From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu (mta1.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.23]) by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96EDD1EF6B1 for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 13:38:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42EAB87E010 for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 12:38:41 -0500 (CDT) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at mta1.math.wisc.edu Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (charlie.math.wisc.edu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id MxPzTlzb2Aip for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 12:38:41 -0500 (CDT) Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id E77E087E014 for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 12:38:39 -0500 (CDT) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on charlie.math.wisc.edu X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=6.5 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 autolearn=disabled version=3.3.1 Received: from mailhost.math.wisc.edu (erdos.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.25]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 12:38:39 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [144.92.166.19] (vv507j.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.19]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mailhost.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id DB2E15400FA for ; Wed, 8 May 2013 12:38:39 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <518A8D9F.2060203@math.wisc.edu> Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 12:38:39 -0500 From: "John G. Heim" Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130307 Thunderbird/17.0.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." Subject: Re: the direction of speakup References: <20130508164514.0FE6422973@server1.shellworld.net> In-Reply-To: <20130508164514.0FE6422973@server1.shellworld.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: speakup@linux-speakup.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 08 May 2013 17:38:43 -0000 As far as I can tell, there is no more solid screen reader in the world than speakup. For code that is supposedly such a mess, it sure works. There was that bug where it couldn't start talking to synths on the serial port. But I don't think that bug came as a result of some mistake. I think it was introduced during an attempt to make the kernel developers happy. So I wouldn't refute your assertion that speakup is way more solid than orca. But I certanly haven't had anywhere near as much trouble with orca as you have. I use it all day every day on everything from Dell servers to machines I built myself. I'm no orca expert either but maybe that's the trick. I have always just used the orca packages in debian. I probably haven't tried to build it from source for 5 or 6 years. So I'll admit that I can't say for sure that orca is stable enough to work as an alternative to speakup in user space. From my experience, that is certainly true. But I'll admit I might have a different opinion if we were a Red Hat On 05/08/13 11:45, Martin G. McCormick wrote: > This is a tough issue as I spend much of my day in the > command-line world and I do not disagree with your basic > statement about needing a GUI, these days even though it is more > of a ball and chain than a helpful tool. It's like a sore knee > or a backache. Nature usually fixes those in time, but the GUI > devours resources and there is always that one last problem that > keeps it from working right. > > I have both a Macintosh for the GUI and I use speakup > under Debian wheezy with lynx and nmh under FreeBSD for mail. > This last bit has nothing to do with screen readers but mh or > the package now known as nmh breaks the email process in to > small modules that allow one to automate different parts of the > mail process. Part of my job is building automation that sends > messages to others when various things happen so the use of nmh > is a choice. > > I have yet to get orca working on any system I use or > have access to. One such system is a Pentium4 running at 2.7 GHZ > and there is a gigabyte of RAM sitting there but there is > something in the BIOS that seems to know when I want to install > the latest ubuntu or Debian that might open up the world of > gnome and orca and the system figures out some clever way to > fail. > > By the way, speakup works beautifully on this system in > a command line console but The only time I ever heard orca talk > was on an obsolete version of ubuntu 9.0 which played for > sometimes an hour or so and sometimes a few seconds and then > would crash. > > You are correct in that basically, the speech process > needs to be separate from just about everything except the power > supply in order to hear the system start up from black. > > A Unix kernel is the master process and everything else > that happens on your system is spawned as a subprocess of the > master. Would it be possible to have a kernel equipped with > speakup spawn the rest of one's system as if it was a virtual > system? That could take care of the I/O. > > I used a hardware speech synthesizor for about 20 years > along with Kermit and DOS and a screen reader I wrote to > terminate and stay resident in MS-DOS so all my Unix boxes were > originally configured for a RS-232 console. That was back when > mother boards had RS-232 ports. > > You've really got to separate the speech or Braille > output from the rest or it will always bite you. > > Speakup should go in a sort of pre-kernel and that would > let you operate the real system in single-user mode, listen to > kernel messages and do all those things we should do if we are > to call ourselves Unix administrators. > > Martin > > "John G. Heim" writes: >> I totally disagree. Speakup has little purpose except for the fact that it >> runs in kernel space. First of all, there are other screen readers for >> user >> space. And you really need a GUI these days. I suppose there are people >> using speakup all day every day. Mutt for email, lynx or edbrowse for the >> web. >> But I'm sure the vast majority of linux users use orca for every day >> tasks. >> >> >> >> The most important feature for speakup is to bail you out when you are >> really in trouble because your server is down. I don't know what you do >> for >> a living but I do systems admin and I cannot live without speakup in >> kernel >> space. About the only thing that I can think of that is equivalent to >> simply plugging in a hardware synth and getting boot messages would be >> setting up something like a Raspberry Pie to boot into kermit and display >> serial console messages. But it wouldn't be the same because you'd need a >> keyboard for the RPI. I don't know -- when a server is down, the last >> thing >> I want to do is mess with all that stuff. I just want to plug in the >> hardware speech synth and press the print screen key. > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup > -- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu