gentoo dropping speakup support

gentoo dropping speakup support

[William Hubbs]

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All,

because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.

[1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794

Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this will b a better approach.

Thanks,

- -- 
William Hubbs
gentoo accessibility team lead
williamh@gentoo.org
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Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Zachary Kline]

Hello,
    I would like to formally state that I disapprove of this removal.  It is 
only thanks to Speakup being included in the default kernel that we are able 
to perform unassisted installations of Gentoo at all.  This seems as if it 
would be a great step backwards.
    Might I suggest that we attempt to contact the Speakup mailing list and 
developers for information on this issue?
Thank you,
Zachary Kline.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William Hubbs" <williamh@gentoo.org>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 1:00 PM
Subject: gentoo dropping speakup support


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> All,
>
> because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup 
> in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
>
> [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794
>
> Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user 
> space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this 
> will b a better approach.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - -- 
> William Hubbs
> gentoo accessibility team lead
> williamh@gentoo.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFGdZLWblQW9DDEZTgRAsCOAJoD/roDmHTKu7ji8qTXZ2eoX47T1ACeIivJ
> j/qhb9Z6KNpfitEvr7Onrug=
> =mpb2
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

RE: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Sina Bahram]

In the spirit of open discovery, I will point out that I've never had any
problems with the accessibility of the ssh installation of gentoo.

I have sighted colleagues who never once have to use a monitor hooked up to
the target machine during a gentoo install, and only use ssh to accomplish
this, and I've done the same.


Take care,
Sina


-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Zachary Kline
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 4:37 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

Hello,
    I would like to formally state that I disapprove of this removal.  It is
only thanks to Speakup being included in the default kernel that we are able
to perform unassisted installations of Gentoo at all.  This seems as if it
would be a great step backwards.
    Might I suggest that we attempt to contact the Speakup mailing list and
developers for information on this issue?
Thank you,
Zachary Kline.

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Hubbs" <williamh@gentoo.org>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 1:00 PM
Subject: gentoo dropping speakup support


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> All,
>
> because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup

> in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
>
> [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794
>
> Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user 
> space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this 
> will b a better approach.
>
> Thanks,
>
> - -- 
> William Hubbs
> gentoo accessibility team lead
> williamh@gentoo.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFGdZLWblQW9DDEZTgRAsCOAJoD/roDmHTKu7ji8qTXZ2eoX47T1ACeIivJ
> j/qhb9Z6KNpfitEvr7Onrug=
> =mpb2
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Gaijin]

Zachary Kline wrote:
>     I would like to formally state that I disapprove of this removal.

     Are they leaving even one SpeakUp kernel in the distro...so people 
can at least get *something* working?  Bugrit.

         Michael

RE: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Tom Moore]

Could the Speakup patch be left out for the kernel types it does not build
on?
As far as I know we really don't have any way of testing on systems that
aren't i386 or amd64. So there's not any real way of knowing if Speakup
works on other architectures.

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of William Hubbs
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 4:00 PM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: gentoo dropping speakup support

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

All,

because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup
in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.

[1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794

Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user space
as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this will b a
better approach.

Thanks,

- -- 
William Hubbs
gentoo accessibility team lead
williamh@gentoo.org
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_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Michael Whapples]

While it is a shame that you find this, thank you for saying what the
exact problem is. If speakup won't compile on x86-64 either now, I am
sure that soon someone will fix that as it probably affects quite a
number of users.

Other than the install of gentoo, I don't think the impact is as bad as
it is for other distros as gentoo users may tend to want to compile a
custom kernel anyway. The install probably isn't such a problem as I
think if you are doing an install from the internet then it doesn't
matter what version of gentoo the CD is as the installed system will be
the latest, so a user could use the last release with speakup to install
with speakup (unless they are doing an install without internet access,
for which there may not be a solution).

On a different note, while I don't know enough about the kernel to be
certain, but is this problem to do with speakup and the way it accesses
the serial ports? As I remember from some previous discussions about
speakup and serial port access, I think it was said that if speakup used
the standard serial port driver then it should be possible to use serial
ports not built on the motherboard. So would this also help in solving
such a problem as found in gentoo? If so might it be time to say it must
be done?

Unfortunately I currently cannot help with this as I am a python
programmer so would need to learn C before I could do anything, probably
something I should do as so much opensource software is written in C.

From
Michael Whapples
On Sun, 2007-06-17 at 15:00 -0500, William Hubbs wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> All,
> 
> because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
> 
> [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794
> 
> Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this will b a better approach.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - -- 
> William Hubbs
> gentoo accessibility team lead
> williamh@gentoo.org
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> j/qhb9Z6KNpfitEvr7Onrug=
> =mpb2
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 
> 

gentoo dropping speakup support

[John covici]

As you said in your comment this will be a great step backwards -- I
was able to install gentoo on a laptop without assistance because of
speakup being built in and now that ubuntu has dropped it, this would
be no good.  How about just saying its not selectable for spark and
seeing if we can get it to work for 2.6.22 elsewhere which I am sure
Kirk is working on?  

