From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix, from userid 65534) id 4FF1A1EF81D; Sat, 1 Nov 2014 05:27:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from server1.shellworld.net (shellworld.net [69.60.117.94]) by befuddled.reisers.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0DA6F1EF818 for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2014 05:27:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: by server1.shellworld.net (Postfix, from userid 1024) id 3437B228B7; Sat, 1 Nov 2014 05:27:43 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by server1.shellworld.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2D49522848 for ; Sat, 1 Nov 2014 05:27:43 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2014 05:27:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Jude DaShiell To: speakup@linux-speakup.org Subject: finished with slackware Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Bogosity: Ham, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.000000, version=1.2.4 X-BeenThere: speakup@linux-speakup.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 09:27:49 -0000 14.1 was the killer. Nothing I did documented or otherwise got any speech out of that version of slackware so the disks have been trashed. I'll not buy any future version of the distribution either since by the time the disks arrive invariably one or more of them get broken by the shipping process. Slackware is too thrifty to have bubble wrap insulating their jewel cases in those cardboard boxes they use for shipping and I have complained about this repeatedly to slackware too. So far as I'm concerned, the distribution is inaccessible for installation or use. I suspect further something happens in the boot process that makes litetalk synthesizers unable to speak even when no attempt is made to access the synthesizer on boot up. Because after doing a boot up by just hitting the enter key a couple times echo statements directed to ttyS0 and ttyS1 produced silence and the litetalk said it was ready before booting the machine. Also in sighted boot up state, modprobe speakup-synth=ltlk and modprobe speakup-synth=ltlk speakup-ser=0 and modprobe speakup-synth=ltlk speakup-ser=1 statements all failed to contact the synthesizer as did replacing the dash characters first with underscores and then replacing the underscore characters by periods in those commands. What makes this worse is that earlier I offered to donate a doubletalk litetalk synthesizer to slackware and pay for the shipping so slackware could do some real accessibility testing with at least one synthesizer. I did not mention what I paid for that synthesizer either. Slackware aggressively refused my offer. How slackware does its accessibility testing is that they put a monitor on a serial port that shows serial traffic. Then they boot up using the booting parameters for speakup they put in their documentation and watch to see if any traffic goes out that serial port. If traffic goes out, their accessibility test has passed. With the current situation, slackware is unable to prove signals adverse to accessibility do not go out over the serial ports to synthesizers since they have no synthesizer on which to actually hear what does or does not happen and are not interested in correcting that deficiency. jude Twitter: @jdashiel