Re: Speakup and vinux

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Martin McCormick]

	It should load just fine as the operating system with
speakup appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The
middle-sized ISO image is around 400 megabytes and gives you
enough to get started. I remember the painful feeling when I
first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to forget things
that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.

	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian
Linux with speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a
friend who knows more than you do to at least help you get
started. Remember that if you are not root, you can't hurt much
except for deleting your own files. There is no undelete that
works well as Unix systems are always doing something with files
and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and
the OS may just snap them right up a second later and turn them
in to syslog or something else.

	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and
FreeBSD to name a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard
drive as they constantly act like a very thorough file clerk in
an office who can't stand to see disorder so they are always
looking for pieces of files and making sure they all fit
together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to
waste time to gather them from here and there. In other words,
when you rm a file, it is often-times gone for good for all
practical purposes.

	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have
to write so much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test
it out. Burn the iso image to a CDROM and boot from that. As
long as you don't run the installer, you aren't going to modify
your present setup. You will hear it start to talk some time
after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just as
if you were logged in.

	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you
don't want to destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up
so that you have a short time to decide whether you want to boot
Windows or Linux. One thing to watch out for is that the boot
sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot sector. It
does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
system so I can't help much there

	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.

Martin McCormick

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Pia]

On Tue, 5 Jan 2010, Martin McCormick wrote:

> Windows or Linux. One thing to watch out for is that the boot
> sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot sector. It
> does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> system so I can't help much there
>

The thing you want to do there is make sure that you install Windows first 
and that it is on your C: drive (ie, the first hard drive or hard drive 
partition in your system).  Then, you can install Linux.  Make sure when 
Linux installs its boot loader that it properly detects your Windows OS 
and that it sets it up to boot as well in a dual boot system.  With Ubuntu 
and Debian as what Vinux is based on, it is pretty clear when you get to 
that step, to explain to you what it has and has not detected.  I would 
stick with Grub as your boot loader instead of trying Grub 2 at this point 
because it is so new and I have not tried to dual boot a Windows / Linux 
box with it yet.  If anyone has, any comments would be nice.  In the 
Ubuntu installer I know it defaults to Grub 2 and so you have to 
explicitly tell it to use Grub Legacy.

HTH,

Pia

RE: Speakup and vinux

[Øyvind Lode]

If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows boot
loader) before installing.
If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows will
boot as normal again.

Use dd to backup:

# dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1

If you need to restore:
# dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and make
sure you don't accidently use a different file.
If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
That will efficiently destroy the MBR.

Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
/dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux 

	It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.

	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows more
than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the OS
may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
something else.

	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure they
all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a file,
it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.

	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the installer,
you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
as if you were logged in.

	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a short
time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to watch
out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
system so I can't help much there

	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.

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

RE: Speakup and vinux

[Øyvind Lode]

You obviously will have to store the backup file on a usb pen drive etc
since you are booting from a live CD. 
Or just store it on the windows partition itself (a bit risky though).

Your best bet is probably to use some kind of removable media to store the
backup of the master boot record.

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Øyvind Lode
Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:31
To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'
Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux 

If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows boot
loader) before installing.
If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows will
boot as normal again.

Use dd to backup:

# dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1

If you need to restore:
# dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and make
sure you don't accidently use a different file.
If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
That will efficiently destroy the MBR.

Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
/dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.



-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux 

	It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.

	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows more
than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the OS
may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
something else.

	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure they
all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a file,
it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.

	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the installer,
you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
as if you were logged in.

	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a short
time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to watch
out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
system so I can't help much there

	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.

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

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

RE: Speakup and vinux

[Don Raikes]

Martin,

I have setup a dual-boot windows xp / vinux system on my laptop, so if you or anyone else would like help configuring that, I am happy to help.

My system beeps once when it gets to the boot menu, nad then if I arrow down to select windows, it beeps twice more. If I want linux, I can just let it timeout (approximately 5 seconds), and it then beeps and a short time after, I hear the Braille display drivers being loaded because it causes my alva satellite to sound some beeps and then speakup starts talking.

FYI: I have tried both the console-based and gnome-based Vinux systems and they are both very nice.  Gnome takes a little getting used to after working with windows for so long, but it is pretty good.

There are a few applications that still don't work that well with orca the gnome screenreader, but that list seems to be getting smaller all the time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Martin McCormick [mailto:martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 2:01 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux

	It should load just fine as the operating system with
speakup appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The
middle-sized ISO image is around 400 megabytes and gives you
enough to get started. I remember the painful feeling when I
first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to forget things
that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.

	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian
Linux with speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a
friend who knows more than you do to at least help you get
started. Remember that if you are not root, you can't hurt much
except for deleting your own files. There is no undelete that
works well as Unix systems are always doing something with files
and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and
the OS may just snap them right up a second later and turn them
in to syslog or something else.