The user space idea may be something worth considering as we no longer
get the boot messages we used to get, however this would be a much
bigger change.  Kirk is working on a git patch set which may help, but
its broke right now.


on Sunday 06/17/2007 William Hubbs(williamh@gentoo.org) wrote
 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
 > Hash: SHA1
 > 
 > All,
 > 
 > because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
 > 
 > [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794
 > 
 > Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this will b a better approach.
 > 
 > Thanks,
 > 
 > - -- 
 > William Hubbs
 > gentoo accessibility team lead
 > williamh@gentoo.org
 > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
 > Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
 > 
 > iD8DBQFGdZLWblQW9DDEZTgRAsCOAJoD/roDmHTKu7ji8qTXZ2eoX47T1ACeIivJ
 > j/qhb9Z6KNpfitEvr7Onrug=
 > =mpb2
 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
 > 
 > _______________________________________________
 > Speakup mailing list
 > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
 > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Luke Yelavich]

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On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 06:00:22AM EST, William Hubbs wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> All,
> 
> because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
> 
> [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794

I'd also like to point out that Ubuntu will be offering 2.6.22, and even 
though speakup has been dropped, unless a solution for 2.6.22 is worked 
out, speakup will also not work with the Next Ubuntu release.
- -- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au
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Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Deedra Waters]

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Hash: SHA1

On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Michael Whapples wrote:

> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 23:22:19 +0100
> From: Michael Whapples <mwhapples@aim.com>
> Reply-To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>     <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support
>
> While it is a shame that you find this, thank you for saying what the
> exact problem is. If speakup won't compile on x86-64 either now, I am
> sure that soon someone will fix that as it probably affects quite a
> number of users.

- From what i gather it's not building with  .22 in general though i could
be wrong. However, not building on x86-64 does effect a lot of users,
because a lot of the blind folks  i've talked to lately are using amd64
and other similar systems.

>
> Other than the install of gentoo, I don't think the impact is as bad as
> it is for other distros as gentoo users may tend to want to compile a
> custom kernel anyway. The install probably isn't such a problem as I
> think if you are doing an install from the internet then it doesn't
> matter what version of gentoo the CD is as the installed system will be
> the latest, so a user could use the last release with speakup to install
> with speakup (unless they are doing an install without internet access,
> for which there may not be a solution).

actually, most gentoo users use the gentoo-sources kernels because they
have several aditional patches. You are right in that gentoo users can
use an older livecd to install the system, which is what i suggest
people do since any newer releases won't be able to talk because of the
speakup support being removed.
>
> On a different note, while I don't know enough about the kernel to be
> certain, but is this problem to do with speakup and the way it accesses
> the serial ports? As I remember from some previous discussions about
> speakup and serial port access, I think it was said that if speakup used
> the standard serial port driver then it should be possible to use serial
> ports not built on the motherboard. So would this also help in solving
> such a problem as found in gentoo? If so might it be time to say it must
> be done?

You are right, that is the problem here. Williamh and i talked a great
deal before he wrote that email. While i don't like this idea, i think
it's time that speakup be put into user space as daniel has said in the
bug. If you really must have the boot omessages you can get them from
dmesg, or at worst, use the kernel config option to get your kernel to
dump panics in swap space, stick the machine on a livecd and get the
panics that way. Unfortunately, i'm with daniel on this one i really
think it's  time to put speakup into user space.
>
> Unfortunately I currently cannot help with this as I am a python
> programmer so would need to learn C before I could do anything, probably
> something I should do as so much opensource software is written in C.
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-06-17 at 15:00 -0500, William Hubbs wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > All,
> >
> > because of this bug [1], gentoo linux will be dropping support for speakup in its official kernels starting at 2.6.22.
> >
> > [1] http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177794
> >
> > Is there any possibility at all that speakup could be moved into user space as the bug suggests?  I feel that if we can go into user space this will b a better approach.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > - --
> > William Hubbs
> > gentoo accessibility team lead
> > williamh@gentoo.org
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
> >
> > iD8DBQFGdZLWblQW9DDEZTgRAsCOAJoD/roDmHTKu7ji8qTXZ2eoX47T1ACeIivJ
> > j/qhb9Z6KNpfitEvr7Onrug=
> > =mpb2
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

- -- 
Deedra Waters - Gentoo accessibility and amd64 -
dmwaters@gentoo.org
Gentoo linux: http://www.gentoo.org

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Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Travis Siegel]

