Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Hello,
I sent some messages to mister John Covici but then figured that they have said do not message them and join to the mailing list instead. Well there were some questions I needed to ask:
First, Is it possible to instal GRML and not use the live CD?
second, is it possible to get free software synths other than what is the default one? That is good, but hard to understand.
Third, I should be able to switch to the GUI mode by pressing alt+ctrl+f7 but that does not work?
Fourth, is it possible to instal Linux on a computer that had Windows XP SP2 on it without data loss?
Thanks.
And now comes the introduction:
I'm Parham Doustdar, 17 years, from Iran, and am going to university to study computers this year. One of our books is about Linux and I have decided to switch to it. That's how I found you people. :)
Anything else? I'm very open to questions as long as we have no political talk about nuclear stuff and such here. That's ok for me, but that would cause some problems in the list, not me.
Take care,
Parham

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 02:00:59PM +0330, Parham wrote:
> First, Is it possible to instal GRML and not use the live CD?

Not that I'm aware of.

> second, is it possible to get free software synths other than what is the default one? That is good, but hard to understand.

The default synth in grml is flite, but grml 1.0 does include espeak
as well, which is much better than flite in my opinion. To get espeak
going, you need to edit /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf, and find
the line that says

DefaultModule flite

, and change it to say

DefaultModule espeak-generic

. Then, you need to restart speech-dispatcher with

/etc/init.d/speech-dispatcher restart

. I haven't actually gone through this while describing it, but just
wrote it from memory, so I stand to be corrected. The grml developer
who is on this list as well should really make it much easier to
switch to espeak for those who don't like flite. Perhaps a shell
script or alias that moves the default speechd.conf out of the way,
and moves a modified one into place, and restarts speech-dispatcher.


> Third, I should be able to switch to the GUI mode by pressing alt+ctrl+f7 but that does not work?

When grml starts up, at least the livecd, it starts into text mode,
and doesn't launch the gui. Pressing ctrl+alt+f7 while in the gui
would actually switch you into the gui, but since you're not in the
gui to start with, it will just switch you into the 7th text
console, if that's enabled. As for how to start the gui under grml, I don't know, since
I've never used that. At a guess, startx at the shell prompt should do
it, but you'll need to either read up on that yourself, or someone
else will have to explain that.

> Fourth, is it possible to instal Linux on a computer that had Windows XP SP2 on it without data loss?

That depends on what you mean by "without data loss". If you just mean
without losing your personal files, then the answer is to back them up
to somewhere, install gnu/linux, and move them back to the new
gnu/linux system. If you mean without losing your xp install, then
you'll need to resize the ntfs partition, and repartition your drive,
which is prone to error, or wipe xp, partition the drive the way you
want, and then reinstall xp, and install gnu/linux.

> Anything else? I'm very open to questions as long as we have no political talk about nuclear stuff and such here. That's ok for me, but that would cause some problems in the list, not me.

If your views on that are what I think they are, then you'd actually
find a few people here which are sympathetic to those views, but
you're right that such topics are probably not meant for this
list. The kirkaganda list that kirk runs would probably be more
appropriate for that kind of stuff. Kirk, is kirkaganda still
running? I haven't seen anything from there lately.

Greg



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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Hehe my views are not what you think they are. In fact, it's very hard to 
get me offended in those fields.
Anyway. Apart from those things, by the way you are talking, seems that GRML 
is not a reliable Linux distribution.
Do you have a recommendation for better distrubutions than GRML then? I've 
heard Red Hat is good. I'm a type of a kind of intermediate user, and 
usually get what I need through the net. The only aditional stuff I would 
need to come with that would be a browser, a media player, an email program, 
and other beginning programs that are needed and are important.
 Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 9:30 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 02:00:59PM +0330, Parham wrote:
>> First, Is it possible to instal GRML and not use the live CD?
>
> Not that I'm aware of.
>
>> second, is it possible to get free software synths other than what is the 
>> default one? That is good, but hard to understand.
>
> The default synth in grml is flite, but grml 1.0 does include espeak
> as well, which is much better than flite in my opinion. To get espeak
> going, you need to edit /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf, and find
> the line that says
>
> DefaultModule flite
>
> , and change it to say
>
> DefaultModule espeak-generic
>
> . Then, you need to restart speech-dispatcher with
>
> /etc/init.d/speech-dispatcher restart
>
> . I haven't actually gone through this while describing it, but just
> wrote it from memory, so I stand to be corrected. The grml developer
> who is on this list as well should really make it much easier to
> switch to espeak for those who don't like flite. Perhaps a shell
> script or alias that moves the default speechd.conf out of the way,
> and moves a modified one into place, and restarts speech-dispatcher.
>
>
>> Third, I should be able to switch to the GUI mode by pressing alt+ctrl+f7 
>> but that does not work?
>
> When grml starts up, at least the livecd, it starts into text mode,
> and doesn't launch the gui. Pressing ctrl+alt+f7 while in the gui
> would actually switch you into the gui, but since you're not in the
> gui to start with, it will just switch you into the 7th text
> console, if that's enabled. As for how to start the gui under grml, I 
> don't know, since
> I've never used that. At a guess, startx at the shell prompt should do
> it, but you'll need to either read up on that yourself, or someone
> else will have to explain that.
>
>> Fourth, is it possible to instal Linux on a computer that had Windows XP 
>> SP2 on it without data loss?
>
> That depends on what you mean by "without data loss". If you just mean
> without losing your personal files, then the answer is to back them up
> to somewhere, install gnu/linux, and move them back to the new
> gnu/linux system. If you mean without losing your xp install, then
> you'll need to resize the ntfs partition, and repartition your drive,
> which is prone to error, or wipe xp, partition the drive the way you
> want, and then reinstall xp, and install gnu/linux.
>
>> Anything else? I'm very open to questions as long as we have no political 
>> talk about nuclear stuff and such here. That's ok for me, but that would 
>> cause some problems in the list, not me.
>
> If your views on that are what I think they are, then you'd actually
> find a few people here which are sympathetic to those views, but
> you're right that such topics are probably not meant for this
> list. The kirkaganda list that kirk runs would probably be more
> appropriate for that kind of stuff. Kirk, is kirkaganda still
> running? I haven't seen anything from there lately.
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
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> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
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> uL2OgywEdgMraLOu4NT/1EA=
> =gdZY
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Lorenzo Taylor]

> Do you prefer a distribution that concentrates on the text-based
> environment, or is the GUI OK? I have had much success with Ubuntu
> http://www.ubuntu.com
> and use it almost exclusively. Well, it's my only Linux distribution
> of choice, and I only use Windows XP in a virtual machine to play
> audio games. Ubuntu includes Orca, which is a screen reader for the
> GNOME GUI and works well with Evolution (e-mail), Totem (Media
> player), and the alpha builds of the Firefox web browser as well as
> decent support of openoffice.org for word processing and spreadsheets
> as well as other things you may find usable and enjoyable.
> 
> I know I might get flamed for my choice, since Ubuntu is dropping
> support of Speakup in the next release, <smile>, but I have had no
> complaints or major breakage with it so far, even after quite
> prematurely upgrading to the unstable Gutsy repo. I can also say that
> Orca is working quite well for me in a text terminal to do those
> things I absolutely must use the command line for like copying and
> moving files and installing/removing/upgrading packages, simply
> because that's the way I prefer to do those things. Perhaps Ubuntu
> will include Speakup in a later release for those who still need pure
> text-mode access, but if you use the GUI at all, I highly recommend
> Ubuntu, even without Speakup.
> 
> If you prefer to have no GUI and only use text-mode/command-line
> applications, I would recommend Debian. Speakup modified versions of
> the Debian net install CD's are available for the latest stable
> version, and if you like the latest versions of packages, upgrading to
> Unstable usually doesn't cause any major breakage. I actually used
> Debian Unstable for about 3 years before switching to Ubuntu. I'm not
> sure, however, that Speakup modified Debian installers support
> software speech at this time. It is possible, though, to bootstrap a
> Debian system from an existing Unix-like OS, but this takes quite a
> lot of work, and I had trouble with it myself, and I consider myself
> somewhat of a power user.
> 
> As for Grml, I had trouble after installing it once, so I didn't try
> again. It may have just been the laptop I was instaling it on, but it
> behaved differently after the install than the live CD did. This was
> about 2 years ago, however, so a lot has probably changed since then.
> If your question about Grml was can it be installed in some other way
> than using the live CD, the answer is no, since Grml is only a live CD
> to my knowledge. If, however, your question is can Grml be installed
> to your hard drive, then the answer is yes. There is an install script
> that will put it on your hard drive for you with little or no trouble.
> If you like, try it out and you may find it quite useful. Grml is also
> Debian based, so you should get access to all the packages Debian has
> available.
> 
> Hope all this info helps,
> Lorenzo
>  
> I've always found anomalies to be very relaxing. It's a curse.
> --Jadzia Dax: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (The Assignment)

