New Member Intro, Installation Help
Hi,
As this is my first post in here, I thought a little intro would be ok. I'm
a 20-year-old, Finnish guy studying information processing science at the
university of Oulu. I've been using computers practically half of my life,
and know most flavors of DOs (5 and onwards) as well as Windows (95 to XP)
very well. I've got very little actual Linux experience, having only briefly
tried out RedHat and Mandrake just to discover Gnopernicus won't speak most
3rd party apps and that it's very diffifcult for a Linux newbie to compile
something like Screader from sources.
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. FInnish
language support would be very useful in a speech synth, too, though I
prefer the English locale in most cmputer software.
Another reason is that I want a relatively small Linux installation, because
I'll be installing it along side Win9X on an older machine and can only give
something like 1.5 GB. I've heard Debian is very customizable which has it's
ups and downs in a way.
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. 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. 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. Other things
include free and simple Linux games as well as DOS / WIndows, Nintendo and
other emulators such as MAME.
I won't be switching to Linux as my primary OS any time soon, though, as GUI
access and the range of pro music software for Windows is still so much
greater and better overall. NOt to mention, I've gotten so used to MS
products over the years. I want to try out Linux because of the power on the
command-line, customizability, the huge variety of different kinds of free
and useful software out there many of which have not been ported to Windows.
I've gotten tired of the huge diskspace and CPU requirements of modern
Windows software, automation and legacy things (such as the registry and dll
issues) not to mention screen readres that only support IE properly and slow
down to a crawl on large Web pages or if I'm copying thousands of files over
a network. OK enough Win bashing <smiley>. I just wanted to highlight some
of the reasons why I'm interested.
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.
Unfortunately, this is out of the question as I don't have any hardware
speech synths to begin with. 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? 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? Also, my display is
USB based so I'd likely need USB support at bootup.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Hey, it doesn't necessarily have to be my Linux friend helping with this. If
some of you here on the list have Skype and are willing to help, I'd
appreciate it a lot. Time difference might be an issue, though, Finland is
GMT plus two.
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.
I think that was about all I had to say at this time. Thanks for your help
in advance.
--
With kind regards Veli-Pekka Tätilä (vtatila@mail.student.oulu.fi)
Accessibility, game music, synthesizers and more:
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~vtatila
Reply to: