Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Joe Clever]

Hi Listers,

I am a low vision user of linux and would like to add speakup to my laptop.
I have been futzing around with linux for about a year, but am still a
newbie. I already have stock Redhat 7.2 installed, along with WinME and
WinXP. If it's not too difficult, I would like to install speakup without
doing a full install of the modified Redhat/Speakup ISO's. I am basically
afraid of hosing my current partitioning. Is there more to it than just
replacing the kernel?  I looked through the mailing list archives for clues
and saw mention of ftp://ftp.octothorp.org/pub/redhat-7.2/b1/RedHat/RPMS/.
Are these the modified or stock RPM's?

Can someone give me some direction and/or point me to any specific doc's for
doing this?

Thanks.

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Jason]

yeah, speakup's just a kernel source patch, apply it and recompile... no need 
to worry about partitions getting hosed, and if you do it the right way you 
can even keep an option in your bootloader for your old (known good) kernel.

> Hi Listers,
>
> I am a low vision user of linux and would like to add speakup to my laptop.
> I have been futzing around with linux for about a year, but am still a
> newbie. I already have stock Redhat 7.2 installed, along with WinME and
> WinXP. If it's not too difficult, I would like to install speakup without
> doing a full install of the modified Redhat/Speakup ISO's. I am basically
> afraid of hosing my current partitioning. Is there more to it than just
> replacing the kernel?  I looked through the mailing list archives for clues
> and saw mention of ftp://ftp.octothorp.org/pub/redhat-7.2/b1/RedHat/RPMS/.
> Are these the modified or stock RPM's?
>
> Can someone give me some direction and/or point me to any specific doc's
> for doing this?
>
> Thanks.
>

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

You can either install one of Bill's kernel RPM's with speakup installed
(yes, that's the place to get them, I think), or you can compile yourself a
new kernel and patch in speakup.  If you're into compiling kernels, you
might want to go this route.

Geoff.


-- 
Geoff Shang <gshang10@scu.edu.au>
ICQ number 43634701

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Janina Sajka]

The images at octothorp.org and those in the redhat directory on 
linux-speakup.org are the same. They are the Speakup Modified Redhat 
distribution. You're better off to get them from the linux-speakup.org 
servers, because the network connection is better there.

Of course, as you suggest, you can also simply compile speakup into a new 
kernel for yourself. You must have the sources installed, and you must 
patch them with the speakup modifications before compiling. This is all 
explained in a file called INSTALLATION in the speakup directory at 
www.linux-speakup.org.

CAUTION: You may wish to do something to keep your existing kernel 
available, as was suggested earlier. That way, you have an out should 
things not go right. There are several ways to do that.

As for not hosing your partitions upgrading to a new installation, there's 
actually no need to lose anything in an upgrade--if you've set things up 
right. I do it all the time--but it works for me because my /home is a 
separate partition. I simply copy /usr/local to a temporary directory on 
/home, and do the same for my mailbox and /etc tree. It takes very little 
time to put things back after the upgrade.

Actually, I didn't say that right. There is an option to upgrade where 
your existing installation is simply updated. This is a menu selection in 
the installation program. What I was describing is a fully new 
installation of linux, where / and /usr (along with /var and /boot) are 
reformatted.
 On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, Joe Clever wrote:

> Hi Listers,
> 
> I am a low vision user of linux and would like to add speakup to my laptop.
> I have been futzing around with linux for about a year, but am still a
> newbie. I already have stock Redhat 7.2 installed, along with WinME and
> WinXP. If it's not too difficult, I would like to install speakup without
> doing a full install of the modified Redhat/Speakup ISO's. I am basically
> afraid of hosing my current partitioning. Is there more to it than just
> replacing the kernel?  I looked through the mailing list archives for clues
> and saw mention of ftp://ftp.octothorp.org/pub/redhat-7.2/b1/RedHat/RPMS/.
> Are these the modified or stock RPM's?
> 
> Can someone give me some direction and/or point me to any specific doc's for
> doing this?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Thomas Ward]

Hi, I am sure allot has been said on this topic so I will be brief. You can
certainly get the kernal packages prebuilt with speakup, and do the rpm-Uv
command on them to install them.
Of course as many have said if you have time and patients making a clean
kernel is the best thing to do. You can shrink the kernel down, get only the
modules you want, and etc.


----- Original Message -----
From: Joe Clever <jclever@clevercentral.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2002 6:45 PM
Subject: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation


> Hi Listers,
>
> I am a low vision user of linux and would like to add speakup to my
laptop.
> I have been futzing around with linux for about a year, but am still a
> newbie. I already have stock Redhat 7.2 installed, along with WinME and
> WinXP. If it's not too difficult, I would like to install speakup without
> doing a full install of the modified Redhat/Speakup ISO's. I am basically
> afraid of hosing my current partitioning. Is there more to it than just
> replacing the kernel?  I looked through the mailing list archives for
clues
> and saw mention of ftp://ftp.octothorp.org/pub/redhat-7.2/b1/RedHat/RPMS/.
> Are these the modified or stock RPM's?
>
> Can someone give me some direction and/or point me to any specific doc's
for
> doing this?
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[William F. Acker WB2FLW +1-303-777-8123]

Please explain to me, if you can, the disadvantages of having modules in 
your setup that you never load.



          Thanks.
          Bill in Denver


On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Thomas Ward wrote:

> Hi, I am sure allot has been said on this topic so I will be brief. You can
> certainly get the kernal packages prebuilt with speakup, and do the rpm-Uv
> command on them to install them.
> Of course as many have said if you have time and patients making a clean
> kernel is the best thing to do. You can shrink the kernel down, get only the
> modules you want, and etc.

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[Jason]

> Please explain to me, if you can, the disadvantages of having modules in
> your setup that you never load.
not many: they take up space, and can cause problems if accidentally loaded 
with no hardware to talk to. Other than those, I can't think of any, but 
besides making hardware upgrades a bit easier, I can't think of any 
advantages either. I'd say it balances, and that it can be left as a personal 
preference thing.

Re: Newbie, Adding Speakup to existing RH7.2 installation

[William F. Acker WB2FLW +1-303-777-8123]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Jason wrote:

> > Please explain to me, if you can, the disadvantages of having modules in
> > your setup that you never load.
> not many: they take up space, and can cause problems if accidentally loaded 
> with no hardware to talk to. Other than those, I can't think of any, but 
> besides making hardware upgrades a bit easier, I can't think of any 
> advantages either. I'd say it balances, and that it can be left as a personal 
> preference thing.
It's always a preference thing.  But if the pre-compiled RPMS are 
available with speakup included, I can't imagine why Thomas would advise a 
newbie to go through the trouble of configuring and compiling a kernel 
right off the bat.  We all used to do it, and for me, it was fun.  But now 
it's a bit easier.




          Bill in Denver