"Veli-Pekka Tatila" <vtatila@mail.student.oulu.fi> writes: > Now, I'm thinking of installing Linux once again. One of my primary > goals is being able to set up most access aids as quickly and > painlessly as possible in order to be able to really start learning a > Linux system myself. Without working access aids, I gotta rely on > sighted help, or alternatively use X in 320x200 to read the screen > contents magnified. I thought Debian could be nice as most of the > access packages such as Festival Lite, F-Lite, Yasr, SVGATextMode and > Brltty seem to be available as x86 binaries. Most are also available for other platforms, BTW. For a overview (not complete) of available accessibility specific packages, have a look at <URL:http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/software.html> > FInnish language support would be very useful in a speech synth, > too, though I prefer the English locale in most cmputer software. I'm afraid that there is very little internationalized software speech support yet. > I'm not sure if I'll be installing x at all. I dreamed about it in the > first place but having used Linux a little, it seems like I really > need to know the console anyway in troubleshooting situations at least > and it seems to give me most of the real power as well, because GUIs > are supposed to be easy. If I do decide on installing X, I'd likely > want to run GTK and QT applications and have some real minimalist > Window manager or whatever that doesn't even support skins but let's > me have total control over widget colors as a magnification user. You might also want to look at the magnification features of Gnopernicus. > Also some minimalist dual-pane file manager that supports regexp > filtering and let's me minimize visual complexity by hiding toolbars > and file icons would be great. I'm not really much into X apps yet, maybe someone else can answer this. > As far as other software goes, I'm doing music as a hobby so > MIDI-sequencers, soft synths, multi-track recorders and other such > software interest me. I can recommend two quite accessible applications here: ecasound for multi-track recording, and SuperCollider for everything else. > Other things include free and simple Linux games as well as DOS / > WIndows, Nintendo and other emulators such as MAME. There are some classic console text-mode games in the bsdgames package. NetHack is also a classic which tends to be quite playable with braille output. There is a working dosemu included in Debian. > Apart from this info and questions on kind of software I might want to > try, I posted to ask about different methods of independent > installation regarding Debian. I don't know yet if I'll be installing > WOody or the next major release, which is supposed to have friendlier > installation. Anyway, step-by-step instructions would be nice as I'm > knew to Linux and any analogies to DOs, Windows, C, Java or Perl might > help. which of these seven methods I can think of might be the easiest > in practise? > > method 0: textmode install with speech > This would require recompiling the kernel and using speakup, I > suppose. The new installer for Debian Sarge actually includes a special floppy flavour with a precompiled speakup kernel. > Unfortunately, this is out of the question as I don't have any > hardware speech synths to begin with. OK. > I've read somewhere that there's a project to make a speakup > compliant speech synth that'll run in kernel mode. Does anyone know > if there's a usable version out there? TuxTalk is not really usable yet as far as I know. The speakup developers have recently invested quite some time into supporting user-space speech synthesizers. However, this doesn't help much with installation support since user-space speech synthesis usually consumes quite some space. > Also, I've never compiled a kernel in my life. > > method 1: textmode install with braille > I do have a Tieman Voyager braille display and just managed to find a > binary version of brltty compiled for my display here: > > http://www.brlspeak.net/brlstatx.php > > I think I could put it on a floppy and run prior to the installer but > how can I run something before the textmode setup kicks in? For Debian Woody installation disks, there is a HOWTO on creating a BRLTTY disk which can be used during the floppy install. For Debian-Sarge (d-i), I am afraid you are out of luck currently, since the Voyager is unfortunately the only display supported by BRLTTY which doesn't work with d-i yet. > Also, my display is USB based so I'd likely need USB support at > bootup. As soon as I get something newer than BRLTTY 3.4.1 into Debian, d-i should support the Voyager via USB fine, however, I am afraid this will not be ready in time for the Sarge release. > method 2: text mode install over a serial line > I do hav a com port on two of my older machines. One choice would be > to use my Windows screen reader and Hyperterminal or some other > terminal emulator to read the installation prompts. What boot > parameter tells Debian to redirect the input and output through the > com port and what kind of terminal should be emulated? The boot parameters for serial console do vary from installation method to installation method. I recommend you read the corresponding Installation Manual to figure them out (either for Debian-Woody or the debian-installer manual for Debian Sarge). Terminal emulation is most likely "vt100". > On a side note, I managed to succesfully get some output showing on my > Windows machine in RedHat but the arrow keyes didn't change the > selected menu item at all. Sounds like a terminal emulation issue. > method 3: install with magnification > I'm not sure if this applies to Debian but on distroes that have an X > based installation, it let's you specify the resolution. If I could > set it up to use 320x240 it would be large enough for me to read the > texts with magnification. I attempted this method in RedHat or > Mandrake, I don't remember which, but it would not track the mouse and > scroll at all, like it usually does in X. Debian does not have a X based installer yet, so this doesn't apply. > Alternatively, if it's possible to force the install in 40x25 text > mode, I might be able to read the texts without magnification. I can > use DOS that way on a 17 inch monitor provided that I know in some > detail what I should be looking at. Reading longer texts using that > method is very slow and painful to say the least. I know this method works for a certain range of low vision, unfortunately, I do not really know if you can achieve this easily during the installation. > Method 4: scripted installation > I suppose it would be possible to totally script and automate a Linux > installation but I'd really have to know what I'm doing. I did > something like this in Win98 but there was a nice, GUI based editor > for the script. I do know C, Java and some Perl so some programming > language like representation goes but it would probably be easier to > mod a sample installation script. Where should I start and what does > it do in case of an error? I am not very up-to-date on unattended installation. As far as I know, people were working on this, but I do not know the current status of this effort. > method 5: assisted installation over SSH > Yet another choice would be to grant my Linux friend root access and > let him control the machine over SSH. I could talk with him using > Skype on the other machine during the installation, and he might be > able to help set up all of these access aids that are practically > required for any independent Linux adventures, too. He's using Gentoo > but I guess Debian is not that different. To be able to do something > like this, I'd need step-by-step instructions on how to start an SSH > server and change my root password and so on. This is because I cannot > read ordinary 80x25 console text and am new to Linux. This approach doesn't sound very easy. You'd still need to complete the installation up to the point where you have a working network. > method 6: installation with sighted help > This is a valid option, too, as I live home and both of my parents > know DOS and Windows well incidentally. I know neither is really > interested in Linux, however. And another weakness is that it might be > hard to recover from installation errors or problems. It takes quite a > bit of time to figure out what's going on and what to do about it if > you are new to Linux. To tell the truth, this is what I usually do. Getting a system up and running to a point where I have brltty installed isn't particularily time-consuming, especially if you know some things about the installation process in advance. I'd recommend you read up on the Installer documentation before you attempt this. To summarize, I'd recommend you either try option 2 (serial console) or option 6 (sighted assistance). -- CYa, Mario
Attachment:
pgp6ifq0Z5AEc.pgp
Description: PGP signature