I have to strongly disagree here as relates to bootable messages.
Speakup makes linux the *only* os where blind users can see the boot  
up as it happens.  Even dos can't do that, and I have more than once  
managed to fix a machine with linux because of the speakup capability  
to speak *all* bootup messages.  Dumping them to a logfile, booting  
with a live cd, then reading the log may work for users who are  
advanced enough to figure it out, (or are lucky enough to have simple  
enough configurations this can be done) but by doing so, you're  
basically saying that those who want to troubleshoot their own boxes  
w/o sighted assistance are sol.
And, if the hd is bad, then your logging isn't going to work anyhow.   
Not to mention, this isn't a process that can be done w/o sighted  
assistance.
While I'm more of a slackware user than anything else, having speakup  
work out of the box is something I've enjoyed almost since speakup  
was released, and I for one would be extremely sorry (not to mention  
irritated at the lack of access it would mean) to have it removed  
into user space.  There's already programs for user space access  
(yasr anyone) and while those work for normal usage, they aren't  
usable for troubleshooting and/or fixing a broken machine.  I've been  
doing my own technical support since 1990 (or thereabouts) and having  
this capability now removed would be the equivalent of moving to  
vista before any screen readers were specifically targeted to it.   
Sure, you could use the system, but you're not going to get anywhere  
near the full use out of your system you'd otherwise get.

I don't have a 64-bit machine, so can't help fix this problem, nor  
are my C skills up to the task (likely) but I'd strongly urge those  
with the capability, to *not* abandon speakup working as it does now.
I will of course help where I can, but yanking it entirely out of the  
boot sequence is just asking for additional problems.
Don't do it.

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Zachary Kline]

Hello,
    I agree.  It is simply not going to work if it is forced into user 
space.  The fact I have a supported hardware synthesizer means that I'm able 
to read everything as it comes up, debug things that don't, etc.  I couldn't 
go back to even software speech, because with software speech you don't get 
that, and the reason is user space.  Speech-dispatcher and speechd-up and 
such are userspace programs, and so if the machine doesn't get to a point 
where they can launch we're dead in the water.  I for one am going to be 
attending a university in the fall, and don't look forward to having to ask 
a sighted person to tell me what the kernel panic says or how the FSCK is 
coming.
Please, if possible reconsider this decision.  It is extremely unproductive 
in the longterm.  Any problems Speakup may have building with 2.6.22 will be 
fixed in due course.
Thank you,
Zachary Kline.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Travis Siegel" <tsiegel@softcon.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support


>I have to strongly disagree here as relates to bootable messages.
> Speakup makes linux the *only* os where blind users can see the boot
> up as it happens.  Even dos can't do that, and I have more than once
> managed to fix a machine with linux because of the speakup capability
> to speak *all* bootup messages.  Dumping them to a logfile, booting
> with a live cd, then reading the log may work for users who are
> advanced enough to figure it out, (or are lucky enough to have simple
> enough configurations this can be done) but by doing so, you're
> basically saying that those who want to troubleshoot their own boxes
> w/o sighted assistance are sol.
> And, if the hd is bad, then your logging isn't going to work anyhow.
> Not to mention, this isn't a process that can be done w/o sighted
> assistance.
> While I'm more of a slackware user than anything else, having speakup
> work out of the box is something I've enjoyed almost since speakup
> was released, and I for one would be extremely sorry (not to mention
> irritated at the lack of access it would mean) to have it removed
> into user space.  There's already programs for user space access
> (yasr anyone) and while those work for normal usage, they aren't
> usable for troubleshooting and/or fixing a broken machine.  I've been
> doing my own technical support since 1990 (or thereabouts) and having
> this capability now removed would be the equivalent of moving to
> vista before any screen readers were specifically targeted to it.
> Sure, you could use the system, but you're not going to get anywhere
> near the full use out of your system you'd otherwise get.
>
> I don't have a 64-bit machine, so can't help fix this problem, nor
> are my C skills up to the task (likely) but I'd strongly urge those
> with the capability, to *not* abandon speakup working as it does now.
> I will of course help where I can, but yanking it entirely out of the
> boot sequence is just asking for additional problems.
> Don't do it.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[C.M. Brannon]

"Zachary Kline" <Z_kline@hotmail.com> writes:

>     I agree.  It is simply not going to work if it is forced into user 
> space.  The fact I have a supported hardware synthesizer means that I'm able 
*snip*
> I for one am going to be attending a university in the fall, and
> don't look forward to having to ask a sighted person to tell me what

Hi Zach,
I am pursuing an M.S. degree in comp sci, and I've used software
speech on the laptop for nearly a year now.  I refuse to carry a
hardware synth.  I already carry an external keyboard, because I
dislike laptop keyboards.  Plugging in one or two peripherals is a
pain, if you ask me.  Plus, if you are anything like I am, then there
won't be any room in your laptop bag to carry a hardware synth.
I have never had to ask a sighted person to read Linux boot messages
for me, ever.  The only time I ask people to read screens for me is
when I need to use the university's Windows systems (a rarity).
I usually find a sighted female to help me with this; it gives me a
good excuse to listen to a pleasant non-robotic voice.
In any case, most of the people at university will not mind helping
you with such a small thing.

