On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 03:39:27PM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> That's already in since a long time: just put ^G characters in the menu
> entries. You can also use the print command to beep just once.
I gathered all that, and please don't take offense for my thinking of it
as just a 'quick-n-dirty hack,' which was why I contacted grub/lilo's
maintainer. While I in no way expect speech at the boot prompt,
differing beep tones should be possible, as well as toggling on serial
support for blind users, so their hardware synthesizers say what's going
on. Picture this:
(screen clears)
You have chosen to install the gnome-orca package which provides support
for the visually impared. Would you like grub/lilo to produce an
audible beep at the boot prompt when the computer is powered up?
<Yes> <No>
Yes: grub detected...
Grub is capable of echoing it's display to a hardware synthesizer
connected to a serial port, allowing blind users to hear boot messages.
Would you like to configure grub for serial port communications?
<Yes> <No>
No: Adding a bell character to the boot prompt...done!
(screen clears again)
After the computer has started and is ready to use, would you like
gnome-orca to provide audible feedback at the login prompt?
<Yes> <No>
Yes: Gnome Display Manager detected...
Adding gnome-orca support to gdm...Done!
::End::
I, for one, haven't quite figured out grub yet. I'm an old lilo
user, so adding a bell character to header message.txt file mentioned in
lilo.conf would be no problem at all, and a pretty safe bet that I won't
hose my system doing it.
Michael