slackware and accessibility packages

slackware and accessibility packages

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).

I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
(eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).

Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?

From
Michael Whapples

Re: slackware and accessibility packages

[Willem van der Walt]

I am not a Slacware user anymore, but I think having packages available 
always makes life
easier even if you know how to roll your own.
I think the one you are missing there is speechd-up.
REgards, Willem

On Fri, 5 Oct 2007, Michael Whapples wrote:

> Hello,
> I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
> me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
> accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
> in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
> packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
> from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
> currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
> done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).
> 
> I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
> be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
> above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
> (eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
> when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
> they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
> default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
> this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
> and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
> and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
> gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
> way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
> would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
> think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
> although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
> something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
> make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
> speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).
> 
> Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?
> 
> From
> Michael Whapples
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

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Re: slackware and accessibility packages

[Luke Yelavich]

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

On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 07:53:25PM EST, Michael Whapples wrote:
> Hello,
> I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
> me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
> accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
> in packaged formats.

I would also clearly document what packages depend on what. It is very very easy to get caught 
out with slackware if you don't have the right dependencies, as not all dependencies are for 
shared library requirements.

Lack of dependency management is one reason why I left slackware for good.
- -- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
Jabber: themuso@jabber.org.au
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RE: slackware and accessibility packages

[Scott Ford]

Michael,
	I for one think that the idea is a great one.  I do not have a
hardware synth, and I do not have the knowledge, or interest to do the
technical work required to figure out how to set up a distribution or the
packages up like you describe.  I was introduced to Linux by slackware when
it was on a fist full of floppies.  I would be interested.  
Scott
  -----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Michael Whapples
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 5:53 AM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: slackware and accessibility packages

Hello,
I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).

I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
(eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).

Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?

From
Michael Whapples


_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: slackware and accessibility packages

[Steve Holmes]

I would be quite interested in how things go for you.  I too built
packages for some of these but never got them publically posted.  A
couple things I seemed to run into were necessary customizations that
might make it dificult to share to the general public without
compatibility issues.  Don't suppose speech dispatcher / espeak /
speechd-up fall into this but my package building experience is green
aat the very least.:) 

I had been using checkinstall to help build some of these but I began
running into unpredictable incidents where the build process would
louse up my production environment so am going back to manually
derived SlackBuild scripts to construct these in the future.

Anyway, I'm probabally veering way off topic for this list so would be
willing to collaborate with you to further this effort if possible.

On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 10:53:25AM +0100, Michael Whapples wrote:
> Hello,
> I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
> me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
> accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
> in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
> packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
> from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
> currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
> done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).
> 
> I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
> be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
> above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
> (eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
> when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
> they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
> default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
> this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
> and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
> and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
> gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
> way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
> would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
> think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
> although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
> something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
> make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
> speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).
> 
> Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?
> 
> From
> Michael Whapples
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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Re: slackware and accessibility packages

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
To further discuss what I am thinking regarding this.

Yes the comment about documentation is a good one, and I probably will
try and create some howtos for the packages I build (eg. speakup with
software speech on slackware howto, would discuss what packages you
would need, and what you might want to configure afterwards, such as
changing the synth speech-dispatcher uses, etc).

The packages I mentioned were just a start, of course there will be more
such as speechd-up, flite (possibly), gnome-java-access-bridge, etc.
What ever there may be a call for.

At the moment I don't have the knowledge to make a custom distro, so
that is partly the reason I am saying that unless there is something too
specific to expect to be in a main distro, the project will not try and
do that. Yes software speech for an install would be nice, but I don't
think other distros (ubuntu and grml) have sorted the sound issue fully
yet (unmuting the sound card, and for users to have a convenient way to
choose a card in a multi-sound-card system), so it may have to be a
longer term thought for that as learning to create the custom distro
probably is enough without having those extra issues to contend with.

I did find some interesting issues when trying to create the SlackBuild
for speech-dispatcher (related to the python bindings), but that I think
is a bit off topic for here, other than to say I have succeeded at
creating a SlackBuild script and package for speech-dispatcher.

Now the question remains, where to have this project hosted, I was
considering sourceforge, any better suggestions?

From
Michael Whapples
On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 05:12 -0700, Steve Holmes wrote:
> I would be quite interested in how things go for you.  I too built
> packages for some of these but never got them publically posted.  A
> couple things I seemed to run into were necessary customizations that
> might make it dificult to share to the general public without
> compatibility issues.  Don't suppose speech dispatcher / espeak /
> speechd-up fall into this but my package building experience is green
> aat the very least.:) 
> 
> I had been using checkinstall to help build some of these but I began
> running into unpredictable incidents where the build process would
> louse up my production environment so am going back to manually
> derived SlackBuild scripts to construct these in the future.
> 
> Anyway, I'm probabally veering way off topic for this list so would be
> willing to collaborate with you to further this effort if possible.
> 
> On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 10:53:25AM +0100, Michael Whapples wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I don't know how much interest this would be, but I am sure you will let
> > me know. I am thinking of creating slackware packages of some of the
> > accessibility related tools and any dependencies which are not already
> > in packaged formats. This would also cover any dependencies for these
> > packages which are not already available in slackware packages (either
> > from slackware or some of the alternative repositories). I have
> > currently made packages for espeak and speech-dispatcher (I have also
> > done dotconf as this is a dependency for speech-dispatcher).
> > 
> > I am considering starting a project/community for this topic. Aims would
> > be to create and maintain SlackBuild scripts and packages as described
> > above, encourage mainstream projects to include accessibility as default
> > (eg. gnome slacky www.slacky.eu installs orca, gnome-speech as default
> > when doing a full install, and they have festival in the repository, but
> > they don't install festival as part of a full install (so orca by
> > default cannot output speech), I would try and encourage them to alter
> > this to include festival as part of a full install). Also I would try
> > and encourage projects to take on packages not currently included at all
> > and possibly maintain the package for them (eg. neither slackware or
> > gnome slacky have espeak, speech-dispatcher or speechd-up so there is no
> > way to use speakup with software synths without compiling software). I
> > would not intend to try and create a custom distro of slackware, as I
> > think it is preferrable if the accessibility is there as default,
> > although I wouldn't rule it out should there be a significant call for
> > something and it being sufficiently different that a custom distro would
> > make sense (eg. a slackware install disk with speakup and software
> > speech support, so an install can be done without a hardware synth).
> > 
> > Any ideas on this? Is there call for this?
> > 
> > From
> > Michael Whapples
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: slackware and accessibility packages

[tony seth]

I would be interested in such a package... especially since slackware 
seems to be the only distro which I can compile and run Audio Quake 
successfully on... that would be cool onh my laptop as an alternative 
to winders.

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