999 times out of 1000, you'll boot your laptop, speech-dispatcher and
friends will start, and all will be well.

Just my two cents,
-- Chris

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Deedra Waters]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I've not used something like what you're suggesting to fix my system but
i've used a livecd god knows how many times to fix my system, boot,
chroot, and fix, has worked well enough for me in the past and i've seen
other gentoo users use the same to fix their machines.
On Sun, 17 Jun 2007, Doug Sutherland wrote:

> Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:48:52 -0500
> From: Doug Sutherland <doug@proficio.ca>
> Reply-To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>     <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support
>
> I still wonder about the usb console in relation to speakup.
> The kernel already has support to direct console to usb
> rather than serial port, and has had this capability for a
> long time, yet we still can't use usb serial adapters with
> speakup because the code assumes hardware serial
> port. My understanding is that with usb serial console
> you may miss a bit of the initial boot messages, but I
> wonder how it might work if speakup was in user space
> and we could use usb serial adapters. We'd miss a few
> of the initial boot messages but enable more widespread
> use of speakup. One way or another this usb problem
> needs to be sorted out. I have heard it mentioned by
> someone, I forget who, that a hybrid solution might
> be the answer, some kernel space and some user.
> It could be argued that a lot of what happens with
> speakup is application code, and if the line was drawn
> between actual hardware drivers and application code
> then there would be better chance of getting speakup
> into the official kernel. And this, of course, would be
> the best thing to happen. If it was all in the kernel with
> no patches required then there would be none of this
> discussion about gentoo or ubuntu not supporting it.
> But presumably the whole thing would have to be
> re-written. I can think of another reason to do this
> hybrid idea, to enable getting speakup beyond x86
> and into ARM for example. There is no ISA bus
> there and interrupts are completely different. If it
> was well engineered as hybrid, with a "port" being
> generically abstracted in the application code, then
> it would not matter if the actual port was ISA or
> PCI card or USB or firewire, or some other thing
> that hasn't been invented yet.
>
> I have an interim suggestion though. Couldn't one
> make a small root filesystem that loads speakup
> like as a rescue CD, but not a CD, on the hard
> drive, for those situations where the regular distro
> isn't speaking for whatever reason? If you always
> had a small partition like this bootable with speech
> then you could at least boot that and then fix your
> full fledged distro if need be. Also wondering if
> anyone has tried using chroot in this sort of way,
> booting minimal system with speech and then
> chrooting into the full system.
>
>   -- Doug
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

- -- 
Deedra Waters - Gentoo accessibility and amd64 -
dmwaters@gentoo.org
Gentoo linux: http://www.gentoo.org

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Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Travis Siegel]

Doug.
Your suggestion of having a small installation on the machine is a  
good one, and it probably would work.  However, this assumes you  
already know what the problem is that needs fixed.  Without having  
access to the actual boot messages (not just the ones you see while  
booting into your sandbox as it were) you'll never be able to solve   
any major problems that crop up in regards to the main system.
it is however, not a bad idea, since it would allow some degree of  
free usage w/o sighted assistance on simple fixes.  it wouldn't  
address the  main issue though.
And, in any case, it's functionally equivalent to the original  
suggestion of using a live cd to boot and work on fixing the issues  
from there.

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Doug Sutherland]

I still wonder about the usb console in relation to speakup.
The kernel already has support to direct console to usb 
rather than serial port, and has had this capability for a 
long time, yet we still can't use usb serial adapters with 
speakup because the code assumes hardware serial 
port. My understanding is that with usb serial console 
you may miss a bit of the initial boot messages, but I 
wonder how it might work if speakup was in user space
and we could use usb serial adapters. We'd miss a few
of the initial boot messages but enable more widespread
use of speakup. One way or another this usb problem 
needs to be sorted out. I have heard it mentioned by 
someone, I forget who, that a hybrid solution might 
be the answer, some kernel space and some user.
It could be argued that a lot of what happens with 
speakup is application code, and if the line was drawn
between actual hardware drivers and application code
then there would be better chance of getting speakup
into the official kernel. And this, of course, would be 
the best thing to happen. If it was all in the kernel with
no patches required then there would be none of this
discussion about gentoo or ubuntu not supporting it.
But presumably the whole thing would have to be 
re-written. I can think of another reason to do this
hybrid idea, to enable getting speakup beyond x86
and into ARM for example. There is no ISA bus 
there and interrupts are completely different. If it 
was well engineered as hybrid, with a "port" being
generically abstracted in the application code, then
it would not matter if the actual port was ISA or 
PCI card or USB or firewire, or some other thing
that hasn't been invented yet.

I have an interim suggestion though. Couldn't one
make a small root filesystem that loads speakup 
like as a rescue CD, but not a CD, on the hard 
drive, for those situations where the regular distro
isn't speaking for whatever reason? If you always
had a small partition like this bootable with speech
then you could at least boot that and then fix your
full fledged distro if need be. Also wondering if 
anyone has tried using chroot in this sort of way,
booting minimal system with speech and then 
chrooting into the full system.

