A couple of things: 1. I've made a modified debian installation CD that allows you to install via a doubletalk without having to enter the cheat code. In other words, if you connect up a doubletalk to ttyS0 and boot from this CD, it will just start talking. You can download it here: http://www.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/debian/debian-40r0-i386-amd64-NETINST-speakup-ltlk.iso 2. i have a problem with the debian installer (both my modified CD and the original one from Shane's space on debian.org). When you get to the part where you "Select and install software", it always wants to uninstall the kernel. Sometimes it asks if you want to abort the uninstall. That's not too bad since you can just say, yes, you want to abort the uninstall. But even worse is that often it just uninstalls it. It seems to leave the kernel intact if you select an unmodified kernel. But then, of course, the machine is not going to talk when it bootts. Is there a good way to prevent the installer from uninstalling the speakup modified kernel?