If you have not already installed Linux on your machine, you can take advantage of Speakup's talking installation and install your chosen distribution without sighted assistance.
Before you install a distribution, you must decide which distribution you want. Although Speakup works with any distribution, Speakup-patched installation disks have only been created for the Debian, Red Hat, and Slackware distributions. All distributions are based upon the same basic Linux code, or kernel, but each distribution has a different installation process, features, and support options. Martin Wheeler's "Distributions HOWTO," at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Distributions-HOWTO/index.html, discusses the pros and cons of a number of Linux distributions. You can also find information about each distribution on their respective web sites. The URLs for the distributions that have Speakup-patched installation disks are listed below:
Debian Linux - http://www.debian.org
Red Hat Linux - http://www.redhat.com
Slackware Linux - http://www.slackware.com
Once you have decided what distribution to install, you must download the appropriate Speakup-patched disk images (unfortunately, Speakup-patched disks cannot be purchased, so you must download them) . The following list shows what needs to be downloaded, and where to get the downloads, for each distribution:
Debian Linux - For the standard install, download the disk images from http://www.linux-speakup.org/ftp/disks/debian. If you have access to a CD burner and can create your own CDs, the only file you will need to download is debian-2.2r2-speakup.iso. If you prefer to install from floppy disk, select the directory with the correct floppy size (1.2M, 1.44M, or 2.88M) and download the .bin files in that directory.
Note: You may want to read the readme.txt file and the online Debian Installation Manual. You can install Debian in several ways, and these reading references will explain which files you need, depending upon whether you have chosen to install from floppies, cdrom, your hard disk using another os, or over the network.
Red Hat Linux - You can download the Red Hat disk images from http://www.linux-speakup.org/ftp/disks/redhat/7.2. Download the following files: boot.img, enigma-i386-disc1.iso, and enigma-i386-disc2.iso.
Slackware - You can download the Slackware installation from ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/bootdsks.144. In this directory you will find a directory called bootdsks.144. Go into that directory and download either speakup.i (if you have an IDE hard drive) or speakup.s (if you have a SCSI hard drive).
After you have downloaded the appropriate boot file, change to the ftp directory ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware/rootdsks. This directory contains the root files that are required to install Slackware. Download color.gz for a menu-based installation program. Download umsdos.gz if you want to install Linux on a separate partition on your Windows machine (this option leaves Windows intact).
Now that you have downloaded the images needed for installation, you must create floppy disks or CD-ROMs with those images so that you can install Linux. For information on creating floppy disks, refer to "The Linux Bootdisk HOWTO," by Tom Fawcett, at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO. To create a CD-ROM, you will need a CD burner and applications for creating CDs.
When you download a Linux boot disk, it comes as a single file that is an exact image of the floppy disk. However, you cannot simply copy that image onto a floppy disk because the image itself is not bootable, and you need a bootable disk.
To create a bootable disk from a DOS/Windows machine, you need rawrite, which can be downloaded from http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/install/rawwrite/!INDEX.html. You can run rawrite by typing rawrite at the DOS command prompt. You will be interactively guided through the process of creating a boot floppy.
To create a bootable disk from a Linux or UNIX machine, type the command dd if=./boot.img of=/dev/fd0, and make the appropriate substitutions for your system.
Note: If you use rawrite to create your bootdisks, silence your screen reader before you press return and begin writing an image to disk. Rawrite, particularly the DOS version, does not deal well with screen readers interrupting the disk writing process. If you don't silence your speech, you may end up with corrupted disks.
If downloading CD images, you will need a CD burner to create CDs. Because there are so many CD burning applications available and each one is different, it is beyond the scope of this document to discuss creating CDs. However, if you are new to burning CDs and are using a Linux or UNIX system, you may want to refer to the "CD-Writing HOWTO," by Winfried Trumper, at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO.html.
Before you start installing your chosen distribution, plug your speech synthesizer into COM1, if that port is available (by default, Speakup looks for a synthesizer on COM1). If not, use another port. Speakup starts looking for synthesizers on ttyS0/COM1 and works its way up to ttyS3/COM4.
Note: If you have an internal hardware synthesizer, you do not need to complete this step.
The Debian disks and files should be downloaded from http://linux-speakup.org/ftp/disks/debian rather than from the standard Debian site, since they have been modified to work with Speakup. The following steps should be taken to install Debian.
