Disappointed with Gutsy live (long)

[Mike Reiser]

I've tried it in a vm on windows and natively on the cd and no luck in 
eather case.  I think we should wait until it is finally confirmed that the 
cd works properly.

Mike
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jude DaShiell" <jdashiel at shellworld.net>
To: "Mike Reiser" <metalhead1009000 at gmail.com>
Cc: <debee at jfcl.com>; <ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: Disappointed with Gutsy live (long)


>I read over on the speakup list of another failed attempt to get the system 
>upgraded from feisty to gutsy using the CD if memory serves. Apparently not 
>all the hardware that was on the computer was supported by gutsy so dpkg 
>went into a Catch #22 situation where further upgrading is blocked because 
>dpkg couldn't install a package correctly and completely.
>
>
>
> On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Mike Reiser wrote:
>
>> I share your disappointments, I can't even get the live CD to work here. 
>> We've been basically excluded from the testing phase of this version 
>> also.
>>
>> Mike
>>  ----- Original Message -----
>>  From: Deborah Norling
>>  To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
>>  Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 11:06 PM
>>  Subject: Disappointed with Gutsy live (long)
>>
>>
>>  I like Ubuntu, because as they say, it usually "just works". I run a 
>> feisty-based server and helped my sighted husband set up MythTV on a 
>> pre-release of Gutsy.
>>
>>  That's why I'm particularly disappointed with the newly released Gutsy 
>> live desktop CD. I'm posting this in detail in hopes that I've just 
>> missed something crucial.
>>
>>  I played with the Feisty live CD back in March and April of this year, 
>> before and after it was released. I never successfully installed Feisty 
>> using Orca. I had no trouble at all with Ubuntu (any version) if I stuck 
>> to the alternate or server install CD, and installed using the serial 
>> port. But the problems I had with Feisty six months ago seem to still be 
>> occurring.
>>
>>  Serial ports are disappearing from desktops so I want to be able to use 
>> Linux without needing to depend on speakup, hardware synthesizers  or 
>> serial consoles. At this point Linux is a hobby; I work as a Windows 
>> computer tech for a college. But I hope to eventually ditch Windows and 
>> even find employment working in a non-windows environment.
>>
>>  I boot the Gutsy live desktop CD and press F5 for the access options. I 
>> press 3 or arrow down to it, to activate Orca. I press ENTER twice and 
>> wait a couple of minutes.
>>
>>  Orca runs, and it seems to be working as well as it ever worked. It 
>> can't read help, which would seem to be the first thing a new user would 
>> want to do, but OpenOffice does work, so I presume it is happy with my 
>> hardware.
>>
>>  I run brltty by quitting orca, running gnome-terminal, typing sudo su 
>> and on the next command line typing "brltty -bauto -d/dev/ttyUSB0".
>>
>>  Brltty runs, but says the screen is not in text mode. Ok, guess even in 
>> a terminal, we aren't in text mode.
>>
>>  It would be nice if this was better documented; the need to run brltty 
>> for Braille support, even though Braille support is already checked in 
>> the Orca preferences, the fact that even in gnome-terminal the screen is 
>> presumably not text-based, and the fact that help isn't working. I can 
>> add to the wiki of course. but would beginners know to look there? What 
>> about a readme on the CD, which auto-starts in Windows with a screen 
>> that's basically advertising for Ubuntu with no real information. Or 
>> maybe just a how-to page on the Ubuntu site that covers all this. I am 
>> eager to improve the docs, but I have to get it running first and know 
>> what I'm doing.
>>
>>  Another disappointment: this is still brltty 3.72. The Orca wiki states 
>> that it's better to use 3.8 because it can be compiled with the python 
>> bindings -- so why is an older, less effective version on this new live 
>> CD?
>>
>>  I run Orca again and now it is communicating with brltty. Python 
>> bindings or not, it seems to show everything in Braille just fine.
>>
>>  On my Windows PC, I search the internet for information about installing 
>> Gutsy using Orca. Lots of info about conflicts with different versions of 
>> portaudio,  forum postings  about how cool it is that Ubuntu is 
>> accessible, but no definitive tutorial or how-to on installing. A few 
>> days ago, I found lots more information on fixing MythTV problems. It's 
>> disappointing that  there is so little information as I do believe 
>> strongly in RTFM.
>>
>>  I've already tried the Install icon from the desktop with my husband 
>> reading the screen. He confirms that the install runs, but Orca can only 
>> echo keystrokes, it reads nothing in the install dialogs.
>>
>>  I locate instructions on installing Feisty with Orca, the same wiki page 
>> I've myself contributed to. I follow those instructions, running 
>> gnome-terminal, typing sudo su, quitting orca, then running orca again 
>> with orca --disable-setup --disable main-window. I next type ubiquity, 
>> and the install runs, but still, Orca can't read any of it. Not even in 
>> flat review does it see anything.
>>
>>  Between these tests I've done alt-ctrl-backspace to kill the X session, 
>> and brltty remains active, informing me that default boot scripts are 
>> being run. Each time Orca does automatically load and work with Braille. 
>> It crashes once, but I get it back easily, and the system seems generally 
>> stable.
>>
>>  At one point, I try running gparted as root, and though ps confirms that 
>> gparted is running, Orca can't read its screen either. Is orca only 
>> really able to let me access just a few "productivity" apps? I saw that 
>> Sun at CSUN had done a session on MythTV with Orca last year, so I'd 
>> expected Orca to work with a wide variety of software.
>>
>>  I've tried this on several PCS and I can't figure out if Orca is really 
>> this undeveloped or I'm doing something wrong.
>>
>>  I've looked on the wiki at what I presume are the latest release notes; 
>> they discuss details like the spell-checker working better in OpenOffice, 
>> Firefox 2 vs 3  and the bugginess of acroread. I'm grateful that so much 
>> hard work has gone in to working with the Firefox developers and 
>> scripting applications like Gaim, But I now just want to read the install 
>> dialogs.
>>
>>  In theory, since X is client-server based, since all information is 
>> openly available, and because a whole ton of people are working hard on 
>> this project, Orca should be miles ahead of Windows screen readers like 
>> JAWS. I'm disappointed; I really want to ditch Windows, but how can I if 
>> access is this flaky still?
>>
>>  --Debee
>>
>>
>>
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