Talking d-i installer

[Jeffrey Malewski]

Hello,
I've long had an interest in Linux, but as a visually impaired user I've
always been on the outside looking in, peering through my 7X magnifier. That
i am low vision has allowed me to get away with some operations that a blind
user cannot, and I have installed Ubuntu and derivitives of Ubuntu without
having to go to the desktop on the live Cd. That the Ubuntu d-i installer is
not accessible is something I've known for about 5 years, and that is a
roadblock to blind users that I'd like to remove. The Debian Squeeze net
installer has Speakup built into it and I've found it to be quite
accessible. Last spring I took on the challenge of bringing that to Ubuntu,
and asked the Debian Accessibility Team for some guidance. It was suggested
that I ask the Ubuntu Accessibility Team. I've continued on my own, it's
been an education but I've made little progress. I've extracted the
initrd.img from the Debian Cd and most recently the Ubuntu Server 12.04.
It's clear that the Debina d-i uses a modular kernel which speakup is built
into and the alsa driver, espeak-data, and espeakup are already in the
Debian initrd.img. I've recently found the latest kernel image 3.2 di, the
speakup module and all the necessary components in one of the Precise
Universe mirrors. They are available as .udeb or source (tar.bz2) I am
unsure how to add the alsa, espeak, and espeakup .udebs to the initrd.img so
my first question is whether I would be better off to build the di kernel as
a monolithic kernel or not. I am able to mount the file system extracted
from the initrd.img and I am also able to chroot into it. The environment is
ash rather than bash and apt hasn't been installed at that point.
 
My other question relates to the installer's gtk frontend. The Debian Cd has
a mechanism to disable the gtk frontend so that the installer runs in a pure
text environment (everything is directly on-screen rather than ina dialoge
box) which allows speakup to read the options as they appear on-screen. Is
this something I should try to incorporate into the modified initrd.img?
 
I posted both questions on the Ubuntu Accessibility List yesterday and
Samuel Thibault was kind enough to reply. He suggested that I contact the
Ubuntu Installer Team, since you would best know the inner workings of the
Ubuntu Installer. He also touched on the differences between a modular d-i
kernel vrs a monolithic d-i kernel. Each would likely achieve the same goal,
but perhaps the modular d-i kernel would be the better approach.
 
I would greatly appreciate any advice or guidance in building a talking d-i
installer for Ubuntu. It is my belief that it will be a benefit to the
entire Ubuntu community and it's derivitives, particularly the Vinux
community.
 
Thank you,
Jeff
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