Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Gaijin]

	Man, I dunno what happened to speakup, but I just did the Debian 
upgrade and now speakup is repeating itself and warbling the sound 
volume all over the place.  I would be typing something and it would 
start repeating what I'd typed.  I finally had to disable espeakup and 
the soft synth module to get control back.

	The synthesizer volume would "deflect" a bit, getting higher and 
lower as it spoke the screen, and even switching back to the ltlk 
module, it's skipping text and occasionally the first letter of the 
beginning of a sentence.  How do I get back to the previous release?

				Michael


-- 
Linux User: 	177869                                       Powered by Intel

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Chris Brannon]

Michael <gaijin@clearwire.net> wrote:
> 	Man, I dunno what happened to speakup, but I just did the Debian 
> upgrade and now speakup is repeating itself and warbling the sound 
> volume all over the place.  I would be typing something and it would 
> start repeating what I'd typed.  I finally had to disable espeakup and 

I have never seen anything like that.
What versions of the software are you running?

I don't remember how to downgrade a Debian machine, since that isn't what
I'm running.  Someone with more knowledge of Debian will hopefully
answer your question about downgrading.

-- Chris

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Gaijin]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:06:50AM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> I have never seen anything like that.

	Nevermind.  It was just my &^%$#@! mouse wedged under the 
computer cabinet, mashing the right mouse button.

				Michael

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Chris Brannon]

Michael <gaijin@clearwire.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:06:50AM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> > I have never seen anything like that.
> 
> 	Nevermind.  It was just my &^%$#@! mouse wedged under the 
> computer cabinet, mashing the right mouse button.

Ok, that makes sense.
Here's a dumb question.  Is there any reason that you need a mouse connected?

-- Chris

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Gaijin]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 01:34:34PM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> Here's a dumb question.  Is there any reason that you need a mouse connected?

	Yeah, for the GUI, when I need to swipe the mouse around the 
screen to visualize how it's laid out, or at least until Orca irons out 
some of the quirks, or someone modifies X.org altogether to support the 
blind. <grins> I was hoping the guys at X.org would take an idea from 
speech-dispatcher and crack open another channel for audible screen 
output to a synthesizer/screen reader, bypassing the need to decypher 
Gnome, KDE, or whatever other desktop manager was in use.

				Michael

X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Chris Brannon]

> I was hoping the guys at X.org would take an idea from 
> speech-dispatcher and crack open another channel for audible screen 
> output to a synthesizer/screen reader, bypassing the need to decypher 
> Gnome, KDE, or whatever other desktop manager was in use.

I really like that idea, but I don't believe it is very workable.
Here is the reason.  As always, someone with more knowledge is welcome
to correct me.

The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions.  It concerns
itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices.
That information isn't very useful when rendering objects via speech or
braille.  Suppose that a program wants to present a dialog box to the user.
At the X level, that dialog box isn't a dialog box.  Instead, it is a
sequence of operations for controlling the display.
Could you appreciate a painting if I gave you a pixel-by-pixel description
of it?  I think not.
Desktop environments like Gnome give us a higher level of abstraction, and
Orca doesn't have to deal with those raw X events.

-- Chris

Re: X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Samuel Thibault]

Chris Brannon, le Tue 19 Jan 2010 06:10:22 -0600, a écrit :
> The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions.  It concerns
> itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices.

Yes.

> Desktop environments like Gnome give us a higher level of abstraction, and
> Orca doesn't have to deal with those raw X events.

Yes.

Note: yes, there _is_ a text rendering interface in X11 too, but no
recent toolkit use it because it is a pain to integrate and lacks a lot
of features. So basically X11 is just pixmaps nowadays.

Samuel

Re: X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Gaijin]

On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 06:10:22AM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions.  It concerns
> itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices.

	So, you're saying that the information X.org is receiving from, 
say, X-Chat is all graphical information?  Weird.  Whoever came up with 
that idea for how to do things must be a brain-dead moron, because 
working with themes must be beyond hope where beauty is concerned.  I 
used to love working with semi-transparent backgrounds, and making it 
appear as if programs were being displayed on smoked glass, being able 
to see other programs underneath the currently active program.  I 
thought it was visually stunnning, myself.  For the blind, I guess it 
would be like having multiple voices coming from a set of quadraphonic 
speakers, having a Susan voice over the left shoulder, and a Brian voice 
over the right, and George in front., all talking at once.  Anyway, the 
lack of standards was why I stopped caring about Orca.  They're just 
going to be spending their entire careers, sweeping up after everyone 
else, every time there's an upgrade.  Telling everyone in the GUI Linux 
world they have to re-do everything from scrach to support accessibility 
probably isn't on the menu. <sighs>

				Michael

Re: X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Samuel Thibault]

Gaijin, le Wed 20 Jan 2010 11:11:07 -0800, a écrit :
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 06:10:22AM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> > The X-window system only offers low-level abstractions.  It concerns
> > itself with the rendering of bitmapped images on graphical devices.
> 
> 	So, you're saying that the information X.org is receiving from, 
> say, X-Chat is all graphical information?