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

My answers to your questions were just answers, and didn't mean to
imply that grml is an unreliable distro. There are people who have
installed it to their hard drives, and are using it. 

As for recommendations, you've already gotten 1 for ubuntu. I myself
have started out with slackware for 5 years, and have moved on to debian as of
about a year and a half ago.

The question of which distribution is best, is a very personal
question. If you can, try out whatever you can get your hands on, and
settle for whatever you find you like using best.

Greg



On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 11:43:48PM +0330, Parham wrote:
> Hehe my views are not what you think they are. In fact, it's very hard to 
> get me offended in those fields.
> Anyway. Apart from those things, by the way you are talking, seems that GRML 
> is not a reliable Linux distribution.
> Do you have a recommendation for better distrubutions than GRML then? I've 
> heard Red Hat is good. I'm a type of a kind of intermediate user, and 
> usually get what I need through the net. The only aditional stuff I would 
> need to come with that would be a browser, a media player, an email program, 
> and other beginning programs that are needed and are important.
>  Any help would be appreciated.
> Thanks

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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 07:02:25PM -0400, Lorenzo Taylor wrote:
> I'm not
> > sure, however, that Speakup modified Debian installers support
> > software speech at this time.

No, the speakup modified installer doesn't support software speech. 

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself, 
why do I need the support of Speakup?
And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui and the 
text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above would 
be what I will help me decide.
Thanks for your help, both.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lorenzo Taylor" <daxlinux@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 2:32 AM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


>> Do you prefer a distribution that concentrates on the text-based
>> environment, or is the GUI OK? I have had much success with Ubuntu
>> http://www.ubuntu.com
>> and use it almost exclusively. Well, it's my only Linux distribution
>> of choice, and I only use Windows XP in a virtual machine to play
>> audio games. Ubuntu includes Orca, which is a screen reader for the
>> GNOME GUI and works well with Evolution (e-mail), Totem (Media
>> player), and the alpha builds of the Firefox web browser as well as
>> decent support of openoffice.org for word processing and spreadsheets
>> as well as other things you may find usable and enjoyable.
>>
>> I know I might get flamed for my choice, since Ubuntu is dropping
>> support of Speakup in the next release, <smile>, but I have had no
>> complaints or major breakage with it so far, even after quite
>> prematurely upgrading to the unstable Gutsy repo. I can also say that
>> Orca is working quite well for me in a text terminal to do those
>> things I absolutely must use the command line for like copying and
>> moving files and installing/removing/upgrading packages, simply
>> because that's the way I prefer to do those things. Perhaps Ubuntu
>> will include Speakup in a later release for those who still need pure
>> text-mode access, but if you use the GUI at all, I highly recommend
>> Ubuntu, even without Speakup.
>>
>> If you prefer to have no GUI and only use text-mode/command-line
>> applications, I would recommend Debian. Speakup modified versions of
>> the Debian net install CD's are available for the latest stable
>> version, and if you like the latest versions of packages, upgrading to
>> Unstable usually doesn't cause any major breakage. I actually used
>> Debian Unstable for about 3 years before switching to Ubuntu. I'm not
>> sure, however, that Speakup modified Debian installers support
>> software speech at this time. It is possible, though, to bootstrap a
>> Debian system from an existing Unix-like OS, but this takes quite a
>> lot of work, and I had trouble with it myself, and I consider myself
>> somewhat of a power user.
>>
>> As for Grml, I had trouble after installing it once, so I didn't try
>> again. It may have just been the laptop I was instaling it on, but it
>> behaved differently after the install than the live CD did. This was
>> about 2 years ago, however, so a lot has probably changed since then.
>> If your question about Grml was can it be installed in some other way
>> than using the live CD, the answer is no, since Grml is only a live CD
>> to my knowledge. If, however, your question is can Grml be installed
>> to your hard drive, then the answer is yes. There is an install script
>> that will put it on your hard drive for you with little or no trouble.
>> If you like, try it out and you may find it quite useful. Grml is also
>> Debian based, so you should get access to all the packages Debian has
>> available.
>>
>> Hope all this info helps,
>> Lorenzo
>>
>> I've always found anomalies to be very relaxing. It's a curse.
>> --Jadzia Dax: Star Trek Deep Space Nine (The Assignment)
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 07:55:54AM +0330, Parham wrote:
> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself, 
> why do I need the support of Speakup?

You don't, not if you plan to use the gui.

> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?

Orca does speak in terminal windows. To help clarify, and compare to
something you're probably used to, a terminal window is like the
dosbox in win9x, or like cmd.exe in the nt family,
(I.E. win2000/winxp/win2003 and so on).

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Right. So where does Speakup come in?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 07:55:54AM +0330, Parham wrote:
>> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself,
>> why do I need the support of Speakup?
>
> You don't, not if you plan to use the gui.
>
>> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
>
> Orca does speak in terminal windows. To help clarify, and compare to
> something you're probably used to, a terminal window is like the
> dosbox in win9x, or like cmd.exe in the nt family,
> (I.E. win2000/winxp/win2003 and so on).
>
> Greg
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
> - --
> Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
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> Q/o2MJzd57tmZXX5eWueI30=
> =Ngk2
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

And also another question. What if Orca doesn't support an application?
Can I get the CLI-based one and try it with Orca then?
And you have put me in doubts that either CLI is the same as GNOME terminal.
Thanks.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> My answers to your questions were just answers, and didn't mean to
> imply that grml is an unreliable distro. There are people who have
> installed it to their hard drives, and are using it.
>
> As for recommendations, you've already gotten 1 for ubuntu. I myself
> have started out with slackware for 5 years, and have moved on to debian 
> as of
> about a year and a half ago.
>
> The question of which distribution is best, is a very personal
> question. If you can, try out whatever you can get your hands on, and
> settle for whatever you find you like using best.
>
> Greg
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 11:43:48PM +0330, Parham wrote:
>> Hehe my views are not what you think they are. In fact, it's very hard to
>> get me offended in those fields.
>> Anyway. Apart from those things, by the way you are talking, seems that 
>> GRML
>> is not a reliable Linux distribution.
>> Do you have a recommendation for better distrubutions than GRML then? 
>> I've
>> heard Red Hat is good. I'm a type of a kind of intermediate user, and
>> usually get what I need through the net. The only aditional stuff I would
>> need to come with that would be a browser, a media player, an email 
>> program,
>> and other beginning programs that are needed and are important.
>>  Any help would be appreciated.
>> Thanks
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
> - --
> Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
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> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFGkDmL7s9z/XlyUyARAmFRAJ9IQsb736AAIju7PG9HdfmtxTWd9gCg2Pz+
> vHuioEXIP+zftNmk4ZXl0eI=
> =Wv7X
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Albert E. Sten-Clanton]

> Right. So where does Speakup come in?