	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and
FreeBSD to name a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard
drive as they constantly act like a very thorough file clerk in
an office who can't stand to see disorder so they are always
looking for pieces of files and making sure they all fit
together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to
waste time to gather them from here and there. In other words,
when you rm a file, it is often-times gone for good for all
practical purposes.

	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have
to write so much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test
it out. Burn the iso image to a CDROM and boot from that. As
long as you don't run the installer, you aren't going to modify
your present setup. You will hear it start to talk some time
after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just as
if you were logged in.

	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you
don't want to destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up
so that you have a short time to decide whether you want to boot
Windows or Linux. One thing to watch out for is that the boot
sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot sector. It
does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
system so I can't help much there

	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.

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

RE: Speakup and vinux

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

Google that information.  I'm sure that writing 512 destroys the
partition table too.  It's something like 496 for managing the mbr.  But
google and check.

On Tue, 2010-01-05 at 22:30 +0100, Øyvind Lode wrote:
> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows boot
> loader) before installing.
> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows will
> boot as normal again.
> 
> Use dd to backup:
> 
> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
> 
> If you need to restore:
> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> 
> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and make
> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
> 
> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux 
> 
> 	It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
> 
> 	If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows more
> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the OS
> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> something else.
> 
> 	Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure they
> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a file,
> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
> 
> 	The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the installer,
> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
> as if you were logged in.
> 
> 	Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a short
> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to watch
> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> system so I can't help much there
> 
> 	The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
> 
> Martin McCormick
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena


four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

    * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
    * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

Richard Matthew Stallman

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Kerry Hoath]

Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the mbr 
and partition table.
If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the 
partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows bootable and 
Linux invisible.

You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain the 
partition table.
The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show the bios 
the drive contains bootable operating system(s).

Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if Grub Lilo 
or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the 
partitions is set active.
Regards, Kerry.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux


> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows 
> boot
> loader) before installing.
> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows 
> will
> boot as normal again.
>
> Use dd to backup:
>
> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
>
> If you need to restore:
> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
>
> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and 
> make
> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
>
> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca 
> [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
>
> It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
>
> If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows 
> more
> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the 
> OS
> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> something else.
>
> Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure 
> they
> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a 
> file,
> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
>
> The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the 
> installer,
> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
> as if you were logged in.
>
> Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a 
> short
> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to 
> watch
> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> system so I can't help much there
>
> The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
>
> Martin McCormick
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Janitha Rukmal]

Hi all,
Many thanks for the tips.

I really can't say that I'm very new to Linux. But previously I've 
worked often with Fedora and Fedora modified.

I decided to go for Vinux on a duelboot system with windows mainly cause 
I have to install and configure vsftpd server and Samba on a Debian 
Linux platform as one of the assignments in the academy where I'm 
currently studying . In that case, cause of the limited resources of my 
notebook I can't work things out properly on a usual Ubuntu system with 
speakup installed.
It would be nice if one of you can just tell me whether it's possible to 
easily install and configure those two programs mentioned above, in a 
Vinux system.

Moreover, I would like to ask your opinion whether grub/ grub 2 or lilo 
is the most reliable thing that can be easily setup by a visually 
disabled person.

Many thanks in advance
hth
Janitha Rukmal








On 1/6/2010 5:22 AM, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the 
> mbr and partition table.
> If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the 
> partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows 
> bootable and Linux invisible.
>
> You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
> dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
> replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
> The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain 
> the partition table.
> The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show 
> the bios the drive contains bootable operating system(s).
>
> Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if 
> Grub Lilo or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
> Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the 
> partitions is set active.
> Regards, Kerry.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
> <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
> Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux
>
>
>> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the 
>> windows boot
>> loader) before installing.
>> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and 
>> Windows will
>> boot as normal again.
>>
>> Use dd to backup:
>>
>> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
>>
>> If you need to restore:
>> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
>>
>> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly 
>> and make
>> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
>> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just 
>> write
>> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
>> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
>>
>> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
>> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
>> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca 
>> [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
>> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
>> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
>> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
>>
>> It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
>> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
>> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
>> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
>> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
>>
>> If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
>> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who 
>> knows more
>> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you 
>> are not
>> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There 
>> is no
>> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
>> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and 
>> the OS
>> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
>> something else.
>>
>> Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
>> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they 
>> constantly
>> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
>> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making 
>> sure they
>> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to 
>> waste
>> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm 
>> a file,
>> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
>>
>> The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
>> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the 
>> iso
>> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the 
>> installer,
>> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
>> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell 
>> just
>> as if you were logged in.
>>
>> Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
>> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a 
>> short
>> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing 
>> to watch
>> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows 
>> boot
>> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
>> system so I can't help much there
>>
>> The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
>>
>> Martin McCormick
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi Kerry,

Is there anything in the MBR?  My memory reminds me that in the days of
Win 9x, to remove grub or lilo signatures we just wrote zeros to the MBR
which then resumed the booting to command.com etc.  So does 2000, XP
Vista put something in the MBR?  