  -- Doug

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Gaijin]

Travis Siegel wrote:
> Doug.
> Your suggestion of having a small installation on the machine is a  
> good one, and it probably would work.

     I second the motion.  I'm about to get a LiteTalk here this week 
and and install Slackware.  An extra 7 to 10 Gig dual-boot partition is 
a darned good one.  I was planning on running a dual-boot setup to the 
same kernal, hopefully using the append command in lilo to boot 
different runlevels.  Have a coupleset aside for emergency boots to 
software synth emulation in one runlevel, etc...if lilo supports it. 
Having an emergency diagnostic partition is even better.  Thanks Doug.

         Michael

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Luke Yelavich]

On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 03:06:35PM EST, Doug Sutherland wrote:
> One more suggestion. If gentoo or ubuntoo or any distro 
> doesn't include speakup, how about a script that grabs 
> a kernel from kernel.org, extracts, patches, compiles, 
> and installs it?

 That would be useful, however speakup as it currently stands, will not 
work with 2.6.22, period, no matter what distro does or does not ship 
it, or no matter what script is set up to grab it all and glue it 
together.
-- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Doug Sutherland]

Travis,

I wasn't suggesting that this was addressing the real problem,
as I said, it was a suggestion as interim way to at least have 
speech if  the regular boot doesn't talk. 

The problem is bigger than user space or not. Right now you
cannot grab a doubletalk LT and plug it into a USB serial 
adapter and use speakup, or any RS232 synth. 

Interestingly though, you can plug a doubletalk LT into USB
serial adapter and configure the kernel for usb serial console
and get ALMOST all of the boot messages, but speakup 
will not work.

The days of having RS232 ports on PCs might be limited, 
and  there's lots of RS232 synths around, so this is an 
example where the real answer lies in at mininal some 
re-architecture of the speakup driver.  

I'm perhaps a bit over the edge here, but I like to think 
a lot in the multimodal sense that its always a bad idea 
to assume specific modality, like a PC keyboard for 
example. What I would like to see happening in speech 
and accessibility in general is generic interfaces that do 
not assume specific device. The synth has functions that
you invoke with keyboard, now let's say it was on a 
phone with 4x4 keypad, or on a remote control, it 
would be nice if it could still be doable. So basically 
rather than assuming 104 key keyboard that would be
one mapping of function to controller. 

There seems to be several good arguments for 
re-architecting the drivers in this way, on both the 
synth and user ends of the whole. 

The kernel versus user space argument is interesting.
Consider ALSA, you have kernel drivers, but you 
also have apps that use those drivers like the config
apps and the mixers and players. I tend to think that
strategically speakup needs to move in that direction.

Tactically my suggestion was coming up with some 
small easily installable root file system and kernel 
that would enable speech for those who don't have
it working, which from watching this list for several
years, seems to be many people.

What would be really cool is a USB dongle that 
is not only a speech system but an entire linux 
system on flash too. You could boot it on a 
windows machine and not use windows at all.
And ideally it would also work with windows.
Okay, now back to reality, I'd be happy just to 
figure out how to solve the usb serial problem
in the near term.

  -- Doug



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Travis Siegel" <tsiegel@softcon.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support


> Doug.
> Your suggestion of having a small installation on the machine is a  
> good one, and it probably would work.  However, this assumes you  
> already know what the problem is that needs fixed.  Without having  
> access to the actual boot messages (not just the ones you see while  
> booting into your sandbox as it were) you'll never be able to solve   
> any major problems that crop up in regards to the main system.
> it is however, not a bad idea, since it would allow some degree of  
> free usage w/o sighted assistance on simple fixes.  it wouldn't  
> address the  main issue though.
> And, in any case, it's functionally equivalent to the original  
> suggestion of using a live cd to boot and work on fixing the issues  
> from there.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Gaijin]

Doug Sutherland wrote:
> There seems to be several good arguments for 
> re-architecting the drivers in this way, on both the 
> synth and user ends of the whole.

      Sounds like SpeakUp is not really a module, but a reworking of the
kernel.  If SpeakUp were implemented more as a module...can't modules be
loaded from the lilo/grub boot prompt?  If so, then it could be included
as a kernel module, loaded at startup by those who need it...I really
need to see the code. <sighs>  I'm thinking if it were a module that 
simply works with the kernal, there'd be less resistance to adding it to 
the source.  Does the kernal support dual monitors?  It could possibly 
be implemented in a similar manner...if Linus already has implemented 
something similar.  Just follow his example...use his own code against 
him, in a manner of speaking. <grins>  We could also get him really, 
really drunk and tell him that he was the one who wrote it.  I could 
also threaten to marry his sister?  It would be worth it.