I'm not sure, but maybe it doesn't matter if you're just using software speech.  With a hardware synth, though, speakup can kick in a lot earlier in the boot process when it can with software speech.  My experience with both the grml live cd and the ubuntu one is that speakup kicks in much sooner with grml than orca does with ubuntu.  This is just what I've found, though, and others may have better info for you.

Al



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Parham" <parham16@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 3:41 AM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> Right. So where does Speakup come in?
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:59 AM
> Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp
> 
> 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 07:55:54AM +0330, Parham wrote:
> >> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself,
> >> why do I need the support of Speakup?
> >
> > You don't, not if you plan to use the gui.
> >
> >> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
> >
> > Orca does speak in terminal windows. To help clarify, and compare to
> > something you're probably used to, a terminal window is like the
> > dosbox in win9x, or like cmd.exe in the nt family,
> > (I.E. win2000/winxp/win2003 and so on).
> >
> > Greg
> >
> >
> > - -- 
> > web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> > gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> > skype: gregn1
> > (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
> >
> > - --
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> > Q/o2MJzd57tmZXX5eWueI30=
> > =Ngk2
> > -----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
> 
> 
> -- 
> No virus found in this incoming message.
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> Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.2/890 - Release Date: 7/7/2007 3:26 PM
> 
>

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

Speakup and orca perform two different tasks, they work on different
parts of the operating system. To understand this you will need to
understand the difference of the text console and the GUI in Linux.

The text console of Linux, is a purely text based system. If you wish to
make a Ms comparison, the text console is like DOS. The text console
provides nearly (possibly all) the apps you will need. Many use the text
console as it is simpler, faster, and to some a preferable way to work.
The GUI is a Windows like environment. This environment may be more
welcoming to a person used to using Ms Windows, as in the GUI there are
all the usual things you expect, menus, list views, etc, meaning you
don't necessarily need to know how to use it fully (where as in the text
console you really need to know the commands). These two environments
are entirely separate, but you can have both environments on the system
(to use another Ms comparison, in the days of windows 95 it was possible
to use a proper DOS environment but you could also load into windows on
that one machine, Linux is like this, not like windows XP where the only
DOS like environment is a command window).

Now to explain why you would need speakup and orca. Speakup works only
for the text console (again in Ms terms, DOS screen readers could only
read DOS), and Orca only works in the GUI (a windows screen reader only
works in windows or a command prompt window, not a full DOS system). In
the GUI in Linux, there are command prompt terminal windows which work
with Orca, but I don't think Orca works as well as speakup does when I
want to do text commands. 

One thing I would say, remember Linux stuff is generally free, so if you
have the time, you may just want to try a few distros to find out what
suits you. You may wish to use a virtual machine system such as vmware
to save having to keep reformatting drives while you just try things out
and then when you have decided you could install your choice properly so
you are running directly in Linux.

It can be hard to answer some of the questions you have asked as alot
comes down to personal preference, so that is why I suggested try some
out and make your choice.

From
Michael Whapples
On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 07:55 +0330, Parham wrote:
> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself, 
> why do I need the support of Speakup?
> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
> Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui and the 
> text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above would 
> be what I will help me decide.
> Thanks for your help, both.

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

VMWare is free? If yes, would you give me the address to download it? And is 
it possible to run it under Windows XP?
Thanks.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> Speakup and orca perform two different tasks, they work on different
> parts of the operating system. To understand this you will need to
> understand the difference of the text console and the GUI in Linux.
>
> The text console of Linux, is a purely text based system. If you wish to
> make a Ms comparison, the text console is like DOS. The text console
> provides nearly (possibly all) the apps you will need. Many use the text
> console as it is simpler, faster, and to some a preferable way to work.
> The GUI is a Windows like environment. This environment may be more
> welcoming to a person used to using Ms Windows, as in the GUI there are
> all the usual things you expect, menus, list views, etc, meaning you
> don't necessarily need to know how to use it fully (where as in the text
> console you really need to know the commands). These two environments
> are entirely separate, but you can have both environments on the system
> (to use another Ms comparison, in the days of windows 95 it was possible
> to use a proper DOS environment but you could also load into windows on
> that one machine, Linux is like this, not like windows XP where the only
> DOS like environment is a command window).
>
> Now to explain why you would need speakup and orca. Speakup works only
> for the text console (again in Ms terms, DOS screen readers could only
> read DOS), and Orca only works in the GUI (a windows screen reader only
> works in windows or a command prompt window, not a full DOS system). In
> the GUI in Linux, there are command prompt terminal windows which work
> with Orca, but I don't think Orca works as well as speakup does when I
> want to do text commands.
>
> One thing I would say, remember Linux stuff is generally free, so if you
> have the time, you may just want to try a few distros to find out what
> suits you. You may wish to use a virtual machine system such as vmware
> to save having to keep reformatting drives while you just try things out
> and then when you have decided you could install your choice properly so
> you are running directly in Linux.
>
> It can be hard to answer some of the questions you have asked as alot
> comes down to personal preference, so that is why I suggested try some
> out and make your choice.
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 07:55 +0330, Parham wrote:
>> Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself,
>> why do I need the support of Speakup?
>> And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
>> Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui and 
>> the
>> text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above 
>> would
>> be what I will help me decide.
>> Thanks for your help, both.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 11:42:37AM -0400, Albert E. Sten-Clanton wrote:
> My experience with both the grml live cd and the ubuntu one is that
speakup kicks in much sooner with grml than orca does with ubuntu.

This is to be expected, especially if running off a cd, since the gui
needs to load more components, thus the longer delay.

Greg


- -- 
web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)

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-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

I forgot to mention, the free vmware server (that's fine for trying out
Linux distros) can be downloaded at www.vmware.com, you will need to
complete the online form for a free registration key. There may be other
virtual machine software which may be open source, but I am not sure of
which of them work on windows.

As I may have indicated, Linux allows you all this choice, that's why
some apps may seem uneeded, other than speakup, there is also yasr,
screader, and emacspeak can all be used in the text console for screen
reading, but they all work in different ways and so you may find one is
better for different tasks, so you may choose to have them all installed
and use the one best for the task you are doing at the time. The term
"free" extends beyond the money meaning normally when using Linux.