Note: In case of differences between these instructions and the Debian Manual, the manual is the authoritative source for all conflict resolution.
Put the rescue disk in the floppy drive and reboot your computer.
Type the command Linux speakup_synth=synthname when you hear the floppy drive stop spinning. Replace synthname with the keyword for your synthesizer.
Note: If your synth is connected to COM2, and you have some other device connected to COM1, you may need to also specify the speakup_ser=n parameter in order for Speakup to find your synthesizer. For example, if you had a LiteTalk synthesizer on COM2, then you would type the command Linux speakup_synth=ltlk speak_ser=1.
Providing you have typed the command line correctly, your synthesizer should begin speaking a few seconds after you press the return key. If you don't hear anything, make sure your synthesizer is properly connected and turned on, then reboot the computer and try typing the command again.
Insert the root disk when prompted, after the kernel finishes loading. A Debian release notice will come up, and you can press Enter when Speakup has finished reading it to you.
Once the kernel has loaded, you will be at the main Debian installation menu. You can use the arrow keys to move up and down through the menu. Use the read-current-line key, numeric keypad 8, to have Speakup read the current line on the screen in order to determine the current menu choice.
The first item on the menu is the "next" choice, and represents the action that the Debian installer thinks you should take next. As you work your way through the installation process, the next choice will change to reflect the installation steps you have already completed. There may be one or two alternate choices listed below the next choice. For example, when the "Initialize Linux Partition" choice is listed as the next option, the alternate action will be "Mount a Previously Initialized Partition." For the most part, you will just select the next option, and sequentially work your way through the installation process. Press Enter when a menu item is highlighted in order to accept that action. If you accidently select a menu choice you didn't want, press the Escape key to return to the main menu.
Note: You can temporarily leave the installation menu to change your synthesizer settings to suit your tastes. To do this, press Alt-F2, and then press Enter. You will be at a shell prompt, and you can follow the instructions in section Section 6.1, Configuring Speakup Speech Parameters, in order to adjust your synthesizer's speed, pitch, punctuation level, etc. When you have finished, return to the installation menu by pressing Alt-F1.
After you have worked your way through all the installation steps, and before you reboot the system, you may want to set up your machine to talk automatically on startup. To do this, switch to the shell prompt by pressing Alt-F2, then refer to section Section 7, Using Speakup on a Shared Machine, for setup instructions. When you are finished, press Alt-F1 to return to the installation menu.
After you have finished the first part of installation, remove the floppy and/or cdrom, then press Enter on the reboot the system menu choice. If you have properly entered your append line in the lilo.conf file, your system should come up talking. If not, you can press Ctrl-u when you hear the hard disk begin to spin after the boot process has begun, and type the command Linux speakup_synth=synthname speakup_ser=n, where synthname and n are as described above.
Once your system has booted, you will be ask a series of questions in order to complete the second half of the installation process. You should answer "Yes" to the "Use md5 passwords" and the "Use Shadow Passwords" questions. You will be prompted to set a root password, and to create a normal user account.
The rest of the questions are about installing packages. You will be asked where apt-get should install the packages from, cdrom, a web site or an ftp site. If you choose an http site or an ftp site, you will be given a list of countries and sites to choose from. Follow the instructions on screen and make selections appropriate for your situation. This process is easier to understand if you read the installation manual.
After you have specified where to install packages from, you will be asked if you want advanced or simple package installation. The simple package installation choice is strongly recommended. If you choose the advanced option, you will enter the dselect program, which allows you to specify individual packages for installation. However, since there are over 2600 different packages to choose from, this can be time consuming and confusing. If you really want to do an advanced package installation, then you should read the Beginners Dselect manual referenced in the Debian Installation manual.
The simple package installation choice puts you into a task selection dialog, where you can select from various groups of packages. Use the up and down arrows to navigate through the list, and press Enter to place an asterisk (*) before each item you want installed. For more information about a particular choice, you can tab to the help button and press Enter. When you are finished, tab to the "Finished" button, then press Enter. Debian will download and install the packages you have selected.
Assuming that you chose to install the packages from the network, Debian will begin installing and configuring each package once they are all downloaded. You may be asked some configuration questions during the installation process, such as what your default web homepage should be, etc. Just read the explanations that accompany each question, and answer appropriately.
