Thank you for interest ! Let me answer step by step. Cheryl Homiak <chomiak@chartermi.net> writes: > Nice job on the notes; just a few comments and questions. > 1. It is important to point out that you must have a linux system > of some kind already up and running before you can do all this. I thought it was obvious - and I hope people reading these notes would understand that if they haven't any linux box access to, they have to find someone to do things for them or look for pre-compiled things on internet. In fact, I didn't suppose people to have DOS working for example, nor Windows or others as I haven't. One other reason is that installing Debian is not so easy - so I sometimes missed some trivial things. Anyway, you're right, it could be mentionned. > I don't myself have a website so I can't volunteer, but perhaps it > would be possible to put the modified root.bin and set of brltty disk > contents on a website. this is complicated a bit by the fact that, if I > understand correctly, there still must be a different brltty executable > for each brl driver if you are linking statically. I am sure some of > us, myself included, would volunteer to make and send brltty sets to > those needing them and not having access to a linux installation or > having difficulty doing their own. Yes Dave answered to this > It is my understanding that, though it is preferable to do floppy > images from linux, it is still possible to use the rawrite DOS program > for this. Can you also copy a tar.gz file from your DOS directory onto > a floppy? I think rawrite doesn't care about the file length you want to write to the floppy disk (until it's not too big) : so it should work fine. > 2. it should be pointed out that one can use any flavor of the > root.bin and rescue.bin, not just the "bf" ones that were cited in the notes. Well, I decided to give an idea so that if in doubt people will use this - but if no doubt, they'd use image files of their choice. > 3. when I mount the root.bin, I use > mount root.bin -o loop > instead of > mount root /mnt -o loop=/dev/loop0 > Perhaps there is a reason why sometimes the specific loop device must be > specified. I would > like to know the reason for this. No reason although it can help to understand a little better what happens > 4. to be more specific about the documentation for compiling brltty for > use statically, this is located in the brltty source package in > Bootdisks/README. Some of the instructions there, specifically the ones for > putting brltty on the rootdisk, do not work for debian, but the compile > instructions are > fine as written. Yes. It's available online too, so I didn't want to be too long on this. > 5. debian woody root.bin does include /dev/vcsa and /dev/vcsa0 so it > wouldn't be > necessary to have /dev in your tar file, though it doesn't hurt. also, nothing > from /lib/brltty is really necessary. It is possible, once you've done the > 'make" simply to copy brltty from the package directory, the .hlp file for > your driver from the from the 'help" > directory (if needed) and your table from the BrailleTables directory into a > simple tree containing /sbin with the brltty executable under it, /etch witha > brltty directory containing your .hlp file and your table under it. Then you > would tar this tree. In a way, > this is more steps, but you don't have to actually do an "install" anywhere. By faking the install, I think it's nicer as you have a complete BRLTTY suite on the third floppy. But you're right some things are useless - I haven't studied BRLTTY's design further than to be able to get a static suite. > 6. I am a bit puzzled about all the changes being made to inittab; I have > never found any of them necessary, which of course doesn't mean they might not > be in certain circumstances. What is the purpose here? changing "null" to "tty1" prevents system from doing things in our back... for example, "read ret" doesn't do what we want if it isn't attached to a normal tty, and we can't load third floppy. For the second thing, removing the "u", it prevents system from launching dbootstrap within frame buffer if it's available All these things are needed for bf2.4 floppies, you can't install Debian else. They may not be necessary with 2.2 floppies, (the second is not if I remember well). > 7. I am currently using the "testing" version of debian, and even in > testing > the brltty version is still 2.99.5, and the speech part of brltty, at least when > I tried using the debian package, wasn't implemented. so I would recommend to > people, once you are completely installed and ready to change from the temporary > brltty system you have installed to a permanent one, that you get the source > from > www.mielke.cc/brltty > and compile it on your machine. I found the debian config for it to be > justabout as complicated (maybe a little more so) as compiling and installing > it myself. The one advantage I can see to using the debian package is that you > don't have to try to figure out where to put the commands to make brltty come up > at boot; as I recall, the debian package does that for you in some way. I think that when there is a package, it's always better to try to do with it : even if there are some bugs to report. Debian is great so let's use it properly :-) I can see (by other posts) that you'd probably agree now. > 8. Just a language pointer: the English word for what you are calling a > "brute" copy is actually "raw" when referring to a floppy image. what was > written is perfectly understandable, > but I am commenting on this just so you will know the proper terminology. Thank you - if it's the only english mistake I'm very happy :-)) > 9. just something I have wondered about. The debian documentation says to > use > bs=1024 > when using the "dd" command to transfer the image to a floppy. the brltty > documentation talks about using > bs=512 > Is there a reason for this difference? I don't think so, as far as the block size is multiple of powers of 2. Anyway, I'm not sure it's really useful to mention bs option - it can't hurt (it's kind of security in case floppies are broken if I remember) ! > It's obvious a lot of time and effort went into these notes; several of us > appreciate it greatly I am sure. Too bad it will be obsolete in future debian > releases. Let's say that next installer won't need such work to get OK for us ! > Cheryl > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Blinux-list@redhat.com > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list thanks -- Boris Daix "Feel free to be free, or not to be..." _______________________________________________ Blinux-list@redhat.com https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list