Thanks.


On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 10:52 +1100, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the mbr 
> and partition table.
> If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the 
> partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows bootable and 
> Linux invisible.
> 
> You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
> dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
> replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
> The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain the 
> partition table.
> The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show the bios 
> the drive contains bootable operating system(s).
> 
> Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if Grub Lilo 
> or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
> Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the 
> partitions is set active.
> Regards, Kerry.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
> <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
> Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux
> 
> 
> > If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows 
> > boot
> > loader) before installing.
> > If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows 
> > will
> > boot as normal again.
> >
> > Use dd to backup:
> >
> > # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
> >
> > If you need to restore:
> > # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> >
> > When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and 
> > make
> > sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> > If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
> > 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> > That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
> >
> > Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> > /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> > Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca 
> > [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> > On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> > Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> > To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> > Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
> >
> > It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> > appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> > around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> > painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> > forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
> >
> > If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> > speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows 
> > more
> > than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are not
> > root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
> > undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> > files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the 
> > OS
> > may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> > something else.
> >
> > Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> > a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
> > act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> > disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure 
> > they
> > all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to waste
> > time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a 
> > file,
> > it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
> >
> > The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> > much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
> > image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the 
> > installer,
> > you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> > talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell just
> > as if you were logged in.
> >
> > Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> > destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a 
> > short
> > time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to 
> > watch
> > out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows boot
> > sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> > system so I can't help much there
> >
> > The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
> >
> > Martin McCormick
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena


four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

    * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
    * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

Richard Matthew Stallman

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

I haven't looked to see if those packages are in the debian repos but as
the assignment states, I'm guessing that they are available.  As debian
is the foundation of Ubuntu and debian is for networking and server
applications and Ubuntu is for the desktop home user Vinux 2.0 and above
are based on debian you shouldn't have a problem.


On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 13:35 +0530, Janitha Rukmal wrote:
> Hi all,
> Many thanks for the tips.
> 
> I really can't say that I'm very new to Linux. But previously I've 
> worked often with Fedora and Fedora modified.
> 
> I decided to go for Vinux on a duelboot system with windows mainly cause 
> I have to install and configure vsftpd server and Samba on a Debian 
> Linux platform as one of the assignments in the academy where I'm 
> currently studying . In that case, cause of the limited resources of my 
> notebook I can't work things out properly on a usual Ubuntu system with 
> speakup installed.
> It would be nice if one of you can just tell me whether it's possible to 
> easily install and configure those two programs mentioned above, in a 
> Vinux system.
> 
> Moreover, I would like to ask your opinion whether grub/ grub 2 or lilo 
> is the most reliable thing that can be easily setup by a visually 
> disabled person.
> 
> Many thanks in advance
> hth
> Janitha Rukmal
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/6/2010 5:22 AM, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> > Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the 
> > mbr and partition table.
> > If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the 
> > partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows 
> > bootable and Linux invisible.
> >
> > You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
> > dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
> > replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
> > The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain 
> > the partition table.
> > The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show 
> > the bios the drive contains bootable operating system(s).
> >
> > Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if 
> > Grub Lilo or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
> > Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the 
> > partitions is set active.
> > Regards, Kerry.
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
> > To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
> > <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
> > Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux
> >
> >
> >> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the 
> >> windows boot
> >> loader) before installing.
> >> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and 
> >> Windows will
> >> boot as normal again.
> >>
> >> Use dd to backup:
> >>
> >> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
> >>
> >> If you need to restore:
> >> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> >>
> >> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly 
> >> and make
> >> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> >> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just 
> >> write
> >> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> >> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
> >>
> >> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> >> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> >> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca 
> >> [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> >> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> >> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> >> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> >> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
> >>
> >> It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> >> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> >> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> >> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> >> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
> >>
> >> If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> >> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who 
> >> knows more
> >> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you 
> >> are not
> >> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There 
> >> is no
> >> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> >> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and 
> >> the OS
> >> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> >> something else.
> >>
> >> Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> >> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they 
> >> constantly
> >> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> >> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making 
> >> sure they
> >> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to 
> >> waste
> >> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm 
> >> a file,
> >> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
> >>
> >> The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> >> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the 
> >> iso
> >> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the 
> >> installer,
> >> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> >> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell 
> >> just
> >> as if you were logged in.
> >>
> >> Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> >> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a 
> >> short
> >> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing 
> >> to watch
> >> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows 
> >> boot
> >> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> >> system so I can't help much there
> >>
> >> The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
> >>
> >> Martin McCormick
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Speakup mailing list
> >> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> >> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Speakup mailing list
> >> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> >> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena


four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

    * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
    * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

Richard Matthew Stallman

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Kerry Hoath]

Questions like this really should be sent to the academy as we are happy to 
anser them.
Yes you can set up the assignments for ITE2 on a vinux-based machine,
in fact we might look to moving to vinux as the base platform for ite2.
If you have any further questions you can email cavi-instructors or the 
mailing lists we'd all be happy to help.
Regards, Kerry.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janitha Rukmal" <janitharukmal@gmail.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:05 PM
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux


Hi all,
Many thanks for the tips.