From
Michael Whapples
On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 17:22 +0100, Michael Whapples wrote:
> Speakup and orca perform two different tasks, they work on different
> parts of the operating system. To understand this you will need to
> understand the difference of the text console and the GUI in Linux.
> 
> The text console of Linux, is a purely text based system. If you wish to
> make a Ms comparison, the text console is like DOS. The text console
> provides nearly (possibly all) the apps you will need. Many use the text
> console as it is simpler, faster, and to some a preferable way to work.
> The GUI is a Windows like environment. This environment may be more
> welcoming to a person used to using Ms Windows, as in the GUI there are
> all the usual things you expect, menus, list views, etc, meaning you
> don't necessarily need to know how to use it fully (where as in the text
> console you really need to know the commands). These two environments
> are entirely separate, but you can have both environments on the system
> (to use another Ms comparison, in the days of windows 95 it was possible
> to use a proper DOS environment but you could also load into windows on
> that one machine, Linux is like this, not like windows XP where the only
> DOS like environment is a command window).
> 
> Now to explain why you would need speakup and orca. Speakup works only
> for the text console (again in Ms terms, DOS screen readers could only
> read DOS), and Orca only works in the GUI (a windows screen reader only
> works in windows or a command prompt window, not a full DOS system). In
> the GUI in Linux, there are command prompt terminal windows which work
> with Orca, but I don't think Orca works as well as speakup does when I
> want to do text commands. 
> 
> One thing I would say, remember Linux stuff is generally free, so if you
> have the time, you may just want to try a few distros to find out what
> suits you. You may wish to use a virtual machine system such as vmware
> to save having to keep reformatting drives while you just try things out
> and then when you have decided you could install your choice properly so
> you are running directly in Linux.
> 
> It can be hard to answer some of the questions you have asked as alot
> comes down to personal preference, so that is why I suggested try some
> out and make your choice.
> 
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 07:55 +0330, Parham wrote:
> > Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader itself, 
> > why do I need the support of Speakup?
> > And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
> > Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui and the 
> > text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above would 
> > be what I will help me decide.
> > Thanks for your help, both.
> 
> 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

The thing is that which one of these emulators should I get? And how can I 
install Linux on one?
Thanks.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


>I forgot to mention, the free vmware server (that's fine for trying out
> Linux distros) can be downloaded at www.vmware.com, you will need to
> complete the online form for a free registration key. There may be other
> virtual machine software which may be open source, but I am not sure of
> which of them work on windows.
>
> As I may have indicated, Linux allows you all this choice, that's why
> some apps may seem uneeded, other than speakup, there is also yasr,
> screader, and emacspeak can all be used in the text console for screen
> reading, but they all work in different ways and so you may find one is
> better for different tasks, so you may choose to have them all installed
> and use the one best for the task you are doing at the time. The term
> "free" extends beyond the money meaning normally when using Linux.
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 17:22 +0100, Michael Whapples wrote:
>> Speakup and orca perform two different tasks, they work on different
>> parts of the operating system. To understand this you will need to
>> understand the difference of the text console and the GUI in Linux.
>>
>> The text console of Linux, is a purely text based system. If you wish to
>> make a Ms comparison, the text console is like DOS. The text console
>> provides nearly (possibly all) the apps you will need. Many use the text
>> console as it is simpler, faster, and to some a preferable way to work.
>> The GUI is a Windows like environment. This environment may be more
>> welcoming to a person used to using Ms Windows, as in the GUI there are
>> all the usual things you expect, menus, list views, etc, meaning you
>> don't necessarily need to know how to use it fully (where as in the text
>> console you really need to know the commands). These two environments
>> are entirely separate, but you can have both environments on the system
>> (to use another Ms comparison, in the days of windows 95 it was possible
>> to use a proper DOS environment but you could also load into windows on
>> that one machine, Linux is like this, not like windows XP where the only
>> DOS like environment is a command window).
>>
>> Now to explain why you would need speakup and orca. Speakup works only
>> for the text console (again in Ms terms, DOS screen readers could only
>> read DOS), and Orca only works in the GUI (a windows screen reader only
>> works in windows or a command prompt window, not a full DOS system). In
>> the GUI in Linux, there are command prompt terminal windows which work
>> with Orca, but I don't think Orca works as well as speakup does when I
>> want to do text commands.
>>
>> One thing I would say, remember Linux stuff is generally free, so if you
>> have the time, you may just want to try a few distros to find out what
>> suits you. You may wish to use a virtual machine system such as vmware
>> to save having to keep reformatting drives while you just try things out
>> and then when you have decided you could install your choice properly so
>> you are running directly in Linux.
>>
>> It can be hard to answer some of the questions you have asked as alot
>> comes down to personal preference, so that is why I suggested try some
>> out and make your choice.
>>
>> From
>> Michael Whapples
>> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 07:55 +0330, Parham wrote:
>> > Sorry, something is not clear here. If Ubuntu has a screen reader 
>> > itself,
>> > why do I need the support of Speakup?
>> > And also, Orca doesn't support command lines?
>> > Yes. So far Ubuntu is very good since I want something which has gui 
>> > and the
>> > text version both together, but these questions that I mentioned above 
>> > would
>> > be what I will help me decide.
>> > Thanks for your help, both.
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 11:33:30AM +0330, Parham wrote:
> And also another question. What if Orca doesn't support an application?
> Can I get the CLI-based one and try it with Orca then?

If orca doesn't support a gui application, and there is a cli
alternative, then you can get that, and try running it in a xterm. I
haven't played much with orca support in xterm windows, so I don't
know how well that compares to running with speakup in a text console,
out of the gui. Some on here have said orca does well in xterm
windows, others have said that it doesn't do as well as speakup does,
so I don't know.

> And you have put me in doubts that either CLI is the same as GNOME terminal.

Mikel explained this well in one of his posts. Pretend you're using a
win95/win98/winme system. In a dosbox (a command-line window running
in the gui), you are running dos software, but are doing it in a gui,
this is like running a xterm window inside of the gnu/linux gui. Now,
If you went to the shutdown dialogue in our windows system, and chose
"restart the computer in ms-dos mode", You'd be in pure dos, without
the gui, and this is like the gnu/linux text console. Orca is
therefore a gui screen reader that can read xterm windows for you the
equivalent of the dosbox, along with reading the gui. Speakup is a
screen reader for the text console, that will work only in the text
console, the equivalent of using a screen reader in ms-dos mode in our
windows example. I hope that makes sense between the explanation Mikel
gave, and the one I just gave above.

Greg


- -- 
web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
skype: gregn1
(authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)

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=1Vct
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Yes Greg, it made perfect sense.
Thank you.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 8:34 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 11:33:30AM +0330, Parham wrote:
>> And also another question. What if Orca doesn't support an application?
>> Can I get the CLI-based one and try it with Orca then?
>
> If orca doesn't support a gui application, and there is a cli
> alternative, then you can get that, and try running it in a xterm. I
> haven't played much with orca support in xterm windows, so I don't
> know how well that compares to running with speakup in a text console,
> out of the gui. Some on here have said orca does well in xterm
> windows, others have said that it doesn't do as well as speakup does,
> so I don't know.
>
>> And you have put me in doubts that either CLI is the same as GNOME 
>> terminal.
>
> Mikel explained this well in one of his posts. Pretend you're using a
> win95/win98/winme system. In a dosbox (a command-line window running
> in the gui), you are running dos software, but are doing it in a gui,
> this is like running a xterm window inside of the gnu/linux gui. Now,
> If you went to the shutdown dialogue in our windows system, and chose
> "restart the computer in ms-dos mode", You'd be in pure dos, without
> the gui, and this is like the gnu/linux text console. Orca is
> therefore a gui screen reader that can read xterm windows for you the
> equivalent of the dosbox, along with reading the gui. Speakup is a
> screen reader for the text console, that will work only in the text
> console, the equivalent of using a screen reader in ms-dos mode in our
> windows example. I hope that makes sense between the explanation Mikel
> gave, and the one I just gave above.
>
> Greg
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
> - --
> Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>
> iD8DBQFGkRkM7s9z/XlyUyARAiwPAJ9+VdNqGlVQv3tM9Q4BWQN1uQaJHwCfeBJ/
> xdmUZEIatuCqoIK3wVV6zNM=
> =1Vct
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

On the topic of using Orca in a terminal window compared to speakup in
text consoles, I would say speakup is much more responsive (speakup is
more responsive than Orca in general, as an example, if using Orca and
evolution for email and the email is long (eg. if there is a lot of
untrimmed reply text), then orca is very unresponsive about keyboard
echo, where as speakup with a text based email client never has this
problem). Another observation with Orca is that in gnome-terminal, Orca
sometimes stops doing key echo, speakup in a text console never seems to
do this. To put it simply, Orca requires the GUI stuff, so relies on
more components, where as speakup is in the kernel so relies only on the
kernel (provided you are using hardware speech), so there is more
possibilities of something going wrong for Orca (although Orca seems to
be coming along now for reliability).

