Installation is important (and Access HOWTO plug) (+apology..)

[Michael De La Rue <mikedlr@it.com.pl>]

Okay, I didn't want to come out with this, and ask for help, quite yet.  At
least not till I'm sure I have time to do something about it, rather than just
having it sitting as a vapour-project, but my own stupidity has forced my
hand..

Firstly an apology; my message was a) caused by a misunderstanding (I thought
it was the list maintainer had written the new installation guide when
actually the person announcing this (Jim Van Zandt) was the one I had already
discussed this matter with: there's no actual duplication of work going on
here and I owe an apology to Jim for saying so and b) I posted it to the list when I
was planning to send it personally.. this I'll put down to just having changed
email program.

Now onwards to installation

I can imagine several situations for someone blind coming to Linux.  Of these
the most common and important are

	1) Unix hacker needs a home machine

	2) DOS/Windows user needs something more powerful or suitable

	3) Complete new user is looking for an `adaptive techology solution' 

For person 1 there's very little new we need to do.  My Access HOWTO should be
completed as much as possible so that this person can find out what hardware
and software is available, and it needs to be publicised.  Fortunately, the
Linux documentation project is fairly high visibility, and what is needed now
is awareness in such places as WWW pages on computing for the visually
impared / blind etc.

For person 2 the new documentation which is being written should be
sufficient.  The main problem is converting knowledge which the person already
has into a useful form.  Again we need some level of publicity.  At least:-

	a) mentioned in the Access HOWTO
	b) sales people at some level at various Linux companies know about it
	c) some mention in any other places which hand out computing info to
	such people

For person 3 we have a real difficulty.  I think though that these are worth
overcoming.  It would be nice if you could order a new PC-clone with blank
hard disk from one source, order a RedHat/Debian/Slakware or any other major
distribution on CDrom and order a braille labled boot disk + braille / audio
documentation and install from scratch.  Although a person with no contact
with any other Linux user may be rare in the States, these people are common
in other countries and it is worth supporting them.  At the end of this, I'm
going to attach an html page I wrote on this.  Please make any comments back
to me.

Easier to achieve, we need to look at getting the various organisations which
support blind users aware of how to setup someone on a Linux system to the
stage where they can learn for themselves.  I can't speak about other
organisations, but the UK RNIB (Royal National Institute for the Blind)
provideds a set of handout sheets which describe the different kinds of
computers and operating systems which are available.  These are designed for
people who are considering buying a computer to read so that they can decide
what they want to use.  We should have Linux at least mentioned here, along
with a reasonable explanation of its strengths and weaknesses.  In particular
such things as having text mode access to all of the wonderful new `internet'
features should definitely be mentioned there.  

What is needed done

	1) identify funding sources / volunteers for making audio transcripts

	2) identify who might make free / fund / print braille versions of
	   documentation

	3) generate grade2 braille from one of the formats we have and have it
	   properly and carefully proofread (presumably NFBtrans from plain
	   text versions of the HOWTOs would be the way to go).

	4) find a person who is blind and knows nothing about computers.  Give
	   them the documentation that is now written.  Have a linux expert
	   follow them through an installation and see where they have
	   problems.

Right now, I'm writing a `Documentation HOWTO'.  I'm really planning to wait
to complete this before I work more directly on the stuff mentioned before.

	Michael

Now:- what documents would we need to translate..  as you can see this has
been sitting around for some time as I've been working on other aspects..  I'd
be grateful for suggestions and corrections.  Obviously the new document on
installation for a blind user would have to be included too.

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Documenting Linux For the Visually Impaired (30-Jul-1996)</TITLE>
<!-- Created by: Michael De La Rue, 11-Mar-1996 -->
<!-- Changed by: Michael De La Rue, 30-Jul-1996 -->
</HEAD>

<BODY>
<H1>Documenting Linux For the Visually Impaired</H1>

 <P>Once a visually impaired person has Linux working, all of the
documentation needed is available online and they can read it using
their normal screen reading system.  The problem is that to set Linux
up, you need access to the documentation.  This is an attempt to get
enough documentation available to the visually imparied to get them to
that stage.  The aim is that there should be no need for another
computer to be set up to read the documentation, and, at the very
least so that the documentation can be available to a person with only
one (! :-) computer whilst installing linux.

<H2>Target Documents</H2>

 <P>Only certain documents are needed as targets for this project.
Thease are, introductory material, installation material and material
which should allow someone to restart a non functional computer.  At
present the documents suggested are

<DL>
  <DT>The Linux Info Sheet
  <DD>This is the document which introduces Linux for someone who has
  never heard of it before and is needed to allow people to find out
  whether they want it or not

  <DT>The Meta FAQ
  <DD>This document covers other sources of information about Linux.  In
  other words, if you want to find something out, you start here and
  from here find the document with the information you need.

  <DT>The Linux Installation HOWTO
  <DD>This document is the one which will cover not just installation,
  but most of what is needed for reinstallation in the case of a serious
  crash of some kind.  Unfortunately it's somewhat outdated and we may
  need more specific `per distribution' installation information instead.

