From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail.redhat.com (mail.redhat.com [199.183.24.239]) by listman.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A6632F16E for ; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 19:35:34 -0500 (EST) Received: (from mail@localhost) by mail.redhat.com (8.11.0/8.8.7) id eAA0ZYf06553 for blinux-list@listman.redhat.com; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 19:35:34 -0500 Received: from sugarbeet.ultimanet.com (ultimanet.com [205.179.129.7]) by mail.redhat.com (8.11.0/8.8.7) with ESMTP id eAA0ZVD06536 for ; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 19:35:32 -0500 Received: (from garywynn@localhost) by sugarbeet.ultimanet.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) id QAA06810 for blinux-list@redhat.com; Thu, 9 Nov 2000 16:40:16 -0800 From: Gary Wynn Message-Id: <200011100040.QAA06810@sugarbeet.ultimanet.com> Subject: FAQ Suggestions/Perceptions from a Novice--worth 2 cents. To: blinux-list@redhat.com (Blinux) Date: Thu, 9 Nov 100 16:40:15 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Loop: blinux-list@redhat.com Sender: blinux-list-admin@redhat.com Errors-To: blinux-list-admin@redhat.com X-BeenThere: blinux-list@redhat.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0beta4 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: blinux-list@redhat.com List-Id: Linux for blind general discussion Hi, Hans, Let me first begin by making a peace offering. I am not posting this to diminish any person, their very considered contributions, intelligently presented work, or well thought out statements. I am volunteering to be a novice at testing and attempting to follow any document/FAQ that is offered that will help me run Linux with speech in a way that is usable for anything other than a classroom exercise. I have the greatest respect to all who have contributed to the FAQ, and who have helped me to get this far. My respect is heightened, if anything, by my own real frustration at finding this to be difficult. I truly admire anyone who is blind who is using Linux successfully with speech--especially when they are doing it unsupported by a local guru! The following are perceptions of MINE. This is no scientific document, but is offered as ONE novice's attempt to provide a perspective on why some of us have difficulty with Linux. Consider it an ethnographic offering. Let's begin by defining a *novice*. I am a novice. That means that I am a DOS user--a good one, but that is the language/system I understand. I have read many references in linux/unix, but still do not know anything about actually using it for anything. I can do some academic exercises like copy files, move files, create directories, and list files. I have a DOS system that meets my needs fairly well. The limitation being communications and net access. I use a provider that offers me a shell account on a linux system. I use Lynx to access the web. At this moment, that is the only significant access I have. I have a Linux partition with Red Hat 6.1 installed with SpeakUp, thanks to Matt Campbell. I have not been able to make much use of it due to a lack of understanding as to how to do more than move around in Linux, do basic file operations, and try to figure out how to make it do what I do daily--which I have not been at all successful at doing, so I still use DOS for everything. I have accessed the Blinux FAQ via Lynx from my DOS machine running Commo. I have read the FAQ twice. Several impressions/challenges presented themselves to me: 1. The FAQ is linguistically and structurally a document for a user far more advanced than I now am. By that, I mean that it offers much information, but assumes that one is first, accessing it through linux! It would be nice if it offers a way to download the FAQ via lynx, which is how I accessed it. I tried to capture the text, but Lynx and Commo capture are not in agreement about that. The capture file was a series of pages with screens overlaying each other--useless. With out the FAQ in hand, so to speak, I have to rely on memory for accessing other resources that it suggests. It is a treasure in terms of a reference, but unless I have it in my DOS machine, I have no ready way to make use of it. 2. I tried out the link to search the archives, and found that when it said to "press to activate, that I only took off on another link, and lost my place. I did not try that again. I know Lynx is pretty primitive about accessing most websites, which is another problem with many of the resources suggested. I followed the excellent advice given by Matt in the FAQ to access CheapBytes.com for documentation. I found a disk of Red Hat documentation for a couple of bucks, but Lynx and CheapBytes don't agree on letting me access any way to actually order the disk. CheapBytes has no 800 number, or alternative way to order from what I could find. There is a method for faxing in an order, but with no way to download the offering, I am not sure how to actually order the item. Screen capture failed again. 4. Several other resource lists are mentioned that are good places to learn about Linux for newbies. Wow! Just what I want! How about a link that lets me fill in my info, and sends it to the list for me? I do not remember the addresses, and did not successfully capture them. 5. There is a mention of how to use a DOS Emulator for running DOS programs! Just what I want most to do, so I can get started doing things in a Linux environment, while getting around all the thousands of details I do not know, by working in DOS as I need to as my files and info are all in DOS. There is no actual FAQ on how to do this. A step by step document helping a person to set this up, and truly get going using the advantages of Linux with DOS data/programs would be a tremendous asset. There is a reference to using the IBM SpeakOut, but again, a step by step FAQ on why this is desirable, what is involved in doing it, and some guidance in actually obtaining it would be helpful. I doubt I need it, but a newbie is never sure of what is necessary and what is not. I use a Lite Talk, and that seems okay. Is there some reason why it is less preferable to the SpeakOut? 