From
Michael Whapples
On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 10:04 -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 11:33:30AM +0330, Parham wrote:
> > And also another question. What if Orca doesn't support an application?
> > Can I get the CLI-based one and try it with Orca then?
> 
> If orca doesn't support a gui application, and there is a cli
> alternative, then you can get that, and try running it in a xterm. I
> haven't played much with orca support in xterm windows, so I don't
> know how well that compares to running with speakup in a text console,
> out of the gui. Some on here have said orca does well in xterm
> windows, others have said that it doesn't do as well as speakup does,
> so I don't know.
> 
> > And you have put me in doubts that either CLI is the same as GNOME terminal.
> 
> Mikel explained this well in one of his posts. Pretend you're using a
> win95/win98/winme system. In a dosbox (a command-line window running
> in the gui), you are running dos software, but are doing it in a gui,
> this is like running a xterm window inside of the gnu/linux gui. Now,
> If you went to the shutdown dialogue in our windows system, and chose
> "restart the computer in ms-dos mode", You'd be in pure dos, without
> the gui, and this is like the gnu/linux text console. Orca is
> therefore a gui screen reader that can read xterm windows for you the
> equivalent of the dosbox, along with reading the gui. Speakup is a
> screen reader for the text console, that will work only in the text
> console, the equivalent of using a screen reader in ms-dos mode in our
> windows example. I hope that makes sense between the explanation Mikel
> gave, and the one I just gave above.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
> 
> - --
> Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> 
> iD8DBQFGkRkM7s9z/XlyUyARAiwPAJ9+VdNqGlVQv3tM9Q4BWQN1uQaJHwCfeBJ/
> xdmUZEIatuCqoIK3wVV6zNM=
> =1Vct
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 
> 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Well. I ran GRML live and there is no speech when I type

grml swspeak

and it says that there is no run command when I type

run swspeak

Any opinion?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> On the topic of using Orca in a terminal window compared to speakup in
> text consoles, I would say speakup is much more responsive (speakup is
> more responsive than Orca in general, as an example, if using Orca and
> evolution for email and the email is long (eg. if there is a lot of
> untrimmed reply text), then orca is very unresponsive about keyboard
> echo, where as speakup with a text based email client never has this
> problem). Another observation with Orca is that in gnome-terminal, Orca
> sometimes stops doing key echo, speakup in a text console never seems to
> do this. To put it simply, Orca requires the GUI stuff, so relies on
> more components, where as speakup is in the kernel so relies only on the
> kernel (provided you are using hardware speech), so there is more
> possibilities of something going wrong for Orca (although Orca seems to
> be coming along now for reliability).
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 10:04 -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 11:33:30AM +0330, Parham wrote:
>> > And also another question. What if Orca doesn't support an application?
>> > Can I get the CLI-based one and try it with Orca then?
>>
>> If orca doesn't support a gui application, and there is a cli
>> alternative, then you can get that, and try running it in a xterm. I
>> haven't played much with orca support in xterm windows, so I don't
>> know how well that compares to running with speakup in a text console,
>> out of the gui. Some on here have said orca does well in xterm
>> windows, others have said that it doesn't do as well as speakup does,
>> so I don't know.
>>
>> > And you have put me in doubts that either CLI is the same as GNOME 
>> > terminal.
>>
>> Mikel explained this well in one of his posts. Pretend you're using a
>> win95/win98/winme system. In a dosbox (a command-line window running
>> in the gui), you are running dos software, but are doing it in a gui,
>> this is like running a xterm window inside of the gnu/linux gui. Now,
>> If you went to the shutdown dialogue in our windows system, and chose
>> "restart the computer in ms-dos mode", You'd be in pure dos, without
>> the gui, and this is like the gnu/linux text console. Orca is
>> therefore a gui screen reader that can read xterm windows for you the
>> equivalent of the dosbox, along with reading the gui. Speakup is a
>> screen reader for the text console, that will work only in the text
>> console, the equivalent of using a screen reader in ms-dos mode in our
>> windows example. I hope that makes sense between the explanation Mikel
>> gave, and the one I just gave above.
>>
>> Greg
>>
>>
>>
>> - -- 
>> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
>> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
>> skype: gregn1
>> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>>
>> - --
>> Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>> Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
>>
>> iD8DBQFGkRkM7s9z/XlyUyARAiwPAJ9+VdNqGlVQv3tM9Q4BWQN1uQaJHwCfeBJ/
>> xdmUZEIatuCqoIK3wVV6zNM=
>> =1Vct
>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

I have used the free vmware server at www.vmware.com, I just mentioned
that there may be others as some people prefer to use open source
software (as you have greater rights with open source software).

If you use vmware, I think most of it is quite self explanatrary,
download the windows version (I assume you will want to run this under
windows) install, load vmware, create a new hardware configuration (not
quite sure from memory what vmware calls this), choose the configuration
options you want from the screens that come up, modify and add extra
hardware if you want it (things like USB ports, serial ports, audio,
etc), make sure that configuration boots from CD , insert CD and then
get vmware to start the virtual machine and continue as if you were
running Linux directly on the computer (you may need to tell vmware to
grab keyboard input, I think it is ctrl+shift+g). Sorry those aren't
very specific, but I am doing this by memory, and I think the menu items
are enough (let us know if you have trouble and hopefully someone will
know the specific answer).

From
Michael Whapples
On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 20:33 +0330, Parham wrote:
> The thing is that which one of these emulators should I get? And how can I 
> install Linux on one?
> Thanks.

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Ok the problem with speech is now fixed. The only problem is that I have no 
idea what programs I can run. How can I get things I can run?
FOr example I typed "firefox" and it said, "cannot open display" or such 
thing.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


>I have used the free vmware server at www.vmware.com, I just mentioned
> that there may be others as some people prefer to use open source
> software (as you have greater rights with open source software).
>
> If you use vmware, I think most of it is quite self explanatrary,
> download the windows version (I assume you will want to run this under
> windows) install, load vmware, create a new hardware configuration (not
> quite sure from memory what vmware calls this), choose the configuration
> options you want from the screens that come up, modify and add extra
> hardware if you want it (things like USB ports, serial ports, audio,
> etc), make sure that configuration boots from CD , insert CD and then
> get vmware to start the virtual machine and continue as if you were
> running Linux directly on the computer (you may need to tell vmware to
> grab keyboard input, I think it is ctrl+shift+g). Sorry those aren't
> very specific, but I am doing this by memory, and I think the menu items
> are enough (let us know if you have trouble and hopefully someone will
> know the specific answer).
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 20:33 +0330, Parham wrote:
>> The thing is that which one of these emulators should I get? And how can 
>> I
>> install Linux on one?
>> Thanks.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Also there is another thing. How can I know the programs I have and their 
commands to run? I tried to run Firefox and it said "cannot open display". 
In the GUI version they would all be in start>applications, but what about 
in text versions?
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


>I have used the free vmware server at www.vmware.com, I just mentioned
> that there may be others as some people prefer to use open source
> software (as you have greater rights with open source software).
>
> If you use vmware, I think most of it is quite self explanatrary,
> download the windows version (I assume you will want to run this under
> windows) install, load vmware, create a new hardware configuration (not
> quite sure from memory what vmware calls this), choose the configuration
> options you want from the screens that come up, modify and add extra
> hardware if you want it (things like USB ports, serial ports, audio,
> etc), make sure that configuration boots from CD , insert CD and then
> get vmware to start the virtual machine and continue as if you were
> running Linux directly on the computer (you may need to tell vmware to
> grab keyboard input, I think it is ctrl+shift+g). Sorry those aren't
> very specific, but I am doing this by memory, and I think the menu items
> are enough (let us know if you have trouble and hopefully someone will
> know the specific answer).
>
> From
> Michael Whapples
> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 20:33 +0330, Parham wrote:
>> The thing is that which one of these emulators should I get? And how can 
>> I
>> install Linux on one?
>> Thanks.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp, part 1

[Gregory Nowak]

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

Here is the first part of my reply, since I needed to split this up to
stay within the 5k list limit.