When the installation is finished, you will be presented with a login prompt.
Once you have created the two Red Hat CDs, and a boot floppy if your machine does not boot from a CD, you are ready to install Red Hat.
Insert the CD into the CD drive (or the boot floppy into the floppy drive), and reboot your machine. You will hear the CD or floppy drive spin for a few seconds, then you will hear silence. You are at the boot prompt, which is where you can pass any extra parameters to Linux.
Type the following command: linux text speakup_synth=synthname speakup_ser=n. synthname should be replaced by the Speakup keyword appropriate for your synthesizer. Refer to Section 3, Requirements, for the list of keywords. The second parameter, speakup_ser, should only be used if your external speech synthesizer is plugged into a port other than COM1 and there is another serial device plugged into any ports below the synthesizer. In this case, n should be replaced by the COM port number minus one. For example, n=0 for COM1, n=1 for COM2, and so on.
Note: You are typing in this line at the boot: prompt, which will remain on the screen for about one minute before continuing with the boot process. If you do not type anything in during this time, the boot process will continue without speech. Should this occur, simply reboot your machine to get back to the boot: prompt, then type in the appropriate keyword for your synthesizer.
Once you have typed the command at the boot: prompt, there will be about a ten second pause while the drive spins. Speakup should then start talking. It will read all the bootup messages aloud, which can take some time (and hang the bootup process until the speech buffer has cleared). To make it stop talking until bootup is over, press the Enter key on the numeric keypad.
After bootup, the text-based Red Hat installation sequence starts. You will be prompted for information about your system so that Red Hat can correctly install and configure Linux for your machine. Each time you move to a new installation screen, there will be a 5-10 second delay until the screen is read to you. Unfortunately, the entire screen is read all at once, including the instructions, options, and any buttons that are available. The following list of screens are provided to help explain what is happening in each step of the installation process.
The default keyboard type is "us," but for Speakup navigation to work properly you should select "speakup" or, if you have a laptop, "speakup-lt."
Most screens in the installation sequence, including this one, have an "options" area where you can select one or more options from a scrollable list. The options area always takes the initial focus when a screen first appears. Only the currently displayed items (usually 8-10 items) in the list are read aloud. In order to read the rest of the items in the list, scroll up or down using the up/down arrow keys. To read the list item currently in focus, press 8 on your numeric keypad (this special Speakup key reads the entire current line). When you have selected the appropriate list item, press Enter to go to the next screen.
You will be installing from a CD-ROM, which is the default option (the other option is installing from the hard drive). Press 8 on the numeric keypad to make sure this option is selected, then press Enter when you are finished.
If you have not already put the CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive, do so when prompted, then press Enter. You will hear the CD-ROM start to spin, and Speakup will say "Running anaconda - please wait" and other information. After the CD stops spinning, the Mouse selection screen will open.
The default is a generic 3 button mouse. If you do not use a mouse, you can select the None option. Otherwise select the appropriate mouse for your machine.
In this screen, it can be difficult to find out which mouse option is selected because the numeric keypad 8 key does not read the currently highlighted option, but rather a check box labeled "Emulate 3 Buttons?" To work around this problem, press the Tab key four times (this moves the focus from the check box to the OK button to the Back button and finally to the mouse options area), then press the numeric keypad 8 key. You should hear the currently selected option.
When you have chosen the appropriate setting, press Tab twice to get to the OK button, then press Enter.
This screen tells you where to get more information about Red Hat Linux. You can just press Enter once it has been read.
You can specify the type of installation you want to do in this screen. The Workstation option is recommended, or Laptop if you have a laptop. Select the appropriate option (the default is Workstation), then press Enter.
Explaining how to partition your drive is beyond the scope of this document. However, there is the "Linux Partition HOWTO," by Kristan Koehntopp available at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Partition which explains disk partitioning. If you are new to Linux, you may want to choose the Autopartition option, which is the default. If you choose either Disk Druid or fdisk to manually partition your drive, you will need to know exactly how you want the disk partitioned.
This screen appears if you chose the Autopartition option. In this screen, you can specify how you want to partition your disk. If you have any other operating systems (say Windows™) or another Linux installation that you want to keep, select the "Keep all partitions and use existing free space" option. This will set up your system to dual-boot so that you can select your operating system when you boot.