I really can't say that I'm very new to Linux. But previously I've
worked often with Fedora and Fedora modified.

I decided to go for Vinux on a duelboot system with windows mainly cause
I have to install and configure vsftpd server and Samba on a Debian
Linux platform as one of the assignments in the academy where I'm
currently studying . In that case, cause of the limited resources of my
notebook I can't work things out properly on a usual Ubuntu system with
speakup installed.
It would be nice if one of you can just tell me whether it's possible to
easily install and configure those two programs mentioned above, in a
Vinux system.

Moreover, I would like to ask your opinion whether grub/ grub 2 or lilo
is the most reliable thing that can be easily setup by a visually
disabled person.

Many thanks in advance
hth
Janitha Rukmal








On 1/6/2010 5:22 AM, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the mbr 
> and partition table.
> If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the 
> partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows bootable 
> and Linux invisible.
>
> You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
> dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
> replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
> The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain the 
> partition table.
> The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show the 
> bios the drive contains bootable operating system(s).
>
> Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if Grub 
> Lilo or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
> Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the 
> partitions is set active.
> Regards, Kerry.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'" 
> <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
> Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux
>
>
>> If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows 
>> boot
>> loader) before installing.
>> If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows 
>> will
>> boot as normal again.
>>
>> Use dd to backup:
>>
>> # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
>>
>> If you need to restore:
>> # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
>>
>> When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and 
>> make
>> sure you don't accidently use a different file.
>> If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just write
>> 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
>> That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
>>
>> Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
>> /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
>> Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca 
>> [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
>> On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
>> Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
>> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
>> Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
>>
>> It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
>> appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
>> around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
>> painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
>> forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
>>
>> If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
>> speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows 
>> more
>> than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are 
>> not
>> root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is no
>> undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
>> files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and the 
>> OS
>> may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
>> something else.
>>
>> Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
>> a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they constantly
>> act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
>> disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure 
>> they
>> all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to 
>> waste
>> time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a 
>> file,
>> it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
>>
>> The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
>> much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the iso
>> image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the 
>> installer,
>> you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
>> talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell 
>> just
>> as if you were logged in.
>>
>> Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
>> destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a 
>> short
>> time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to 
>> watch
>> out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows 
>> boot
>> sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
>> system so I can't help much there
>>
>> The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
>>
>> Martin McCormick
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Kerry Hoath]

the mbr contains code that boots the first active partition so zeroing out 
the mbr will render your drive unbootable.

All operating systems since ms-dos 2.0 placed code to boot the first active 
partition into the mbr, since windows 95 this mbr now uses and understands 
lba addressing and in the case of linux's code can boot something beyond 
8.4gb.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Georgina Joyce" <r2gl@o2.co.uk>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 12:30 AM
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux


Hi Kerry,

Is there anything in the MBR?  My memory reminds me that in the days of
Win 9x, to remove grub or lilo signatures we just wrote zeros to the MBR
which then resumed the booting to command.com etc.  So does 2000, XP
Vista put something in the MBR?

Thanks.