On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 08:02:20PM +0330, Parham wrote:
> VMWare is free? If yes, would you give me the address to download it? And is 
> it possible to run it under Windows XP?

Yes, vmware-server is free, as in no cost, and you can find it at
http://www.vmware.com. However, in order to get a license key for it,
you need to give away most of your personal info, and agree to let
them spam you, so, I'm not downloading it as long as that is how you
get a license key for it. Yes, vmware-server does run under windows
xp.

There are 3 free alternatives however that I'm aware of, and they
don't require that you give away your I.D., and your right not to
receive spam, in order to use them. The first is microsoft virtualpc:

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc/

, and it runs on winxp professional, as well as the business flavors
of vista, according to microsoft. Since they don't mention winxp home,
that either means they don't support running it on that, or they did
something to make sure you can't run it on that. It doesn't support
linux specifically as a guest os, which means that the virtualpc guest
additions aren't available for linux, which means I probably wouldn't
be running a gnu/linux guest in virtualpc for the long term. Also,
it's quite a chore to get the hostkey to wrestle keyboard control away from the
guest back to the host. The one thing in it's favor is that it does
support accessing physical serial ports on the host from the guest,
even through a usb to serial converter, since the guest sees that as a
standard com port. In fact, I am in the process of setting up a debian
virtual machine, to use on the go (assuming the host system will have
the vm software installed), and for when I eventually get a modern laptop, so
I can just run gnu/linux then as a vm on the laptop, without needing
to worry whether or not it has a serial port, whether or not all of
its hardware is supported by gnu/linux, and whether or not I'd be
losing my warranty should I choose to repartition the drive. 

The reason I'm mentioning this, is because I installed debian from the
netinst cd inside of virtualpc with a serial synth, booted the grml
livecd once I was done, and had software speech running in the new vm,
I imaged the system partition using partition image, created a new vm
in the next alternative I'm about to describe below, and restored my
imaged system to that vm in the below described virtual machine
software, and have now a debian vm with software speech running in my
favorite free vm software, described next.

The second alternative is actually one that Alex recommended on here
recently. It is virtualbox:

http://www.virtualbox.org

Virtualbox comes in 2 flavors. The first flavor is an open source
version, released under the gpl. They only provide the source for that
version, and instructions on how to build it. It's aimed primarily at
developers, so they don't provide ready-built binaries of the open
source version.

The second flavor is the virtualbox commercial version, which is
released under a proprietary license as binaries only, but the license
is very liberal and straight-forward in my opinion. The differences
between the 2 versions are that the commercial version supports using
usb devices attached to the host inside the guest, and the commercial
version also supports running the virtual machine as a headless
machine using rdp, the remote desktop protocol, which is the same one
that microsoft terminal services uses in xp professional, in 2003, and
I believe in vista. Virtualbox does run on all versions of windows
since and including 2000, and it runs on gnu/linux, mac osx, and soon
on os2 as well.

There are 2 down sides as of now to virtual box. The first is that the
gui interface is written in qt3, which means that it's tedious to work
with. I was able to get around that slightly by reclassing the custom
control in window-eyes as a multi-document window, but since the class
and window style are the same for all components, I wasn't able to
reclass everything to what it actually is.

Continued in part 2 of this post.

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp, part 2

[Gregory Nowak]

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

Here is the second part of my post.

The good news there is that you can configure the entire program, and
all virtual machines using a command-line program, and I don't mind
using that, once I've read the manual, and learned how it works. The
second down side to virtualbox is that it doesn't as of now support
accessing physical serial ports on the host from the guest. Serial ports in
the guest are supported as of the latest version, but only to named
pipes on windows, or domain sockets in the gnu/linux versions. When I
asked on their mailing list if they plan to add physical serial port
access, they said they aren't planning to do so as of now, but they
did point out that contributions are welcomed to the open source
version, and that it wouldn't be too hard to write a backend modeled
on the named pipe/domain socket approach, to talk to a serial port on
the host. They do state in their documentation that well-written code
contributed to the open source version can be accepted into the
commercial version. Also, they did say in their documentation that
features currently existing in the commercial version only (usb
support, and vrdp), will eventually find their way into the open
source version as well. I do plan to have a look at their serial code
one of these days, and see if I understand enough of it to add
physical port support. It shouldn't be that difficult I'm thinking, all
you'd really need to do is intercept the serial port parameters the
guest sets the virtual port to, set the same parameters on the chosen
physical port, and then just shuttle data back and forth between the
virtual port, and the physical port.



I suppose this post wouldn't be complete without mentioning qemu:

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

, which is another virtual machine emulator, that is entirely open
source. It's beta software, primarily aimed at gnu/linux hosts, though
there is an alpha port of it to windows as well, that I believe even
runs on win9x/me as well. It does of course run under windows xp
also. I've had poor results trying the windows port, but Zach seems to
be having great success with it, judging from his posts on the subject
to this list.

Well, that's probably much more then what you were looking for, but it
gives you a fairly good run-down on what's available out there in
terms of virtual machine emulators. I'd recommend virtualbox myself,
but I must also admit I've developed a bias for it in the 2 weeks or
so, since I started playing with it.

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

The reason it said that, is because firefox is a gui application, and
you were apparently trying to run it in the text console. I stand to
be corrected, but since grml is a debian-based system, the following
should work:

To see a list of installed packages, type:

aptitude search '~i' |more

, and use the spacebar to move to the next screen. If you want to see
a description for each package in the list, type:

aptitude show packagename

Besides that, you'll want to learn about gnu/linux. The linux
documentation project

http://www.linuxdoc.org

is a good place to start. Hth.

Greg



On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 10:19:17PM +0330, Parham wrote:
> Ok the problem with speech is now fixed. The only problem is that I have no 
> idea what programs I can run. How can I get things I can run?
> FOr example I typed "firefox" and it said, "cannot open display" or such 
> thing.


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web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp, part 2

[Michael Whapples]

Those other virtual machine systems (virtualbox and qemu) were the ones
I was thinking of, I couldn't say much on them as I haven't tried using
them in windows so don't know enough about it. As for the situation with
vmware, yes they are as described, but you can solve the spam issues and
such like by having an email account specifically for that sort of case
(and most of their spam gets caught by spam filters anyway) and just
fill in nonsense for other details (considering this I don't know why
they bother doing it). As things go, I would not specifically recommend
vmware and I certainly would not consider buying their other products, I
just mentioned it as an example of the software which can be used, as it
is one I have tried in windows.

From
Michael Whapples

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

In text consoles you can get a list of possibilities of completions by
pressing the tab key. So as an example, if I wanted a list of all
commands beginning with speech I would type speech at the command prompt
and then press tab and on this system it completes it to
speech-dispatcher (as speech-dispatcher is the only command starting
with speech I have installed). If there is more than one command, the
system may beep when you press tab, pressing tab again will bring up a
list, eg. if I were to enter pin at the command prompt and press tab the
system beeps (requires system speaker to be enabled), and then when I
press tab again I get a list like
"ping   ping6   pinky"
This also works for filenames and directories.