Once you have selected a partition method, press Tab to move to the section on selecting a hard drive for installation.
For simplicity, we will assume you have only one drive, which is selected by default. Press Tab again to get to the OK button, then press Enter.
The default option for a firewall is "Medium" security, with "High" and "No Firewall" being the other options. Additional firewall configuration can be done after installing Linux if special configuration is required. If you are installing on a home machine, the default "Medium" security setting is appropriate. Press Enter to select the default, or Tab between options to select another option.
The default language is English (USA), but multiple languages can be selected. You can choose other languages by scrolling through the list and pressing the space bar to make a selection. Selecting a language puts an asterisk character (*) between the open/close brackets in front of the language option, then the focus moves to the next language on the list. You can check to see if a language is selected or not by pressing the numeric keypad 8 key to read the entire current line.
Once you have selected the appropriate languages, press Tab to move to the OK button, then press Enter to move to the next screen.
Note: You can select all available languages using the Select All button. You can also reset to the default selection by choosing the Reset button.
In this screen, the focus is initially on a check box labeled "Hardware clock set to GMT." If you would like your hardware clock set to GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), press the space bar to select this option, then press the Tab key to move to the country/city time zone options.
The default country/city is America/New York. You can scroll up and down the list of cities and select a city that is in the same time zone that you are in (not all cities are in the list). Once you have chosen an appropriate city, press Tab, then Enter to move to the next screen.
Create a password and type it in. Speakup will not say the letters in the password as you type.
When you have entered the password once, press Tab and retype the password.
Press Tab again, then press Enter to go on to the next screen.
Unless you are a system administrator, you should not be doing much work logged on as root. Therefore, you will need a user account to use on a day-to-day basis. First, type in a user ID (for example, your first initial and your last name).
Press Tab, then type in a password for this account.
Note: For security reasons, user account passwords should never be the same as the root password.
Press Tab and retype the password for confirmation.
Finally, press Tab again and type in the user's full name. Press Tab and then Enter to move on to the next section.
If you want to create multiple user accounts, you can do so in this screen by tabbing to the Add button and selecting it.
When you are finished adding users, tab to the OK button, then press Enter.
This screen allows you to select the package groups to install. The default option is Gnome; KDE, a software development package group and a games package group are also available. Use the space bar to select or deselect any of these options. Once an option is selected or deselected, focus moves to the next option.
An alternative to selecting package groups is to select individual packages. If you prefer this option, press Tab to get to the "Select individual packages" check box, then press the space bar to check the box. Press Tab again to move to the OK button, then press Enter. The resulting screen shows all available packages and allows individual selection.
Sometimes you may select packages that require packages that you did not install. If this happens, it is strongly recommended that you select the option "Install packages to satisfy dependencies," which is selected by default. Once you have selected the option appropriate for your system, tab to the OK button, then press Enter.
Although Linux usually chooses the correct card, it helps to know what type of video card is in your system to confirm what Linux detected. If either your video card or video RAM is not correct, you can fix it by selecting the "Change" option and choosing the correct settings from the resulting screen. When you are finished, tab to the OK button, then press Enter.
This screen tells you where the installation log will be kept. Press Enter to go on to the next screen.
You will hear your drive spin, then several task bars will appear in rapid succession. These may or may not be read aloud. Finally, the Package Installation screen will open. This screen shows the information and progress of each package as it is being installed. Speakup reads all the information about each package, but the speech synthesizer usually cannot keep up with the output, resulting in a speech buffer overload. Until the speech buffer clears, installation stops. You can clear the speech buffer manually by pressing the Enter key on the numeric keypad. So if you hear your hard drive stop spinning during installation but your synthesizer is still talking, instead of waiting for the speech buffer to clear, you can press Enter to clear it immediately, and you will hear your hard drive start spinning again.
You will probably be prompted to insert the second CD halfway through the installation.
You will also be asked if you want to create a boot disk, which you should do. At the prompt, insert a formatted floppy disk and press Enter. Be sure to keep the boot disk in an accessible place, because you may need it should anything happen to your system.
By default, Linux selects a generic standard VGA monitor, 640x480 at 60 Hertz. If you want to change this setting to better reflect your system, do so in this screen. When you are finished, tab to the OK button, then press Enter.