On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 10:52 +1100, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> Technically this is incorrect, the command you gave backs up both the mbr
> and partition table.
> If you then install Linux and restore this sector it will remove the
> partition entries where Linux was installed, rendering windows bootable 
> and
> Linux invisible.
>
> You would be better to back up the mbr with the following command:
> dd bs=446 count=1 if=/dev/sda of=winmbr.bin
> replacing /dev/sda with the correct block device for your hard disk.
> The first 446 bytes contain the mbr and the last bytes minus 2 contain the
> partition table.
> The last 2  bytes of the sector are set to 0X55AA or 0XAA55 to show the 
> bios
> the drive contains bootable operating system(s).
>
> Generally it is good practice to set 1 partition active however if Grub 
> Lilo
> or another boot manager controlls the mbr this is not required.
> Some bioses will refuse to consider a drive bootable unless 1 of the
> partitions is set active.
> Regards, Kerry.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Øyvind Lode" <oyvind.lode@lyse.net>
> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'"
> <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:30 AM
> Subject: RE: Speakup and vinux
>
>
> > If you decide to install, backup the MBR (which now stores the windows
> > boot
> > loader) before installing.
> > If you do a mistake with grub you can just restore the MBR and Windows
> > will
> > boot as normal again.
> >
> > Use dd to backup:
> >
> > # dd if=/dev/sda of=windows-mbr.img bs=512 count=1
> >
> > If you need to restore:
> > # dd if=windows-mbr.img of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1
> >
> > When restoring the MBR be sure that you type the command correctly and
> > make
> > sure you don't accidently use a different file.
> > If you accidently dd with a file not containing a MBR, dd will just 
> > write
> > 512 blocks from that file to the MBR on the harddrive...
> > That will efficiently destroy the MBR.
> >
> > Also be sure to use the proper device for your HD.
> > /dev/sda may not be the correct one on your system.
> > Most likely /dev/hda if it's an old IDE disk.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
> > [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> > On Behalf Of Martin McCormick
> > Sent: 5. januar 2010 22:01
> > To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> > Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux
> >
> > It should load just fine as the operating system with speakup
> > appears to take up a couple of gigabytes. The middle-sized ISO image is
> > around 400 megabytes and gives you enough to get started. I remember the
> > painful feeling when I first started using Unix in 1989. It is easy to
> > forget things that now seem second nature but were once show stoppers.
> >
> > If you are familiar with Linux, vinux is standard Debian Linux with
> > speech on the console. If you are new to Unix, find a friend who knows
> > more
> > than you do to at least help you get started. Remember that if you are 
> > not
> > root, you can't hurt much except for deleting your own files. There is 
> > no
> > undelete that works well as Unix systems are always doing something with
> > files and sectors that you don't need any more are marked as free and 
> > the
> > OS
> > may just snap them right up a second later and turn them in to syslog or
> > something else.
> >
> > Unix and all its various flavors like Sunos, AIX and FreeBSD to name
> > a few, don't require defragmentation of the hard drive as they 
> > constantly
> > act like a very thorough file clerk in an office who can't stand to see
> > disorder so they are always looking for pieces of files and making sure
> > they
> > all fit together in contiguous blocks so that the OS doesn't have to 
> > waste
> > time to gather them from here and there. In other words, when you rm a
> > file,
> > it is often-times gone for good for all practical purposes.
> >
> > The nice thing about a live CD is that you do not have to write so
> > much as one byte to your hard drive in order to test it out. Burn the 
> > iso
> > image to a CDROM and boot from that. As long as you don't run the
> > installer,
> > you aren't going to modify your present setup. You will hear it start to
> > talk some time after the boot process starts and you will get a shell 
> > just
> > as if you were logged in.
> >
> > Be really careful if you decide to install it as you don't want to
> > destroy your Windows partitions. You can set it up so that you have a
> > short
> > time to decide whether you want to boot Windows or Linux. One thing to
> > watch
> > out for is that the boot sector for Linux mustn't clobber the Windows 
> > boot
> > sector. It does sometimes happen. I haven't ever set up a multiple-boot
> > system so I can't help much there
> >
> > The best of luck as you learn about vinux.
> >
> > Martin McCormick
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena


four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

    * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
    * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access
to the source code is a precondition for this.

Richard Matthew Stallman

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

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Martin McCormick]

I reported earlier that I had installed vinux on a Gateway P.C.
with only 64 megs of RAM and it did not completely build. This
has nothing to do with speech except that I could sure hear the
errors. Well, I gave that system another try but increased the
swap partition by adding a second swap at the expense of the
primary one such that I now have about 256 megs of swap space.

	the Live CD detects any swaps you have already set but
since this was new one, I used 

swapon /dev/hda3

as that was its partition number. To see your swap, use swapon
-s and it should report everything it sees as swap space.

	This morning, I left for work before it had stopped
grinding on this new installation, but so far, there have been
no more errors of the "no space left on device" type.

	If it is still appearing to load this evening, I will
know it is stuck in never-never land, but I expect it to finish.

	The moral of the story is to not be too cheap when
setting up swap if you have limited RAM.

	I did try vinux on another system at work that presently
has Windows on its hard drive and limited RAM and it will not
even send the 5 bells at the beginning of the boot sequence. It
probably has no Unix swap space at all so I will just need to
find about 190 megs of RAM so it can build its RAM disks.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group

RE: Speakup and vinux

[Don Raikes]

Janitha,

Vinux should work just fine on that kind of setup.

I have been working with Vinux for at least 6 months now. I preffer to work with just Braille output not the speakup part, but that is because I have spent so much time using windows with jaws that the espeak speech sounds kind of harsh to me.

When you get to a point where you want to install Vinux onto your harddrive, I have discovered a little trick which makes the installer work much better with both speakup and Braille.

At the command-line enter the following command:

Export DIALOGOPTS="--visit-items"

This causes the  installer to have proper cursor tracking and greatly simplifies the process.

-----Original Message-----
From: Janitha Rukmal [mailto:janitharukmal@gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 11:57 AM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Re: Speakup and vinux

Hi Martin,
I  was looking for a good linux distribution just like Vinux. I'm from a 
3rd world country & so can't afford to move on to some high-end  ICor 7 
machine. According to your detailed explanation I understand that it 
will work fine with my Compaq Amada E500 Notebook that has a Pentium 3 
processor, 256 mb ram and 20 Gb harddisk a part of which has been 
dedicated to Windows OS cause it's very hard to survive in Sri Lanka 
without at least a pirate copy of windows installed on a computer.
So, my windows partition has occupied nearly 12 out of 20 Gb I've got in 
my notebook. What I would like to know is whether it's possible or not 
for me to go ahead with Vinux with the resources and Harddisk space my 
notebook possesses.

I want to know this in advance cause my ISP is also yearning to cut off 
a big chunk when I'm downloading something pretty big as this and I want 
to save it if this distribution is also not going to work for me.

Many thanks in advance
With best wishes for a happy, prosperous, peaceful and victorious year 2010!
Janitha Rukmal

On 1/5/2010 11:18 PM, Martin McCormick wrote:
> Hello and happy New Year.
>
> 	Over the New Year's weekend, I downloaded and installed
> the middle-sized version of vinux which is a version of Debian
> Linux which boots up speaking and uses speakup as the speech
> engine. This is a game changer for me and I think it should be
> one for a number of others who own middle-aged to slightly older
> computers that are not ready for the attic or the recyclers yet,
> but are not bleeding-edge dream machines with gigs of RAM and
> terrabytes of disk storage.
>
> 	You can read about vinux at
>
> http://vinux-development.blogspot.com/
>
> 	There is a minimal iso image, a mid-sized one and a set
> of 4, I think, CDROM images for a complete Linux installation
> from CD.
>
> 	I tried the vinux installation on 3 systems. One is a
> Gateway system from 1995 or so. It only presently has 64 megs of
> RAM and that is really not enough. The speech works, but
> aptitude barfs every time you try to install anything and
> complains about running out of memory. Also, there were numerous
> errors during the installation stating that there was no space
> left on the device. I believe that is probably the virtual disk
> created from available RAM of which there is far too little.
>
> 	Amazingly, the speech is fine. The remedy is to find
> some more memory and try the installation again as I don't know
> what all didn't get installed.
>
> 	The second system was that laptop. It has finally met
> its match. The installation went smoothly and it now has 6
> virtual consoles that talk when you need them.
>
> 	Just for fun, I tried to add mplayer and mpg123. They
> went right in and speechdispatcher and the other alsa services
> all seem to play nicely together. You hear speakup mixed right
> in with the music or whatever audio one is listening to and
> neither seems to disrupt the other.
>
> 	I also tried recording with a microphone. I still may
> not have amixer set right but the recordings are much better and
> consistent each time. That laptop has no line input although
> amixer reports a Line input. This system appears to be working
> although I haven't tried a PCMCIA serial port yet.
>
> 	The third system is another oldie from around 2000 at
> work. I had a terrible time formatting the hard drive for Linux
> because it had had FreeBSD on it and I didn't know you can't
> just format the drive with ext3 file systems. You start with a
> ext2 and use makee2fs -j /PARTITIONNAME and things are much
> better afterward.
>
> 	Now for the slightly bad news. When you install vinux,
> you get a British keyboard. I am sure there are plenty of
> British people who feel the same way when they get a US
> keyboard. The British and US keyboards are mostly identical but
> the differences can drive one crazy when you are used to one and
> now confronted with the other.
>
> 	The shift of the number 2 gives you a double quotation
> mark. The key that should send the \ gives you a number or
> Pounds sign as in shift-3. The Caps-lock key does not announce
> as it toggles and you soon discover that setting it involves the
> normal speakup sequence of shift-capslock but clearing it
> requires just a tap on the Caps-lock. Also, the Caps-lock on the
> UK keyboard shifts numbers and punctuation marks as if one was
> really holding down the Shift key. That's bad when you have
> punctuations in a password.
>
> 	If any of you install vinux, you can temporarily get a
> US keyboard by entering the following command after su'ing to
> root:
>
> loadkeys us
>
> 	Not only do you magically get an American keyboard map,
> but the Caps-lock starts announcing its status each time you
> change it and it also works the way we are used to seeing it
> work.
>
> 	When you get vinux installed, the way to permanently
> change to a US keyboard is complicated slightly by the fact that
> the instructions do not work quite right.
>
> 	You are supposed to type install-keymap us and a new
> boot-time keyboard map should be copied to
> /etc/console-setup/boottime.kmap.gz or something close but it
> doesn't happen. I discovered after some poking around that it
> installs the keymap in to /etc/console for some reason. To fix
> that, you must manually copy that file to /etc/console-setup/
> and then it all works.
>
> 	I got in touch with the fellow who wrote the vinux
> distribution and told him how much I appreciate the effort he
> has made. As far as I am concerned, it has made a lot of
> equipment that was gathering dust useful again. I can now turn
> off a setup I have been using for 23 years which includes an
> Echo P.C. synthesizer. It has worked well for all these years,
> but it is time to modernize.
>
> 	Sorry for the length of this message, but I think vinux
> adds more options to making Unix/Linux more accessible and that
> is what it is all about.
>
> Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
> Systems Engineer
> OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>    