  <DT>The Linux Access HOWTO
  <DD>This covers adaptive technology under Linux, and may well be
  needed to allow the visually impared to choose the hardware they
  want to buy as well as setting it up correctly to allow the use of
  Linux.  

  <DT>The Linux FAQ
  <DD>This is a complete list of `Frequently Asked Questions' about
  linux.  It is a very long document and covers much detail.  It would
  hopefully not be needed in this form for most users, but the
  probaility is that someone will find the need and when they do it
  will be important.
</DL>

 <P>Documents that need to be specially created

<DL>
  <DT>Designing a Linux Setup
  <DD>This should cover the basics of choosing Linux Hardware from the
  perspective of a Blind or Visually impaired user.

  <DT>Beginning to use Linux
  <DD>This is probably the most difficult and important document, one
  covering the way in which people should begin to use Linux.  The
  needs of users vary considerably here, depending on their previous
  experience, but in the worst case, a near vertical `learning curve'
  must be got around before the user can begin to get into linux.
  This should be a step by step guide to the process, possibly based
  on the DOS2Linux Mini HOWTO as well as the Access HOWTO.
</DL>


 <P>Other possibilities for inclusion are suggested below.

<DL>
<DT>Linux HOWTO Index
<DD>This indexes all of the other HOWTOs in more detail than the META
FAQ.  Since the collection suggested above is reasonably small, I
think this probably won't be needed except online.

<DT>Linux Kernel HOWTO
<DD>This covers altering the Linux Kernel.  Unfortunately this may be
needed by some people to be able to use Linux effectively.  How they
are going to get to the stage of being able to use this HOWTO without
a working Linux setup I don't know..
</DL>

<H2>Formats</H2>

 <P>The aim is to have these documents available in Braille and audio
formats.  Neither one of these formats covers everyone, because there
are visually impaired people who cannot read Braille and there are
deaf-blind people who cannot use audio formats.  <EM>Both are needed</EM>.

 <P>If the audio format is being produced for a media like CD which
supports semi random access, then considerable effort should be put in
to make use convenient.  In the case of CD, I would guess that the
best way is to make each HOWTO and each section of the FAQ a different
track and use divisions within tracks for each question (yes these do
exist; not all CD players support them, but many CD players don't
support having more than 10 tracks well).

<H2>Specially Labled Boot Disks</H2>

 <P>Most versions of the Linux operating system are designed to be
booted from a floppy disk.  In order to allow this to be done by a
Visually impared person, we suggest specially labled boot disks.
These should be in dual format.  A large type lable should be
overprinted with braille.  This has the advantage of covering visually
impared (not Blind n.b.) people who cannot read braille and making
handling easy for producers who are not visually impaired.
<STRONG>Don't get the labels confused</STRONG>.  Hopefully a system
can be devised to make it easy for sighted volunteers to check that
braille matches text?

<H2>What needs done</H2>

<H3>Speaking the Texts</H3>

 <P>There just is a large amount of text which needs to be recorded by
someone with a reasonably clear voice.  It's possible that some of
this is better done with a high quality speech synthesiser?

 <P>The texts should each be broken up as structured so that the audio
translation can be edited later to match any changes that occur.
Particularly in the FAQ, section numbers change regularly and should
be kept separate from anything else.

 <P>Presumably digital recording should be used, both because of the
community, computer users, that this is aimed at and because of the
large amount of editing that will need to be done.

<H3>Audio Duplication</H3>

 <P>Probably CD should be the main format for distribution.  There are
a large number of people in the Linux community who use and have
experience with the technology. (others are pushing for the standard
eight track - extremely long playing tapes as the best format.  I
still say that recording to digital may well be worthwhile)

 <P>The license on the recordings should be such that local
re-recording onto tape is a guaranteed right.  Probably some variant
of the GNU Public License.

<H3>Braille Conversion</H3>

 <P>The most important task would be to add a Braille output mode to
the package which is used to format the HOWTOs.  Since this is an SGML
variant (linuxdoc-sgml) this should be relatively easy.  In braille
translation easy is <STRONG>always</STRONG> relative.  I have alot to
find out about the specification of grade 2 braille before this can be
done.  I think that looking into getting recode (from GNU) to do some
of this would be very useful.

<H3>Braille Printing</H3>

 <P>Braille printing is somewhat expensive and requires specialised
hardware.  Once source is available, hopefully some commercial entity
or charity covering the visually impaired should be able to do this.

<H2>Repeating this project in other Languages</H2>

 <P>If this project is repeated in another language then mostly
proceedure should be the same as the one described here.  The main
difference is that for languages with a specific HOWTO related to that
language, it should probably be translated too.  Examples are the
Linux Italian HOWTO and the possibly the Linux JE HOWTO for Japanese.

 <P>Obviously, handling Linux documentation in other languages is done
best if the complete set of normal documentation has already been
translated to those languages.  I belive that Japanese, German,
Italian and French are the closest to this.

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