Re: kernel 2.6.24 & speakup

[Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org>]

Hello,

maximilian attems, le Tue 25 Mar 2008 19:31:03 +0100, a écrit :
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 03:06:58PM -0300, Otavio Salvador wrote:
> > Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org> writes:
> > 
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > Mario Lang, le Tue 25 Mar 2008 17:28:32 +0100, a écrit :
> > >> Samuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org> writes:
> > >> > (speakup can now be compiled fully independently)
> > >> 
> > >> linux-modules-extra-2.6 seems like the perfect place for speakup, now that it
> > >> does not require the kernel to be patched anymore.
> > >
> > > Well, a small patch is still needed, but it just boils down to
> > > GPL-exporting 4 symbols, and that is already in the -mm tree, so
> > > backporting it to the debian kernel shouldn't be a problem..
> > 
> > It would be nice if you could talk to Debian Kernel Team (just added
> > it to cc list) and see if this could be added for next 2.6.24 upload
> > or later. That would allow the module to be build from
> > linux-modules-extra-2.6 and later to be added to d-i if needed.
> 
> ok thanks for informing us. :)
> 
> afair we had a discussion about speakup and it would point to
> security troubles of that patch.
> but i don't remember the cicurmstances why it got droped
> when going from 2.4 to 2.6?

Well, things have evolved a lot since then.  Speakup used to need to
patch the kernel quite heavily in order to get keyboard & screen access.
I have worked with lkml to integrate that part much more nicely with
notifiers, and it is now part of 2.6.24.  The result is that the patch
that Speakup needs is now reduced to exporting the inverse_translate,
kbd_table, kd_mksound, and screen_glyph symbols, which is already the
case in the -mm tree.  As a consequence, speakup can now be compiled
as a separate module which can be loaded only when necessary (blind
people).

Samuel