From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: (qmail-queue invoked by uid 0); 31 Jul 1996 16:48:28 -0000 MBOX-Line: From mikedlr@it.com.pl Wed Jul 31 18:47:39 1996 Received: (qmail-queue invoked by uid 504); 31 Jul 1996 16:44:05 -0000 Received: (qmail-queue invoked from smtpd); 31 Jul 1996 16:43:54 -0000 Received: from cublx2.cube.net (194.97.64.61) by goldfish.cube.net with SMTP; 31 Jul 1996 16:42:06 -0000 Received: from zloty.it.com.pl ([194.92.142.4]) by cublx2.cube.net with ESMTP id <24625-304>; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 07:53:52 +0100 Received: from wolfgang.it.com.pl (dialup-218.it.com.pl [194.92.142.218]) by zloty.it.com.pl (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA16114 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 07:53:52 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from wolfgang.it.com.pl ([127.0.0.0]) by wolfgang.it.com.pl (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id HAA00568 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 07:34:53 +0200 Message-Id: <199607310534.HAA00568@wolfgang.it.com.pl> To: blinux-list@goldfish.cube.net Reply-To: access-howto@ed.ac.uk Subject: Installation is important (and Access HOWTO plug) (+apology..) Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 07:34:51 +0200 From: Michael De La Rue List-Id: 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. Documenting Linux For the Visually Impaired (30-Jul-1996)

Documenting Linux For the Visually Impaired

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.

Target Documents

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

The Linux Info Sheet
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
The Meta FAQ
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.
The Linux Installation HOWTO
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.
The Linux Access HOWTO
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.
The Linux FAQ
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.

Documents that need to be specially created

Designing a Linux Setup
This should cover the basics of choosing Linux Hardware from the perspective of a Blind or Visually impaired user.
Beginning to use Linux
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.

Other possibilities for inclusion are suggested below.

Linux HOWTO Index
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.
Linux Kernel HOWTO
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..

Formats

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. Both are needed.

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).

Specially Labled Boot Disks

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. Don't get the labels confused. Hopefully a system can be devised to make it easy for sighted volunteers to check that braille matches text?

What needs done

Speaking the Texts

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?

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.

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.

Audio Duplication

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)

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.

Braille Conversion

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 always 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.

Braille Printing

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.

Repeating this project in other Languages

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.

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.