It might be worth you finding some HowTos for Linux to find the basic
commands, the dos to unix HowTo is a good one for a windows or dos user
coming to linux (it only really explains the very basics, but does draw
comparisons to the Ms way). There are others for people beginning with
Linux, or ones on specific topics (eg. networking, email, etc).
Unfortunately I don't have a list of web addresses to hand for this, but
here google is a friend, and www.google.com/linux is specific to linux.

To explain what was going on when you entered firefox in the text
console, firefox is a GUI app, and as the GUI wasn't running it couldn't
find the GUI display for it to use, hence its failure to load.

Here is a short list of text console apps, not complete, but a starting
point. I haven't used GRML so don't know if these are included in GRML
by default.
nano or pico - a basic text editor
vi or vim - more text editors, different style to nano or pico, more
advanced
ne - again another text editor, advanced
cone, pine, mutt or elm - email clients
lynx - a basic web browser
links or elinks - more advanced web browsers
emacs or emacspeak - environment based around a advanced text editor,
but extended to much more including email and web browsing
ftp - a ftp client
man - view software manual pages
info - view software info pages
mplayer - some argue the player for nearly all formats
sox - swiss army knife of sound processing
aptitude - a package management system generally used in debian based
systems

Package management systems are useful starting points for finding out
about the software available.

From
Michael Whapples

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gaijin]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1 bytes --]



[-- Attachment #2: Param.txt --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 3215 bytes --]

    Hello Parham,

    Linux is a clone of the UNIX operating system.  If you can find a UNIX manual or book, that will help.  Linux is a layered operating system, much like the old Windows 3.11/MS-DOS operating system in the early 90's.  At the core, there is the kernal, and like a seed, it is surrounded by a shell.  The shell is your command line interface to the kernal and everything it does.  Surrounding that is the X11 graphical user interface, if installed.  X11 also contains a shell interface, usually presented in a virtual terminal window at X11 startup.  some shell commands you should know are:

cd = change directory.
ls list files/directories.
pwd = present working directory.
cat = catalog or display a file(s).
man = manual pages.
info = information pages.
alias = create keyboard shortcuts/macros.
chown = change ownership of a file/dir.
chmod = change file/dir modifiers for read/write/execute.
logout = log off your account.
reboot = reboot the computer.
halt = shutdown the computer.
passwd = change password.
su = switch to user.
more = pages a text file one page at a time.
less = like 'more' but better.
most = like 'less' but better.
grep = find text in a file.
find = find a file.
whereis = find a file.
locate = locate a file.
ed = edit a file.
vi = edit a file.
vim = edit a file.
mail = xmit mail.
pine = xmit email and news.
elm = like pine.
mutt = like pine.
tin = xmit news.
lynx = surf the web.
links = lynx with menus.
wget = download a website to disk.
tr = translate/change characters in a file.
sed = edit a data stream/file.

    A few good websitees for learning linux basics are www.slackware.com.  Find the "Slackbook" link and have at it.  The Linux Documentation Project is at www.ldp.org.  You can get questions answered at www.linuxquestions.org.  Another great place to find what's on your computer is in your /usr/doc directory.  Perform a:

cd /usr/doc
ls

to see what's installed and available.  Three maim directories where programs can be found are:

/bin
/usr/bin
/usr/bin/X11

System-wide configuration files are located in:

/etc

Personal configuration files are located in your home directory.  Enter the 'cd' command by itself to change to your home directory.

ls -a

lists all files in a directory, including hidden files that begin with a period.

/var

is where logs and other data is recorded.

/dev

is where devices are listed.  Everything, including hardware is listed here.  Other directories are:

/boot = where the kernal is.
/root = root's home directory.
/home = your user's home directories.
/sbin = system programs/daemons/services.
/opt = optional programs (commercial software).
/usr/local = your programs.
/usr/src = sourcecode directories.  Also:
/usr/local/src
/lib = system libraries.
/proc = kernal processes -careful!
/mnt = mount points for other hardware.

Other useful commands to explore:

tar, gzip, bzip2, groff, ping, traceroute, cut, echo, bash, sh, csh, ln, chfn, chsh, finger, telnet, emacs, startx...the list goes on and on, as there are over 4000 programs that can come in a Linux distribution, and that's not including the standard, bare-bones  linux commands.  Hope that helps, and welcome to Linux

          Michael

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 04:28:41AM +0100, Gaijin wrote:
>     A few good websitees for learning linux basics are www.slackware.com.  Find the "Slackbook" link and have at it.  The Linux Documentation Project is at www.ldp.org.  You can get questions answered at www.linuxquestions.org.  Another great place to find what's on your computer is in your /usr/doc directory.  Perform a:
> 
> cd /usr/doc
> ls

I've found that debian's site www.debian.org, also has what I'd call
excellent, and detailed to the point of boredom documentation. Also note
that while /usr/doc does exist under debian, you may find it is empty,
or has little in it. On debian, you'll want to check out
/usr/share/doc instead, just replace /usr/doc with /usr/share/doc in
the above shell script fragment.

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Parham]

Thank you both. The things you said helped me a lot, even what Greg said 
since GRML is Debian-based.
Anyway, there is just one more thing that I need to ask, since other things 
are described in the manuals that you gave me.
The thing is, how can I read things in the links application? and how can I 
activate links, move through edit boxes and such?
I saw no such things in the Speakup manual so I think those were worth 
asking.
And also, the "mail" command just says, "no mail.". Why?
Thanks again.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 7:26 AM
Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 04:28:41AM +0100, Gaijin wrote:
>>     A few good websitees for learning linux basics are www.slackware.com. 
>> Find the "Slackbook" link and have at it.  The Linux Documentation 
>> Project is at www.ldp.org.  You can get questions answered at 
>> www.linuxquestions.org.  Another great place to find what's on your 
>> computer is in your /usr/doc directory.  Perform a:
>>
>> cd /usr/doc
>> ls
>
> I've found that debian's site www.debian.org, also has what I'd call
> excellent, and detailed to the point of boredom documentation. Also note
> that while /usr/doc does exist under debian, you may find it is empty,
> or has little in it. On debian, you'll want to check out
> /usr/share/doc instead, just replace /usr/doc with /usr/share/doc in
> the above shell script fragment.
>
> Greg
>
>
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>
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> WA7YM298m6T4j0qFN62bbMs=
> =Cx5d
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> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gregory Nowak]

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

On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 09:39:57AM +0330, Parham wrote:
> The thing is, how can I read things in the links application? and how can I 
> activate links, move through edit boxes and such?
> I saw no such things in the Speakup manual so I think those were worth 
> asking.

I use lynx (note spelling) myself, and elinks if I need to use a
javascript page that I know works with elinks. So, someone who uses
links will need to answer that question.

> And also, the "mail" command just says, "no mail.". Why?

Most likely because you have no mail in your mailbox, you'll need to
download it from your mail server. I don't remember who mentioned
using mail, but I would personally advise against using it. I would
recommend something like mutt, or pine, which have more functionality
than mail does, and which are a bit more friendly I think.

Greg


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Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

links (some times known as links2) I think is very much like lynx to use 
(except for the look of it is more like elinks, eg. more spatial layout). 
Basically, use cursor keys (up and down) to move between links and controls, 
enter (or right arrow) to follow a link, backspace (or left arrow) to go 
back a page, type on a text control to enter text (I don't think it is like 
elinks where you need to press enter to allow text entry) and enter to 
interact with the control (eg. to push a button, tick a check box, etc). Use 
speakup's screen review keys (numpad) to read page contents, page up and 
down to move the view up and down a screen distance on the page. in links 
and elinks, escape accesses the menu, g to go to page, and q for quit.

