Re: Integrating Speakup/ESpeakup into Debian boot process, part 2

[Gregory Nowak <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>]

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Here's the second part of my reply.


> I only have the2.6.18 Shane kernel to count on when
> the latest upgrade crashes on bootup, because there are no more speakup
> upgrades scheduled in Lenny, and I have to port to the never-ending
> battle with Sid...or do you really think all this talk sounds like
> English to a Fedora/Slackware/BSD/SuSE user or Linux newbie?

Even if speakup won't be upgraded in Lenny, Lenny's default kernel is
2.6.26, so I don't see why you're using Shane's 2.6.18 kernel, which
has security issues, if I recall correctly, if that's the one that
came on Shane's netinst CD for Etch. Besides, I thought you said
you're running Sid, for which there still are speakup upgrades, so
your concern with the lack of speakup upgrades in Lenny makes no sense
to me. Even if speakup won't be upgraded in Lenny, there is nothing
stopping you from building a newer version for yourself, once you have
the knowledge to do so.

> 	It's not like someone who's just gotten their Lenny CD from
> cheapbytes, are even going to know what questions to ask to get info, let
> alone know where to go, what to look for, and how to even possibly
> manage to keep up with it all in an unstable version of Debian that may
> not work from one day to the next, all while just trying to get it set
> up and configured in the first place.

See my comments above on both issues, I already said all I needed to
say there.

> 	Yes, I do have a problem with run-on sentences. <grins>  I'm
> just saying that Debian isn't the best platform to choose where new
> technology like accessibility is concerned.  Once a version goes stable,
> Advances get locked out, and when you depend on those advances, Debian
> is pretty much the worst system to count on.

Well, then I guess that means there's no GNU/Linux distribution for
people to use, since every distribution's stable branch doesn't have
advances made to it, until the next stable version. I will grant
though that some distributions have upgrades more frequently than
others. I am personally happy with how Debian gets upgraded, since
there's plenty of time for things to be tested, before a new stable
release, though I realize others may not like the long wait between
versions, and they have other options, both inside, Debian, and
outside it for faster progress.

> Very few things in
> Debian are standard with the rest of the Linux world because of debconf
> and dpkg dependencies.

Well, then I guess that means that Fedora, and distributions based on
it are also non-standard, because of yum (or whatever Fedora uses for
package configuration), and rpm dependencies.

> Debian is beginning to look like Windows where the
> ability to get around  what the maintainers are forcing everyone to do
> is concerned.  It's either "depend on Debian to do it or go without,"
> a'la Microsoft.

As I've said in other posts on this list, Debian isn't forcing anyone
to do anything. If you don't like how a certain package is built,
there's nothing stopping you from building your own local copy, once
you've acquired the knowledge on how to do this.

> 	I had much the same problem with Orca, tying itself to the GTK
> libraries, instead of acting like speech-dispatcher and acting like a
> middleman between Xorg and the synthesizer, translating X server
> transmissions to speech.

I don't think that's as simple as you're making it out to be. GTK from
what I understand, is how orca communicates with gnome
applications. For Xorg to talk to a synthesizer directly, (assuming
that can even be done) something would have to be done by the Xorg
people, and it's not orca's/gnome's/Debian's fault that Xorg hasn't done that yet.

> They are never going to stop playing catch-up,
> trying to clean up behind hundreds of programs rather than just one,
> decoding the X server transmissions/feed itself.  Otherwise you're
> always having to depend on the sighted world to generously grant you some 
> support, like a dog hoping for a few table scraps from it's master.

Orca's development isn't dependent on the sited world, since if I
recall correctly, there are also blind folks working on it, and I'm
sure on gnome itself.

> 
> 	I'm still waiting for that edbrowse upgrade that fixes the 1z bug 
> that won't print the first line of a web page in Lenny, and it's been out
> there for months.  I don't think it ever will be upgraded until Sid goes
> stable in another 2 to 4 years.

Nothing is stopping you from building edbrowse from source, and not
 using the debian package. I already addressed the amount of time that
 a distribution's branch is stable above, and I don't need to repeat here.

> That's Debian in a nutshell.  It's
> policies make it the absolutely *wrong* platform where new tech is
> concerned, unless you're a linux guru and want to join the "play
> never-ending catch-up" game with the Orca maintainers.

I have to disagree here, but that's just my opinion.

Greg


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