Tony Baechler here.
I have two major problems with this argument, namely what Chris says in that
Talking Arch should be a separate project. I feel strongly that speech and
Braille should be part of all boot media for all mainstream distros unless
it wouldn't be practical, such as for very small systems or due to space
limitations on the boot media.
First, I guess it's just me, but pressing a key or two at the boot prompt
really isn't a big deal. My boot loader lets me pick what OS I want to boot.
I have to press a number for the partition I want. If you use GRUB and want
to boot into recovery mode, you press the down arrow, whether you're blind
or sighted. If you want to boot a custom Linux kernel command line, you type
it in. Pressing the letter "s" and Enter to start speech in Debian and
Slackware is hardly what I would call an inconvenience. Granted, I agree
that I would rather not have to press aspecial keys, but if it keeps most
people happy (the sighted don't want speech) and allows an accessible
install, it's fine with me.
The second major problem I have is that unless I'm mistaken, it's still
impossible for the blind to install Windows without help. Much of it can be
automated and maybe Win10 has Narrator during the install, I'm not sure. The
point is speech doesn't start automatically and there are far more keys to
randomly press to get speech. In the past, I had someone install Windows for
me before I could install a screen reader. One area where Linux shines is
there are distros which only require a key or two at boot to have a fully
talking installer which is identical to what the sighted use. Even the Mac
can't do that, although one can start VoiceOver during the installation.
On 4/24/2017 8:21 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
Kelly Prescott here.
It takes a lot of effort to make a boot environment talk... I know, because
that is what I am working on.
I am not speaking of Linux, I am speaking of a boot loader.
When I finish my boot loader, then it might be realistic to have a normal
arch cd with some boot options.
Until that happens, I agree with Chris. I don't like to boot and guess what
to type and when.
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