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

Re: Speakup and vinux

[Janitha Rukmal]

Hi Martin,
I  was looking for a good linux distribution just like Vinux. I'm from a 
3rd world country & so can't afford to move on to some high-end  ICor 7 
machine. According to your detailed explanation I understand that it 
will work fine with my Compaq Amada E500 Notebook that has a Pentium 3 
processor, 256 mb ram and 20 Gb harddisk a part of which has been 
dedicated to Windows OS cause it's very hard to survive in Sri Lanka 
without at least a pirate copy of windows installed on a computer.
So, my windows partition has occupied nearly 12 out of 20 Gb I've got in 
my notebook. What I would like to know is whether it's possible or not 
for me to go ahead with Vinux with the resources and Harddisk space my 
notebook possesses.

I want to know this in advance cause my ISP is also yearning to cut off 
a big chunk when I'm downloading something pretty big as this and I want 
to save it if this distribution is also not going to work for me.

Many thanks in advance
With best wishes for a happy, prosperous, peaceful and victorious year 2010!
Janitha Rukmal

On 1/5/2010 11:18 PM, Martin McCormick wrote:
> Hello and happy New Year.
>
> 	Over the New Year's weekend, I downloaded and installed
> the middle-sized version of vinux which is a version of Debian
> Linux which boots up speaking and uses speakup as the speech
> engine. This is a game changer for me and I think it should be
> one for a number of others who own middle-aged to slightly older
> computers that are not ready for the attic or the recyclers yet,
> but are not bleeding-edge dream machines with gigs of RAM and
> terrabytes of disk storage.
>
> 	You can read about vinux at
>
> http://vinux-development.blogspot.com/
>
> 	There is a minimal iso image, a mid-sized one and a set
> of 4, I think, CDROM images for a complete Linux installation
> from CD.
>
> 	I tried the vinux installation on 3 systems. One is a
> Gateway system from 1995 or so. It only presently has 64 megs of
> RAM and that is really not enough. The speech works, but
> aptitude barfs every time you try to install anything and
> complains about running out of memory. Also, there were numerous
> errors during the installation stating that there was no space
> left on the device. I believe that is probably the virtual disk
> created from available RAM of which there is far too little.
>
> 	Amazingly, the speech is fine. The remedy is to find
> some more memory and try the installation again as I don't know
> what all didn't get installed.
>
> 	The second system was that laptop. It has finally met
> its match. The installation went smoothly and it now has 6
> virtual consoles that talk when you need them.
>
> 	Just for fun, I tried to add mplayer and mpg123. They
> went right in and speechdispatcher and the other alsa services
> all seem to play nicely together. You hear speakup mixed right
> in with the music or whatever audio one is listening to and
> neither seems to disrupt the other.
>
> 	I also tried recording with a microphone. I still may
> not have amixer set right but the recordings are much better and
> consistent each time. That laptop has no line input although
> amixer reports a Line input. This system appears to be working
> although I haven't tried a PCMCIA serial port yet.
>
> 	The third system is another oldie from around 2000 at
> work. I had a terrible time formatting the hard drive for Linux
> because it had had FreeBSD on it and I didn't know you can't
> just format the drive with ext3 file systems. You start with a
> ext2 and use makee2fs -j /PARTITIONNAME and things are much
> better afterward.
>
> 	Now for the slightly bad news. When you install vinux,
> you get a British keyboard. I am sure there are plenty of
> British people who feel the same way when they get a US
> keyboard. The British and US keyboards are mostly identical but
> the differences can drive one crazy when you are used to one and
> now confronted with the other.
>
> 	The shift of the number 2 gives you a double quotation
> mark. The key that should send the \ gives you a number or
> Pounds sign as in shift-3. The Caps-lock key does not announce
> as it toggles and you soon discover that setting it involves the
> normal speakup sequence of shift-capslock but clearing it
> requires just a tap on the Caps-lock. Also, the Caps-lock on the
> UK keyboard shifts numbers and punctuation marks as if one was
> really holding down the Shift key. That's bad when you have
> punctuations in a password.
>
> 	If any of you install vinux, you can temporarily get a
> US keyboard by entering the following command after su'ing to
> root:
>
> loadkeys us
>
> 	Not only do you magically get an American keyboard map,
> but the Caps-lock starts announcing its status each time you
> change it and it also works the way we are used to seeing it
> work.
>
> 	When you get vinux installed, the way to permanently
> change to a US keyboard is complicated slightly by the fact that
> the instructions do not work quite right.
>
> 	You are supposed to type install-keymap us and a new
> boot-time keyboard map should be copied to
> /etc/console-setup/boottime.kmap.gz or something close but it
> doesn't happen. I discovered after some poking around that it
> installs the keymap in to /etc/console for some reason. To fix
> that, you must manually copy that file to /etc/console-setup/
> and then it all works.
>
> 	I got in touch with the fellow who wrote the vinux
> distribution and told him how much I appreciate the effort he
> has made. As far as I am concerned, it has made a lot of
> equipment that was gathering dust useful again. I can now turn
> off a setup I have been using for 23 years which includes an
> Echo P.C. synthesizer. It has worked well for all these years,
> but it is time to modernize.
>
> 	Sorry for the length of this message, but I think vinux
> adds more options to making Unix/Linux more accessible and that
> is what it is all about.
>
> Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
> Systems Engineer
> OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>    