         Michael

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Doug Sutherland]

One more suggestion. If gentoo or ubuntoo or any distro 
doesn't include speakup, how about a script that grabs 
a kernel from kernel.org, extracts, patches, compiles, 
and installs it? I once made a script that built an entire
linux system from scratch, I mean building the toolchain
and all, if that's possible surely this is too. I suppose the
tricky part is kernel config, but even then it should be 
possible to make a generic kernel that would boot with
speech on just about anything, with some work.

Or, you could use slackware, hehe. 
Screw gentoo. Just kidding.

  -- Doug

RE: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Jim Grimsby Jr.]

Hi what I want to know is how come speakup is not part of the base line
kernel?  It seems to be a problem every time a new kernel comes out.  If
speakup was infact included in the base line kernel it seems to me every
distro would pick it up. 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Luke Yelavich
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 9:28 PM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Re: gentoo dropping speakup support


On Mon, Jun 18, 2007 at 03:06:35PM EST, Doug Sutherland wrote:
> One more suggestion. If gentoo or ubuntoo or any distro
> doesn't include speakup, how about a script that grabs 
> a kernel from kernel.org, extracts, patches, compiles, 
> and installs it?

 That would be useful, however speakup as it currently stands, will not 
work with 2.6.22, period, no matter what distro does or does not ship 
it, or no matter what script is set up to grab it all and glue it 
together.
-- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup


-- 
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.0/852 - Release Date: 6/17/2007
8:23 AM

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Doug Sutherland]

Speakup does use modules, and it can be statically compiled 
into kernel instead. That's not a problem. The serial ports, 
however only support real serial ports, not usb-serial, which 
is becoming a problem.

As I said a few months ago, the whole usb mess can be 
statically compiled, including the usb core, the host controller, 
and even usb-serial devices audio devices, and synth drivers, 
like the dtlk for example, so in theory it should be possible to 
boot and get speech output, with changes to speakup.

As it is now, the code refers to the standard serial port 
addresses and irqs, and the communication code is RS232 
specific. 

So this what I mean about abstraction. An abstract interface 
does not implement anything, it only defines. The implementation 
can be anything as long as it follows the interface. So basically 
there needs to be a layer of code in between the serial port code
and the code that writes to it, one interface with several 
implementations, RS232 serial, USB serial, and potential for any 
other kind of implementation. And my argument was that the 
same could be done on the user side, pressing a certain key does 
some thing, currently assumed to be standard keyboard, but 
would be nice if abstract interface where the keyboard is one type 
of controller, other devices could trigger same. I'm mostly thinking 
about mobile pervasive systems, where you might want to read a 
message or email, not type, and your device is in your pocket. So 
you have a little controller sort of like a game pad where you can
move between messages and read them etc, or get phone numbers 
from a list. If the interface to the synth is generic then there are all 
kinds of  possibilities.

I will be working on this kind of thing with speech, and I am 
still contemplating whether or not it needs to be kernel space. 
On an embedded device you really don't need to see all the 
boot messages, because it will load kernel from flash and will
always work. If I find a way to adapt this code to work on 
arm then I might use it, but I actually think I could do the same
thing entirely in user space. Boot is much simpler than PC and
very fixed in nature, ie once done it shouldn't change, no need
to support gazillions of types of hardware etc. I like the idea
of being able to hear the console output, but then I might end
up just using usb-serial console and having a microcontroller
providing a terminal function, in other words both the speech
and keyboard functions. If done that way it would possibly 
miss a very small amount of boot messages, but not many. 
It would be the same as using a terminal program with your
PC connected to another PC with usb serial dongle and 
watching the other machine boot. 

  -- Doug

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Michael Whapples]

Doug your talking a lot of sense, and when I mentioned about speakup and
how it accesses serial ports I think I was thinking back to some of your
comments.

You have within this thread mentioned should be speakup be a combination
of kernel code and user space code, I think I may have mentioned this
before and would also support this type of idea. As an example, I think
the jupiter speech system is this combination approach, how does it
compare to speakup for ease of being maintained to work with newer
kernels, I know that there has been some times in the past when speakup
has had to be altered specifically for newer kernels (sometimes breaking
it for the older kernels).

Another thought about this idea of making the core of speakup not be
interface specific (which I think would be a good idea), is that I think
on the list someone asked about a headless install, and there was a
reply that if by headless this would also mean no video card, then
speakup wouldn't work, I don't know if it could be done another way, but
this seems a bit specific (thinking, may be speakup would have a driver
to access video memory, but also could have another dummy graphics
driver should the machine not have a video card).

Having all the boot messages, while it is useful, and speakup is about
the only way I know how to get the messages at the time (all, from the
earliest possible moment), the question should be asked, on a properly
configured system, how many problems might realistically occur before
such a stage as USB console can work, and eventually the serial ports
that speakup can currently use will soon be gone if the trend of
hardware manufacturers is anything to go by.

