each boot entry is another concept
>> which I don't think has been tried before. I'm not sure
>> what the majority of blind
>> users would prefer. Perhaps you will get some feedback here.
>>
>>> I would appreciate your take on this aspect. I was thinking to have
>>> something like:
>>>
>>> 1) a single beep for each "normal" boot entry
>>>
>>> 2) two beeps for the special "memtest" entry
>>>
>>> 3) three beeps for the chainloader
>>>
>>> A visually impaired user might just scroll through the first four
>>> options (a single beep for each line), then bump into the memtest (two
>>> beeps), then find the chainloader options (three beeps), then come
>>> back to the first bootable option (one beep)
>> That sounds reasonable to me.
>>
>>> Thanks again for your feedback, which is very much appreciated.
>> Thanks again for your work.
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>>> HND
>>>
>>> KatolaZ
>>>
>>> --
>>> [ Enzo Nicosia aka KatolaZ --- GLUG Catania -- Freaknet Medialab ]
>>> [ me [at] katolaz.homeunix.net -- http://katolaz.homeunix.net -- ]
>>> [ GNU/Linux User:#325780/ICQ UIN: #258332181/GPG key ID 0B5F062F ]
>>> [ Fingerprint: 8E59 D6AA 445E FDB4 A153 3D5A 5F20 B3AE 0B5F 062F ]
>>>
>> -- 
>> web site: http://www.gregn.net
>> gpg public key: http://www.gregn.net/pubkey.asc
>> skype: gregn1
>> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>> If we haven't been in touch before, e-mail me before adding me to your
>> contacts.
>>
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