Talking d-i installer

[Dmitrijs Ledkovs]

On 25 January 2013 15:56, Jeffrey Malewski <jmlwsk at toast.net> wrote:
> 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?
>

Unlike debian, we use our own graphical installer - Ubiquity. It is
different from d-i's gtk frontend.
On the desktop images we do not ship/support text-mode d-i installer.

When Desktop installation CD boots, one hears a quick drumroll sound.
At which point one can start a screen reader using keyboard
combination "Ctrl + s".
The desktop installer can be navigated using keyboard and screen
reader can be of assistance. I had reports from Allan Bell that it is
possible to complete quantal released CD installation "blindfolded"
(turn the monitor off).
The complete screen reader instructions are tested for each milestone
by manual testers using these instructions:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/testcases/1309/info

> 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.
>

I'd rather see ubiquity a11y improvements. When I was fixing up bugs
for Quantal, I found very little documentation on how to make custom
GTK+ widgets become more a11y  accessible and how to custom announce
changing text/labels in the UI.

Although we are using modified d-i to build
alternate/server/mini/pxeboot images, it should be possible to apply
similar a11y d-i changes to build an ubuntu d-i image with
text-to-speech.
Here are some (dated) instructions on customizing ubuntu d-i based
images  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallCDCustomization .

Note that ubuntu no longer builds nor publishes alternate desktop CD
images from Quantal and up.

Regards,

Dmitrijs.