Slackware is, as far as I know, the only distro which has, seemingly ALL the speakup synth 'modules' compiled into the kernel, e.g. not as external modules. I think the above is historical, but is also coincidentally an advantage to us, as for those of us with hardware synths, it makes it possible to boot and install, assuming it is working right. Speakup re-written in 6 months? Why is there a need to re-write it? The only reason I can think of is the now almost universal lack of serial ports on computers and the current inability of speakup to use USB for hardware synths. I don't know if it is even possible to use USB with a kernel module. And I don't know whether USB or USB hardware synths use or support hardware hand-shaking. There has been talk of the tty being removed from the kernel, at which time speakup will, presumably, become unusable at all. The see-saw nature of accessibility in modern Linux is a downside to diversity. There is a lot to choose from, which means there are also a lot of failure points. There are a lot of developers who, being able to see perfectly well, give little thought to accessibility. Projects change hands, developers move on, and a project which had good accessibility can suddenly stop working for us simply because of a developer change. Orca certainly needs more financial support. If God forbid, anything happened to take Joanie away from Orca development, we would be in crisis. But that is not an uncommon situation in OSS. I think installers are getting better. So much so that VI-specific distros like Vinux and Sonar are now almost irrelevant. IMHO their only advantage is ootb package tweaking. A lot of inaccessible packages are not included by default like they are in mainstream distros, where we have to fiddle about cherry-picking what we can and cannot use. Back to speakup specifically for a moment...IMHO what is really needed is for the source to be brought up to kernel standards to get it out of staging, and for the web site to be refreshed. The web site looks and feels stale and untouched. Leading some sighted folks to believe speakup is dead and irrelevant, which it is definitely not. Mike On 07/02/2015 15:55, John G. Heim wrote: > I wouldn't go quite that far. I will agree though that the accessibility > tools in linux have gotten worse in the last 5 years, not better. This > is a disturbing trend. I think things began to fall apart when Oracle > bought Sun and got rid of the orca development team. > > What we should really do is to put together a group to collect grants to > pay for orca development. We could include speakup development but I > think a single dedicated developer could probably rewrite speakup from > scratch in about 6 months. It's a small project compared to the > continuing development that orca represents. > > I'll talk to IAVIT's lawyer about it. > > > > On 02/07/2015 08:43 AM, Glenn / Lenny wrote: >> You know, I use Ubuntu, and I have become disenchanted with Linux. With >> every new release, we have to rebuild accessibility. >> Sure it is free, and it is safer and more powerful than Windows, but >> Windows >> is still more accessible than Linux. >> I had big hopes for Linux, and I have reached a point now where it is >> just a >> tool in the toolbox, mainly for drive manipulation. >> >> Glenn >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Steve Holmes" <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> To: <speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2015 2:52 AM >> Subject: Re: finished with slackware >> >> >> I hate hearing stuff like this; we have made so much progress over the >> years in making Linux accessible and then these things start coming >> up. When you can't even boot a basic system with current versions of >> installer and kernel, then there is something seriously wrong! >> >> I grew up on Slackware clear back in 1994 or so. I then had to login >> from a different computer running a terminal emulator but that was a >> start. >> >> As for me, I like Arch Linux and there is a current talking image >> available. I thought Fedora was currently accessible; no? >> >> On Fri, Feb 06, 2015 at 08:37:32PM -0500, Jude DaShiell wrote: >>> I was trying to install a current version of slackware using the >>> litetalk >>> synthesizer earlier. Given slackware's installer kernel is broken, I >>> got >>> some remote sighted assistance and was told wait 30 seconds then key in >>> boot parameters and that fails persistently insofaras getting speech up. >>> So apparently slackware and Fedora have something in common. In both >>> cases an installer interested in doing an accessible installation >>> needs to >>> find and download an earlier version of the operating systems that did >>> install accessibly and use that version to install then upgrade through >>> the versions to get to current versions. Moonshine on Fedora worked on >>> intel machines in the past and if my memory is correct, maybe slackware >>> 11.2 ought to be able to get it done in this case. What I will do >>> now is >>> take a stab at getting slackware 11.2 to speak and if that fails as time >>> and my download quotas permit will try other versions in the future. >>> This >>> is now a low priority back burner project. I was surprised the >>> distribution got broken in this way. >>> >>> >>> >>> jude <jdashiel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Twitter: @JudeDaShiell >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Speakup mailing list >>> Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >> _______________________________________________ >> Speakup mailing list >> Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Speakup mailing list >> Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >> > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup -- Michael A. Ray Analyst/Programmer Witley, Surrey, South-east UK Don't judge my disability until you witness my ability Interested in accessibility on the Raspberry Pi? Visit: http://www.raspberryvi.org/ >From where you can join our mailing list for visually-impaired Pi hackers _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
