Accessibility question: setting up Ubuntu without sight

[Clinton Waterbury]

On 08/25/2013 04:08 PM, Grant Hardy wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've downloaded the latest stable release of Ubuntu (13.04) and
> created a bootable USB drive for installation. I then booted from the
> USB drive, waited until I heard the chime, and pressed CTRL+S to start
> Orca, the built-in screen reader that lets someone who is blind or
> visually impaired setup and use Ubuntu without sight.
>
> According to the documentation, this should have opened the main
> window for Orca from which I could access the preferences dialog, but
> in fact this did not happen. Orca started reading the screen, but no
> Orca window appeared. Further research reveals that this is the
> expected behavior for Ubuntu 13.04 and that in order to access the
> Orca main window I have to press INSERT+SPACE.
>
> The trouble is, I'm using a netbook which does not have an insert key.
> One can change Orca's keyboard layout so that it uses CAPSLOCK as a
> modifier key rather than INSERT, but to do this you have to be able to
> get into the preferences dialog.
>
> This actually is a rather serious deal. It means Orca is stuck in the
> wrong keyboard layout, yet there's no way to go into preferences and
> change it because to do so I have to press a key which I don't have.
> ;) That means a lot of Orca's critical functionality is inaccessible.
>
> I mean, I could probably pick up a cheap USB keyboard and use that,
> but is there In fact a proper solution to this or is this a bug?
>
> I managed to select the option to try Ubuntu, got into the terminal and typed:
> $killall orca
> $orca --text-setup
>
> This brought me into a setup window where I should be able to select
> the proper keyboard layout, but when I enter all my settings and press
> ENTER to confirm them, Orca restarts but the settings are not applied.
>
> I've tried the following to force Orca's main window to show:
> $killall orca
> $orca --enable main-window
>
> However this has no effect. Orca starts but the main window is still hidden.
>
> What am I missing here?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Grant
>
I think that's a bug in 13.04, I've noticed that myself, but I think you 
might be the first to bring up this issue.