I don't know how many are actually working on speakup, but I think it is
only a few and speakup is probably not the only thing for them. I have
to admit as I understand things we are going to have to make hard
decissions and put what effort in the best direction, may it need to be
a complete rewrite, etc.

From
Michael Whapples
On Mon, 2007-06-18 at 01:18 -0500, Doug Sutherland wrote:
> Speakup does use modules, and it can be statically compiled 
> into kernel instead. That's not a problem. The serial ports, 
> however only support real serial ports, not usb-serial, which 
> is becoming a problem.
> 
> As I said a few months ago, the whole usb mess can be 
> statically compiled, including the usb core, the host controller, 
> and even usb-serial devices audio devices, and synth drivers, 
> like the dtlk for example, so in theory it should be possible to 
> boot and get speech output, with changes to speakup.
> 
> As it is now, the code refers to the standard serial port 
> addresses and irqs, and the communication code is RS232 
> specific. 
> 
> So this what I mean about abstraction. An abstract interface 
> does not implement anything, it only defines. The implementation 
> can be anything as long as it follows the interface. So basically 
> there needs to be a layer of code in between the serial port code
> and the code that writes to it, one interface with several 
> implementations, RS232 serial, USB serial, and potential for any 
> other kind of implementation. And my argument was that the 
> same could be done on the user side, pressing a certain key does 
> some thing, currently assumed to be standard keyboard, but 
> would be nice if abstract interface where the keyboard is one type 
> of controller, other devices could trigger same. I'm mostly thinking 
> about mobile pervasive systems, where you might want to read a 
> message or email, not type, and your device is in your pocket. So 
> you have a little controller sort of like a game pad where you can
> move between messages and read them etc, or get phone numbers 
> from a list. If the interface to the synth is generic then there are all 
> kinds of  possibilities.
> 
> I will be working on this kind of thing with speech, and I am 
> still contemplating whether or not it needs to be kernel space. 
> On an embedded device you really don't need to see all the 
> boot messages, because it will load kernel from flash and will
> always work. If I find a way to adapt this code to work on 
> arm then I might use it, but I actually think I could do the same
> thing entirely in user space. Boot is much simpler than PC and
> very fixed in nature, ie once done it shouldn't change, no need
> to support gazillions of types of hardware etc. I like the idea
> of being able to hear the console output, but then I might end
> up just using usb-serial console and having a microcontroller
> providing a terminal function, in other words both the speech
> and keyboard functions. If done that way it would possibly 
> miss a very small amount of boot messages, but not many. 
> It would be the same as using a terminal program with your
> PC connected to another PC with usb serial dongle and 
> watching the other machine boot. 
> 
>   -- Doug

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Lorenzo Taylor]

For a couple of years now I have felt that Speakup should move into
userspace, and from time to time I have posted messages to this effect
on this list. However I have thought it over and have come to the
conclusion that Speakup as it is should remain in the kernel for the
sake of those of us who have hardware synthesizers and who can receive
the boot messages from start to finish for troubleshooting purposes. On
the other hand, speakup in its present form will never gain wide use in
major distributions unless it makes it into the mainline kernel tree. My
present position is that an alternative userspace only application with
the functionality of Speakup should be developed. Unfortunately, the
text console userspace only screen reading applications are limited to
YASR and Emacspeak. Despite being portable, these applications are quite
limiting, since YASR runs a subshell under a running shell in one
console only and Emacspeak requires that Emacs be running. A screen
reading application based on Brltty's direct access to the console is
the best approach to take, since it provides direct access to the
currently visible console even if switched, including messages printed
to the console by the kernel, and is quite portable, being able to run
on any Unix-like OS and even DOS. The configuration is also much easier
since it has a configuration menu and a persistent configuration file
that it reads automatically at startup so that the persistent files
don't have to be copied into /proc to change configuration options. I
found also that Brltty can actually start very early on in the boot
process, and can even get access to boot messages earlier than Speakup
as modules using software speech. I have for some time wanted to play
around with PC/Free/Open/NetBSD, but it's nearly impossible, since
Speakup depends on the Linux kernel and only YASR and Emacspeak will run
on such systems, and I don't want to have access only via SSH or telnet.
Some sort of Brltty derived or other userspace only app that will
provide the same type of access would help me and others to be able to
use and possibly help develope these other OS's.

I guess this message has possibly become a call for developers/others
who can help me in developing a portable userspace only screen reading
application, based on Brltty or not, with as much of the functionality
of Speakup as possible as an alternative to a kernel based screen
reader. Speakup is good for what it does and should stay in the kernel.
It just needs a little work to become mainline kernel ready, and kernel
code tends to scare off some developers (like me). <smile> I have played
with coding some userspace applications, and have contributed some code
to others, but the kernel still scares me. I also like the userspace
approach for portability. If anyone who knows anything about programming
or can help me in any way and is interested in helping to develope such
a portable userspace only screen reader, feel free to contact me off
list for discussion of concepts and how to procede. I will be posting
messages to other blind Linux user lists as well, unless someone wishes
to forward this message on to such lists. I look forward to getting this
project off the ground, not as an insult to the Speakup developers who
have put so much time and effort into a good application, but as an
alternative when Speakup just won't do the job because of its dependence
on the Linux kernel and the extensive patching needed to make it work
with an upstream kernel.