6. I got a wonderful bit of advice from a highly knowledgeable person about a program called ZipSpeak, that operates under DOS and lets me have access to Linux while I am learning it. I looked for the FAQ to guide me in finding/using it, but I did not find any reference to it. Is this something that might be added? I would love to have that capability at present. 7. There is mention in the FAQ of discussions in the past in regard to a Speech Distribution of Linux. I witnessed one such discussion on this list months ago--yes, I monitored it for many months without ever commenting. Most messages are so far beyond my understanding that I only barely grasp the import of them. As a knowledgeable Linux user, I am a good dog trainer. I understand why the need for such a distribution arises from time to time. There is no simple manual, system, or even a step by step series of documents that truly helps a person who is blind to *INDEPENDENTLY* get started with linux. There was with DOS. I taught myself DOS from a couple of simple silly programs like Simply, and the DOS reference manual, and an RFB offering of Running MSDOS. I wish that Linux were so well organized in documentation. There is a ton of it, but what is lacking is the step by step simplistic system for getting it going in a productive manner that helps a novice *home* user. I have tried for months to locate a local guru to help in tutoring me in Linux, or helping me with my system, but with no luck. The best I have is a local computer shop that will provide some basic help for $75 an hour--not helpful to me. Could this FAQ, or a series of them, set out to guide-educate the naive DOS user to becoming familiar with, and knowledgeable enough with Linux, and related applications, so that reasonable and normal home activities might be done? Such a system has to work in terms and relational ideas similar to those used in references like Running MSDOS. Terms and their relationship to hardware/software have to be defined in simple ways that relate to home use, and not a Unix environment. Having made some attempt to learn Linux the hard way, I have an enormous respect for DOS, its simplicity, its utility, its growth and capability, that I never had before. I used to swear at it as much as anyone else, but now I know how really great such applications like 4DOS are! I would love to have a 4Linux! The danger is that DOS is dying. Internet providers are no longer interested in shell accounts like mine, and do not support them. My postings contain the date 19100, because my version of ELM on my provider's system is not Y2K compliant. Sometimes it has other glitches, as well. It is only a matter of time for such things to be eliminated in the competition among providers to put everyone online. More than ever, there needs to be a simpler process for educating us DOS users into the Linux environment without having to go back to get yet another, graduate degree! Most of us have a limited amount of time in our lives, and spending hundreds and hundreds of hours on a new system to learn the jargon and culture is not realistic for us. What can be done to organize the information and guide a person through the steps in a simple and hopefully, failsafe manner? 8. Hans mentions the Deja. com as a resource. I visited it via Lynx, and found it to be much like other experiences in lynx--frustrating. I can read what is there, but I could not successfully do anything but read it. I am not sure even what it is for other than purchasing things that are not accessible. I have never used a search engine successfully. 9. The FAQ does do well at covering an enormous amount of information as concisely as it can. It is difficult for a novice to understand what many things are for, and what they do for a person using them. I read about many of them, and I still do not really know. EmacSpeak makes Emacs talk, but what good is Emacs as an application? It seems to be some type of editor cum Desqview, but even after reading the manual for it, going through the tutorial, and reading a couple of references about it, I still see little practical use for it. No macros??? SHUDDER!--Desqview has those. I HAD to have missed something. Thanks for considering the questions. My Pogo computer has crashed, and is not recovering. It has Red Hat 6.1 on it, with YASR and EmacSpeak. It is probably easiest to start from scratch, and partition the drives, format a Dos partition first, then set up a working and usable Linux system for a novice. How might this be done in a documented series of FAQ's? I am ready to volunteer to test them. I still have my working 232 Pentium with a primary DOS system that I am using. I do have a full time job--I run the Central Coast Northern Dog Rescue. My capabilities: I can use Lynx, sort of, and I can, on good days, even fTP a file successfully! I am okay with email. I know some BASIC, and some Forth. I can write aliases, macros, and batch files. I can use an editor if I have access to creating macros. I normally use the WP editor, called ED, with my own macro set. I have severe enough carpel tunnel syndrome to find Emacs not to be an option at this time--too many keystrokes--and if this is not heresy, I find it to be a difficult (primitive) system not within my present grasp. Remember, the newbie knows little of this language/culture, and has hundreds of new items to recall/remember. Trying to remember arcane keystrokes to do the simplest tasks means that one will probably avoid the application. I wrote a full macro set for WP and the editor to avoid this precise problem. I run 4DOS, and have an 8K alias file for that reason, as well.