There were two accessibility developments that made this possible. First the speakup project http://www.linuxspeakup.org/ was the first. Then there was the espeakup project. The Linux Speakup project made Linux talk over a set ofhardware speech synthesizers. Then the espeakup project added onto the Linux speakup project by using a system's sound card and speakers rather than a hardware speech synthesizer. After that, Chris Brannon put it altogether in the form of a talking arch linux installation disk. That was announced on the speakup mailing list and I'm interested in installing what accessible Linux flavors that are available so I know how to do that in the future. Another thing is with each Linux installation I learn things about security and other considerations and those get applied to future installations. I also get to learn lots about my hardware, not all of it good but not all of it bad either.On Sat, 7 Aug 2010, David C. Rankin wrote:
On 08/07/2010 09:20 PM, Sven-Hendrik Haase wrote:
Nice to see Arch being used by blind users. Good job, Chris.
Wow!
I commend you Jude for your shear moxie in getting a Linux distro up and running which is no small task for people with 20/20 vision. And the setup from Chris, I'll have to check that out. Just thinking out what that would entail, from the initial boot, the install and finally to a running OS without the sight sense, that is nothing short of incredible. How do you do it?
Seriously, what tools are available that, I guess in some sense, must speak the prompts so you know what's going on? Just curious more than anything else.
The only thing I can think of is some type of modification to the prompt that would process the prompt though an OCR utility and then to a text-to-speech app, but what about before that setup is installed? That's pretty amazing and sounds like some cool technology.
Best of luck and if you need any help, just ask -- or type. (although by the sound of it, I may be the one asking you for help).
-- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com