Hi Ace! No Speakup in user space wouldn't have been able to help you solve your problem. In my not so humble opinion, those who are whining about speakup not needing to be in user space are just full of it and don't have the technical knowledge to express such an opinion. Most of them still think from a Windows mind set where they are used to being told, "no, we can't give you access to that." I defy a windows user to do a full Windows install from scratch without sighted assistence. Sure, if someone puts together a kick start script, you can do an unattended install, but it ain't simple. With Speakup built into the kernel, and a good hardware synth, I can sit down at any computer and do an out of the box install, with no sighted assistence at all. In fact, just yesterday, I had a situation where I was testing a new kernel, and the system wasn't finding the drive to mount. If speakup hadn't have been in the kernel, there wouldn't have been any way for me to know what was going on without sighted assistance. It's a bit like asking a sighted person to use a computer with no monitor attached, a really stupid idea. The problem with user space programs is that everything has to go well during the boot process before the user space screen reader can start. And no matter how soon you get it to start during the boot process, if the drive isn't mounted, then the screen reader can't start. And yes, I know about ram disks and initrd and all that stuff. The trouble is, you have to know you are going to need that stuff in advance. If the screen reader is in the kernel, and you want to skip all the boot messages, no problem. But if it's in user space, and you can't get to user space to start it, you've got a problem, and a most irritating one at that. In my opinion, nontechnical users should just shut up about whether sspeakup belongs in the kernel, because they neither have the knowledge, nor the technical understanding to express a useful opinion. Unknowledgeable speculation is just that, and not helpful at all. Fortunately the uninformed don't get a vote on this. Kirk has no plans to move Speakup to user space, so that should be the end of the discussion. If I've offended some folks here, sorry, but they've offended me by remaining uninformed, and showing their ignorance by expressing an opinion which in my view, they are not qualified to express. I sincerely hope this stupid topic will go away. Those who need boot up info can get it with speakup, and those who don't can just ignore it, and quit bitching because those of us who do need access insist on having it. Gene