That's it.  As I said in another post, that wasn't the plan originally,
but it ended up being much more flexible to do it that way.

> Whoever came up with that idea for how to do things must be a         
> brain-dead moron, because working with themes must be beyond          
> hope where beauty is concerned.  I used to love working with          
> semi-transparent backgrounds,
etc.

Err, that's precisely because you want all kinds of effects and such
that keeping the text in the protocol was being more and more a problem.
You don't have the freedom to do whatever you want to your text
rendering when you're bound to a protocol.

Samuel

Re: X access was Re: Debian upgrade

[Gaijin]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 11:26:55PM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Err, that's precisely because you want all kinds of effects and such
> that keeping the text in the protocol was being more and more a problem.
> You don't have the freedom to do whatever you want to your text
> rendering when you're bound to a protocol.

	Tough.  If it's my computer, I should be able to have it look 
and work the way I want it to.  Gnome has some of the ugliest software 
in the world.  All programmers would have to do is label the type of 
text being delivered.  Menu, display, combo box, etc, and the display 
manager could handle the rest.  Themes would have lots more options, and 
software would appear in similar fashion if menus were all done in one 
font and color combination, lists in another.  Otherwise you have 
something like Windows with one or two Visual Basic programs running on 
it and looking like you're running a disorganized collection of junk, 
with gigantic green check and red X buttons here, and more 
"Windows-like" buttons there.

	Whatever.  Without standards, all you have is chaos, and force 
the non-sighted to come along after everyone else and try to clean up 
the kludge that is another programmer's "Wonderful Idea."  We wouldn't 
even be talking if it weren't for the ASCII and email standards, and 
until we have a standard for everyone to follow, we'll continue to be 
relegated to society's background.  At least with Linux, we can create a 
standard to follow.  If we count on Mickeysoft, it will never get done 
to our satisfaction, and we'll continue to remain in the "aftermarket" 
minority.

				Michael

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 11:06:50AM -0600, Chris Brannon wrote:
> Michael <gaijin@clearwire.net> wrote:
> > 	Man, I dunno what happened to speakup, but I just did the Debian 
> > upgrade and now speakup is repeating itself and warbling the sound 
> > volume all over the place.  I would be typing something and it would 
> > start repeating what I'd typed.  I finally had to disable espeakup and 
> 
> I have never seen anything like that.
> What versions of the software are you running?
> 


Chris,

The symptoms sound suspiciously like the behavior of my own system when
I was mistakenly using the ltlk synthesizer without first killing
espeakup, so that speakup was somehow directing output to both the soft
synth and the serial point, alternating between, and generally driving
us both nuts, do you recall?

The immediate fix was simply to pkill espeakup.  The longterm fix was
to properly switch between synths, e.g., using talkwith, or doing the
same thing manually.

If that's his problem, it has nothing to do with debian at all.


Chuck


-- 
The Moon is Waxing Crescent (10% of Full)
               General web site: www.mhcable.com/~chuckh
              Also available from: www.hallenbeck.ftml.net
                Audio editor weblog: edway.wordpress.com
               Or jabber 1on1 with me, chuckh1@jabber.org
                                --------
 People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to
amuse them. -- S. Johnson
 

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Chris Brannon]

Chuck Hallenbeck <chuckh@ftml.net> wrote:
> The symptoms sound suspiciously like the behavior of my own system when
> I was mistakenly using the ltlk synthesizer without first killing
> espeakup

Chuck,
I do remember, now that you mention it.  That was caused by a bug
in the softsynth driver, fixed several releases ago.

-- Chris

Re: Man, I think the last Debian upgrade really trashed my system...

[Gaijin]

On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 01:09:11PM -0500, Chuck Hallenbeck wrote:
> If that's his problem, it has nothing to do with debian at all.

	Trew.  It was gpm.  My trackball was wedged under the cabinet, 
mashing the right mouse button, and it was probably trying to paste 
things, because it was writing crap to the screen at odd times while I 
was in IRC, or just sitting at the command line while I was in another 
room.  I've removed gpm now, and am thinking of completely removing the 
stewpid mouse, as I never use the fool thing anyway.  Sorry.  Saw that 
SpeakUp was being updated in this upgrade and jumped to conclusions 
again, not knowing what else could've been causing the problem.  Maybe 
purging gpm will erase any future confusion.

				Michael