Ubuntu Accessibility

[Henrik Nilsen Omma]

Hi Willem,

I'm copying in Luke Yelavich who knows more about provisions for the 
blind than I do, and the development list where features for the next 
release are being discussed. We do currently have the gnopernicus screen 
reader available in Ubuntu, but I get the impression that the 
console-based speakup is actually the preferred solution for most people.

You would obviously prefer that speakup was included in the stock kernel 
by default, but others might be weary of feature creep. You say that the 
speakup patch is small, how much does it affect overall performance and 
stability? If such a default inclusion were not possible, what would be 
the next best option? Perhaps easy access to it from the installer would 
work. If you knew from information on the website that pressing F12, 
say, just after booting the install CD would start the install program 
with a speech enabled kernel, would that be a good solution? How much 
extra space on the CD would a speakup patched kernel require? Could it 
be patched or the module enabled or whatever as part of the install 
process, or will that always that require a re-compile? 

I guess the third option is to prepare a separate kernel and make it 
available via apt. This is less optimal because a blind user would need 
help with setting up the system and running the apt update before being 
able to start using it. Who could maintain and test such a module? Does 
it require any special speech hardware or just a standard sound card?

Cheers,
    Henrik

Willem van der Walt<willem at top.health.gov.za> wrote:

> Hello,
> I saw a message from you on the gnome accessibility list.
> I am a blind Linux user since 1996.
> I also administrated Solaris running Oracle.
> I am glad to know that Ubuntu is taking accessibility into account, 
> but have a few questions.
> 1.  are there any plans to include speakup in the ubuntu kernel, and 
> if not, why not?  Speakup is the screen reader i am using while 
> writing this.
> It is a console mode screen reader and stable.  No graphical screen 
> reader i know of, is yet stable enough to be used in the real world.  
> We as a blind Linux using community eagerly awaits a stable accessible 
> javascript supporting web browser.  There are some programs under X 
> that one would also like to have access to, but a lot can already be 
> done from the command line.  Speakup needs to be patched into the 
> kernel.  It has the advantage that one has speech  from the time init 
> starts running.
> Speakup can be found at:
> http://www.linux-speakup.org/speakup.html
>
> 2.  Should inclusion in the standard kernel not be an option, might it 
> be possible to have a custom pre-compiled kernel including speakup 
> available as a separate download?
> 3.  Could the YASR screen reading program be included?
>     YASR does the same job as speakup, reading the text screen.  It 
> cannot be available as quickly as speakup, but that is not required 
> for every Linux user.  Both of these are small in size, so it should 
> not upset space requirements.
>
> YASR sits at a higher level and is not Linux specific.  I think it can 
> run on freebsd as well.
> There are a number of other projects as well.
> Emacspeak is an audio desktop.  I suppose it is fantastic once one 
> knows emacs.  It is the eldest accessibility product for UNIX and is 
> may be included in Ubuntu.
> Brltty is a project that supply support for braille displays.
>
> May be you can tell me that these things are already included in 
> Ubuntu, as i haven't installed it and the website does not say much.  
> If so, I am sorry for waisting time.  If i can help, let me know.
> TIA
> Willem
>
>
>