I would recommend using pine or some client like that for email as they are 
more helpful (pine has a basic menu system and some instructions on screen).

From
Michael Whapples 

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Alex Snow]

you must not ave been inside X...try running firefox from the run 
dialog in Gnome.
On Sun, Jul 08, 2007 at 10:19:17PM +0330, Parham wrote:
> Ok the problem with speech is now fixed. The only problem is that I have no 
> idea what programs I can run. How can I get things I can run?
> FOr example I typed "firefox" and it said, "cannot open display" or such 
> thing.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples@aim.com>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 10:00 PM
> Subject: Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp
> 
> 
> >I have used the free vmware server at www.vmware.com, I just mentioned
> > that there may be others as some people prefer to use open source
> > software (as you have greater rights with open source software).
> >
> > If you use vmware, I think most of it is quite self explanatrary,
> > download the windows version (I assume you will want to run this under
> > windows) install, load vmware, create a new hardware configuration (not
> > quite sure from memory what vmware calls this), choose the configuration
> > options you want from the screens that come up, modify and add extra
> > hardware if you want it (things like USB ports, serial ports, audio,
> > etc), make sure that configuration boots from CD , insert CD and then
> > get vmware to start the virtual machine and continue as if you were
> > running Linux directly on the computer (you may need to tell vmware to
> > grab keyboard input, I think it is ctrl+shift+g). Sorry those aren't
> > very specific, but I am doing this by memory, and I think the menu items
> > are enough (let us know if you have trouble and hopefully someone will
> > know the specific answer).
> >
> > From
> > Michael Whapples
> > On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 20:33 +0330, Parham wrote:
> >> The thing is that which one of these emulators should I get? And how can 
> >> I
> >> install Linux on one?
> >> Thanks.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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

-- 
'Mounting' is used for three things: climbing on a horse, linking in a
hard disk unit in data systems, and, well, mounting during sex.
	-- Christa Keil

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp, part 2

[Alex Snow]

Another option is to use a site like easyvmx.com to create a virtual 
machine that you can then run in vmware player (a free download from 
vmware.com).

-- 
Once upon a time there was a DOS user who saw Unix, and saw that it was
good.  After typing cp on his DOS machine at home, he downloaded GNU's
unix tools ported to DOS and installed them.  He rm'd, cp'd, and mv'd
happily for many days, and upon finding elvis, he vi'd and was happy.  After
a long day at work (on a Unix box) he came home, started editing a file,
and couldn't figure out why he couldn't suspend vi (w/ ctrl-z) to do
a compile.
	-- Erik Troan, ewt@tipper.oit.unc.edu

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gaijin]

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> note
> that while /usr/doc does exist under debian, you may find it is > empty,
> or has little in it. On debian, you'll want to check out
> /usr/share/doc instead, just replace /usr/doc with /usr/share/doc in
> the above shell script fragment.

    Apologies.  Thought Parham wanted a package list of what's installed.  If he were running Debian, I'd say to run 'dpkg -l | less'.  I dunno how RPM does it...or pkgtool in Slackware either, for that matter, as I'm still trying to puzzle out the sendmail README files. <grins>  Can't seem to get rid of my FQDN.  Masquerading doesn't seem to wanna work.  Driving me batz, but I love it.  I'm typing this in Notepad because NVDA doesn't work with Thunderbird, and I love working for more than 30 minutes too much.  Stewpid web-based windows.  Besides, I told Parham about the various bin directories.  Why should he hafta look in /usr/share/doc, too? <ducks flying mouse pads>

        Michael

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Prokop]

* Parham <parham16@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well. I ran GRML live and there is no speech when I type

> grml swspeak

> and it says that there is no run command when I type

> run swspeak

> Any opinion?

What should the 'run' command do? Just execute 'swspeak' instead
(without the run in front of it).

regards,
-mika-
-- 
 ,'"`.         http://www.michael-prokop.at/
(  grml.org -» Linux Live-CD for texttool-users and sysadmins
 `._,'         http://www.grml.org/

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Michael Prokop]

* Gregory Nowak <greg@romuald.net.eu.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 07, 2007 at 02:00:59PM +0330, Parham wrote:

>> First, Is it possible to instal GRML and not use the live CD?

> Not that I'm aware of.

grml2hd exists. But I wouldn't really suggest it to people not being
familiar with Debian/unstable. Instead use grml-deboostrap and get a
plain Debian/stable plus additional software packages related to
accessibility.

I'd like to provide better accessibility features in
grml-debootstrap out-of-the-box, but as speakup doesn't seem to work
with kernel >=2.6.22 it looks like grml can't support
speakup/swspeak in upcoming versions at all. So I'd like to have
this sorted out (either a working speakup kernel patch, or even
better a userspace only solution) before putting any further effort
into it.

>> second, is it possible to get free software synths other than
>> what is the default one? That is good, but hard to understand.

> The default synth in grml is flite, but grml 1.0 does include espeak
> as well, which is much better than flite in my opinion. To get espeak
> going, you need to edit /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf, and find
> the line that says

> DefaultModule flite

> , and change it to say

> DefaultModule espeak-generic

> . Then, you need to restart speech-dispatcher with

> /etc/init.d/speech-dispatcher restart

> . I haven't actually gone through this while describing it, but just
> wrote it from memory, so I stand to be corrected. The grml developer
> who is on this list as well should really make it much easier to
> switch to espeak for those who don't like flite. Perhaps a shell
> script or alias that moves the default speechd.conf out of the way,
> and moves a modified one into place, and restarts speech-dispatcher.

I love it to find "should really make it much easier to..." requests
on non-grml mailinglists. Not. Why don't you send me a patch, alias,
script,... or at least make a feature request into my direction?
*grml*

-mika-
-- 
 ,'"`.         http://www.michael-prokop.at/
(  grml.org -» Linux Live-CD for texttool-users and sysadmins
 `._,'         http://www.grml.org/

Re: Some Questions About Linux And SpeakUp

[Gaijin]

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 Thank you both. The things you said helped me a lot, even what Greg > said 

    <chokes>  Well, yes.  Greg is a long-winded olt sod, wot? ... The Blighter!  On a more serious note, links and lynx both start by specifying the URL you want to visit.  Example:

links www.google.com

If your cursor controls are working, you should be able to read each page, line by line, by cursoring up and down.  If you need to, hit the plus key on the numeric keypad to re-read the screen, or Numpad 8 to re-read the line.  I use lynx, preferring no menus, but it has a problem with cursor tracking in Speakup.  If you keep being told to press all kinds of keys, hit Numpad * or multiply to toggle cursor tracking on and off.  The vi series of text editors also have cursor tracking problems, and you'll keep hearing your cursor position numbers as you try to type.  
    Back to lynx: You will not be told when you're on a link or not, but you may hear the web URL being spoken  

To execute a link, simply cursor to the right.  Similarly, cursor to the left to return to the previous page.  the 'd' key should download the highlighted link.  You can also use the spacebar to page down through the web page.  Insert-period on the numeric keypad is another useful key to know, as you will be told the foreground and background colors.  the lynx.cfg file (uswas in /etc in Debian) can be viewed to see which colors are used for links and edit boxes, headers, etc.  You can also cycle through links on the page with the Tab key.  Q will quit the program.  If you press Shift+Q, the program will exit without axing (a little ghetto lingo).
    BTW: colorized file listings are helpful, too.  In Debian, directories were printed in blue, and executable programs were in green.  Learn to use what's avbailable with SpeakUp first, and things will suddenly be alot easier.  I think your problem is that cursor tracking is toggled on.  HTH,

        Michael