Speakup and vinux

[Martin McCormick]

Hello and happy New Year.

	Over the New Year's weekend, I downloaded and installed
the middle-sized version of vinux which is a version of Debian
Linux which boots up speaking and uses speakup as the speech
engine. This is a game changer for me and I think it should be
one for a number of others who own middle-aged to slightly older
computers that are not ready for the attic or the recyclers yet,
but are not bleeding-edge dream machines with gigs of RAM and
terrabytes of disk storage.

	You can read about vinux at

http://vinux-development.blogspot.com/

	There is a minimal iso image, a mid-sized one and a set
of 4, I think, CDROM images for a complete Linux installation
from CD.

	I tried the vinux installation on 3 systems. One is a
Gateway system from 1995 or so. It only presently has 64 megs of
RAM and that is really not enough. The speech works, but
aptitude barfs every time you try to install anything and
complains about running out of memory. Also, there were numerous
errors during the installation stating that there was no space
left on the device. I believe that is probably the virtual disk
created from available RAM of which there is far too little.

	Amazingly, the speech is fine. The remedy is to find
some more memory and try the installation again as I don't know
what all didn't get installed.

	The second system was that laptop. It has finally met
its match. The installation went smoothly and it now has 6
virtual consoles that talk when you need them.

	Just for fun, I tried to add mplayer and mpg123. They
went right in and speechdispatcher and the other alsa services
all seem to play nicely together. You hear speakup mixed right
in with the music or whatever audio one is listening to and
neither seems to disrupt the other.

	I also tried recording with a microphone. I still may
not have amixer set right but the recordings are much better and
consistent each time. That laptop has no line input although
amixer reports a Line input. This system appears to be working
although I haven't tried a PCMCIA serial port yet.

	The third system is another oldie from around 2000 at
work. I had a terrible time formatting the hard drive for Linux
because it had had FreeBSD on it and I didn't know you can't
just format the drive with ext3 file systems. You start with a
ext2 and use makee2fs -j /PARTITIONNAME and things are much
better afterward.

	Now for the slightly bad news. When you install vinux,
you get a British keyboard. I am sure there are plenty of
British people who feel the same way when they get a US
keyboard. The British and US keyboards are mostly identical but
the differences can drive one crazy when you are used to one and
now confronted with the other.

	The shift of the number 2 gives you a double quotation
mark. The key that should send the \ gives you a number or
Pounds sign as in shift-3. The Caps-lock key does not announce
as it toggles and you soon discover that setting it involves the
normal speakup sequence of shift-capslock but clearing it
requires just a tap on the Caps-lock. Also, the Caps-lock on the
UK keyboard shifts numbers and punctuation marks as if one was
really holding down the Shift key. That's bad when you have
punctuations in a password.

	If any of you install vinux, you can temporarily get a
US keyboard by entering the following command after su'ing to
root:

loadkeys us

	Not only do you magically get an American keyboard map,
but the Caps-lock starts announcing its status each time you
change it and it also works the way we are used to seeing it
work.

	When you get vinux installed, the way to permanently
change to a US keyboard is complicated slightly by the fact that
the instructions do not work quite right.

	You are supposed to type install-keymap us and a new
boot-time keyboard map should be copied to
/etc/console-setup/boottime.kmap.gz or something close but it
doesn't happen. I discovered after some poking around that it
installs the keymap in to /etc/console for some reason. To fix
that, you must manually copy that file to /etc/console-setup/
and then it all works.

	I got in touch with the fellow who wrote the vinux
distribution and told him how much I appreciate the effort he
has made. As far as I am concerned, it has made a lot of
equipment that was gathering dust useful again. I can now turn
off a setup I have been using for 23 years which includes an
Echo P.C. synthesizer. It has worked well for all these years,
but it is time to modernize.

	Sorry for the length of this message, but I think vinux
adds more options to making Unix/Linux more accessible and that
is what it is all about.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group