When the serial port question comes up, someone always points out that the headers for a serial port are still there, even though the actual outside db-9/db-25 port isn't there. Unfortunately, this assumption seems to be geared to desktop users. What about those of us using laptops, and said laptop doesn't have pc-express/pcmcia? From this point of view, moving speakup into user space at least partly has advantages. This is especially true since the way things are now, I can't connect a hardware synthesizer to my laptop anyway. On the other hand, having speakup in user space would mean that I could use a usb to serial converter. I'm sure there are more of us in a similar situation, not just yours truly. Ideally, speakup should support as many hardware configurations as possible. Standard serial ports should be supported, as well as non-standard ports. Some of you may recall I still have a machine here with a doubletalk PC installed in a ISA slot. Ideally, I would like to be able to keep using my doubletalk if possible. One more thing to consider. Back when speakup first came out, kernels weren't as modularized as they are now (more modules were built-in), and initial ramdisks weren't as big as they are now (assuming they were used in something other than install media. I first started with GNU/linux using slackware 7.1. From what I recall (and I could be wrong), when the system was installed, there was no initrd, all the modules needed to mount the root FS were in the kernel. In such a situation, having speakup be part of the kernel was a must. Nowadays, I don't know of any distribution which doesn't create a initial ramdisk as part of the install process. So, the only situation where having speakup be a part of the kernel is if someone is building a custom kernel, and including everything needed for booting into the kernel without an initial ramdisk. How many of us here still do that? My guess is very few of us if any. I am not saying speakup should be moved out of the kernel. I'm merely gently suggesting that the case for keeping speakup fully in kernel space isn't as strong as it once was. It does seem to me though like there just might be more advantages to putting at least part of speakup into user space today. Ok, that's my $0.01 worth. Greg On Wed, Oct 08, 2014 at 04:26:09PM -0400, covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > That is what I think as well -- and most motherboards do have serial > ports, just the headers are not brought out to the back. -- web site: http://www.gregn.net gpg public key: http://www.gregn.net/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) If we haven't been in touch before, e-mail me before adding me to your contacts. -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@xxxxxx _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
