ubuntu live CD with Screen Reader not Starting

[Martin McCormick]

	I wanted to test the latest ubuntu live CD on a Dell
Enspiron laptop which dates back to about 2001 and has 256 megs
of RAM so it should do the job just fine. It used to run
Windows-XP and then I installed a Linux distribution called
oralux which is now rather outdated and no longer supported, but
works in screen reader mode.

	The steps for booting ubuntu live are:

Boot and hit Enter at the grub prompt to select English.
Hit F5 for Accessibility.
Hit 3 to go directly to the Screen Reader header and then Enter twice.

	I had my wife who can see verify that I was doing all
these things.

	What happens is about 20 minutes of frantic CDROM I/O
or, in this case, I as the system loads lots of stuff from the
CDROM.

	One does hear the little drum flourish during the drive
activity and, some seconds later, the long musical chord as
ubuntu comes up. There is yet more CDROM activity and then it
all falls silent. The screen is mostly black with a small blue
line near the top. If one touches the mouse pad which is on this
laptop, there are small flashes on the screen and the CDROM
wakes up.

	No voice, however and no video.

	I did try a suggestion of hitting Alt-F2 which provoked
another spasm from the CDROM drive, but no audio.

	I tried to use the dmesg in the oralux distribution to
get a report of the audio and video devices, but it doesn't
produce that sort of output like I get on a full Debian system
so I am not sure what it's got.

	If there are better ways to get a list of hardware out,
it may be possible to provide boot options to force what it
can't seem to figure out on its own.

	I don't think it is very far away from booting, but
something is getting missed.

	This is not my only method for computer access so I am
not in an emergency. I am just trying to upgrade to the 21ST
century before some of my old stuff really bites the dust.

	Thanks for any ideas.



Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group