Live long and prosper,
Lorenzo

-- 
I've always found anomalies to be very relaxing. It's a curse.
--Jadzia Dax: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (The Assignment)

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Samuel Thibault]

Hi,

Lorenzo Taylor, le Mon 18 Jun 2007 10:40:26 -0400, a écrit :
> My present position is that an alternative userspace only application
> with the functionality of Speakup should be developed.

Just to put my 2 technological cents: in userspace, speakup should
probably be split into speech-dispatcher back-ends that drive speech
synthesizers, and a speech-dispatcher front-end that reads the screen.

Samuel

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Travis Siegel]

As a starting point, I know brltty has already been ported to OSX.   
Perhaps that could be used as a base to expand it's usefulness  
further to other bsd like operations.

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Gaijin]

Lorenzo Taylor wrote:
> It just needs a little work to become mainline kernel ready, and kernel
> code tends to scare off some developers (like me). <smile>

     Can SpeakUp be re-written as a loadable module?  I'm thinking of
loading the user interface as a module at the boot prompt.  Various
parameters could then call additional modules which support specific
hardware and port assignments.  That way, SpeakUp would, and would not
be part of the kernel.  Being modular in design, both users and kernal
programmers could take it or leave it.  In a previous post, someone said
Linus didn't care for the way it was implemented...no offense to Kirk
and Andy.  Then kernal programmers wouldn't have to write code around
SpeakUp.  There would be far less resistance to including it in the
mainline kernal.
     Perhaps if SpeakUp accessed screen output the same way video 
modules do?  I'm sure the answers are already present in the kernal for how
to implement SpeakUp, at least for those of us who already can support
it.  I figure if primative BIOS can access and use a USB keyboard, then
a kernal module can recognise and use a USB synth in a similar fashion.
  The answer is already in the kernal.  It just needs to be cut and
pasted into the SpeakUp interface and connected.  SpeakUp could then 
call whatever hardware support module is required or needed, 
irregardless of the platform.
     If SpeakUp can call on whatever hardware service is supported by 
Platform-X, then it would just be a matter of telling SpeakUp what to 
use and how to communicate with the synth.  (Jeez, I need to see the 
code.)  I'll get this effer cross-platform supported if it's the LAST 
thing I do. <growls>

         Michael

Re: gentoo dropping speakup support

[Gaijin]

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 02:12:15AM -0600, Keith Hinton wrote:
> I had to upgrade my servers portage to testing and a lot of other things
> were necessary to be on bleading edge. Gentoo 2008.0 is fine, but it becomes
> much harder to update if you install from a 2008.0 CD.

	Yeah, that's the problem with riding the bleeding edge.  The 
ride never stops.  Makes me wish sometimes that the improvement phase 
would stop so the bugs could be wiped, and SpeakUP could be released in 
at least one completed form or version.  At least then the distros would 
then have something to latch onto for their releases.

			Michael

-- 
Linux User: 	177869                                       Powered by Intel

RE: gentoo dropping speakup support

[James Homuth]

Right now, there is to my knowledge no ISO containing speakup. But it's
something they're apparently working on for the new profiles coming out. At
least, that's the rumor anyway. Someone more in the know will probably chime
in later on. 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Keith Hinton
Sent: August 31, 2009 4:12 AM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: gentoo dropping speakup support

Hi,

Forgive me for the subject that I decided to post your message with, but I
wanted to see:

Ever sinse posting that subject back in 2007, how do you feel about where
Speakup  is now?

Also, has Gentoo released a iso with Speakup in it?

If so, where do I obtain the new Iso?

I am not sure where Gentoo's autobuilds are located anymore directory
structure wise.

Also,  Gentoo Linux 2008.0 is old, way old.

I had to upgrade my servers portage to testing and a lot of other things
were necessary to be on bleading edge. Gentoo 2008.0 is fine, but it becomes
much harder to update if you install from a 2008.0 CD.

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

gentoo dropping speakup support

[Keith Hinton]

Hi,

Forgive me for the subject that I decided to post your message with, but I
wanted to see:

Ever sinse posting that subject back in 2007, how do you feel about where
Speakup  is now?

Also, has Gentoo released a iso with Speakup in it?

If so, where do I obtain the new Iso?

I am not sure where Gentoo's autobuilds are located anymore directory
structure wise.

Also,  Gentoo Linux 2008.0 is old, way old.

I had to upgrade my servers portage to testing and a lot of other things
were necessary to be on bleading edge. Gentoo 2008.0 is fine, but it becomes
much harder to update if you install from a 2008.0 CD.