This screen defines your monitor's color depth and resolution. You can also define a default desktop and login. If you installed either KDE or Gnome, the graphical login option will be selected by default. You will most likely want to change this to a text login by tabbing to the "Text" option and pressing the space bar. When you are finished, tab to the OK button and press Enter.
The Red Hat installation is complete. Remove the boot floppy you made, as well as the installation disk, and press Enter to reboot your system.
If you want to set up your machine to talk automatically on startup, refer to section Section 7, Using Speakup on a Shared Machine.
After you have created the disks for Slackware, you are ready to install as follows.
Insert the Slackware boot disk and turn on your computer. After a few seconds, the floppy disk should stop spinning.
Type in the command ramdisk speakup_synth=synthname, and replace synthname with the appropriate Speakup keyword for your synthesizer. The second parameter, speakup_ser, should only be used if your external speech synthesizer is plugged into a port other than COM1 and there is another serial device plugged into any ports below the synthesizer. In this case, n is the number of your COM port minus one. For example, n=0 for COM1, n=1 for COM2, and so on. Press Enter after you have typed in the appropriate command.
Your synthesizer should start talking at this point. Speakup will read all the bootup messages. You can temporarily silence it during bootup by pressing the Enter key on the numeric keypad.
Insert the root disk when you are requested to do so, then press Enter.
Type the word root when you reach the login prompt, then press Enter (you will not be asked for a password). Speakup will not say anything once you have logged on because the command prompt is a % symbol, which Speakup does not read with the default punctuation setting.
Once you have logged on, it may be necessary to partition your hard drive. This is a topic which takes entire chapters in many Linux books. Partitioning is discussed only briefly here, and you may want to refer to the "Linux Partition HOWTO," by Tony Harris and Kristian Koehntopp, at http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/partition/Partition.html.
Note: If you are installing on a DOS/Windows partition using the umsdos.gz root disk, you do not need to partition your hard drive.
Once you have partitioned your hard drive if necessary, you can start the Slackware Setup program by typing setup at the command prompt, then pressing Enter. You will be placed in a menu with many options for configuring your machine. When using the up/down arrows in this menu, Speakup only says two values. When moving down the menu you should listen to the second item, and when moving back up the menu take note of the first one. The options are listed below with brief descriptions.
Help - Select this option if you want to read more information about the setup procedure.
Remap your keyboard - When using Speakup you should not do this, so leave this option alone.
Add swap - Unless you are doing an install using umsdos, select this item. You will be placed on the first swap partition, which is generally the right one. Press Enter. When it completes it will display some more messages, which you can acknowledge by pressing Enter. You will automatically be taken to the next step, which is adding a Linux partition. Once again you will be placed on the first Linux partition, so just continue pressing Enter.
Select installation - This option selects whether you want to install from a CD-ROM or your hard drive. Select the appropriate option from the list, then press Enter. Continue through the next several options, which are self-explanatory.
Package groups - Use the arrow keys to move to the package groups you want to include in your installation, and then press the space bar. A letter "x" next to the option means that it has been selected. Once you have chosen all the appropriate groups, press Enter.
Prompting mode - Press Enter for full prompting mode. The files will be uncompressed to your hard drive. You may want to press the keypad Enter button to silence Speakup while the files install.
Install a kernel - There are two options for installing a kernel. You can install from a boot disk, in which case you will be asked to provide the boot disk. Alternatively, you can install the kernel from a CD-ROM. If you choose the first option, you will automatically get the talking Speakup-patched kernel. If you select the CD-ROM option, you will need to choose either speakup.i or speakup.s (whichever one you used before) from the list of available kernels.
The next few selections depend on what software you installed. Options include selecting your time zone and configuring the network. Refer to the Slackware manual for further details on these options.
Root password - When you are asked for the root password, Speakup will not say anything. This is because nothing is being written to the screen, so that someone looking over your shoulder does not see your password.
Once you have completed the setup procedure, reboot your system. When your computer stops at the boot prompt, enter the text linux speakup_synth=synthname, using the same synthname as before, and press Enter. Your computer should start talking.
If you want to set up your machine to talk automatically on startup, refer to section Section 7, Using Speakup on a Shared Machine.