Willie, have you seen this: http://blogs.sun.com/setje/entry/happiness_through_ignorance
It looks like this is how you enable alternative consoles during a grub boot. If this isn't the answer, maybe this blog's author would know the answer to your questions. Willie Walker wrote: > Hey Brian: > > Sorry for the delay - I was traveling and then came back to a GNOME > 2.21.91 deadline. I did accomplish a lot in the hotel room, and many > thanks to those in the #install chat room who helped me get a lot > farther. > > We are definitely very close to an accessible install for Indiana. > The thing I'm excited about is that it's not a completely insane idea > and it is well within our reach. I still need to write up my notes, > but I'm guessing the next steps are: > > 0) Work to get the needed SFE packages (below) onto the CD. I also > need to check in some changes to the SUNWgnome-a11y-speech.spec file > to build the eSpeak driver if eSpeak is available. > > 1) Figure out how to set the appropriate properties via GRUB and then > make them have an effect on the runtime environments of root and jack > for the live CD. In particular, if one selects "Screen Reader" (or > whatever we put on the GRUB screen), we need to dynamically make these > modifications to ~root and ~jack: > > ~root/.gconf/.gconf/desktop/gnome/accessibility/%gconf.xml -- new > file to enable a11y > ~root/.orbitrc -- new file to allow jack to access GUI apps > (nwamd) running on jack's display > > ~jack/.gconf/.gconf/desktop/gnome/accessibility/%gconf.xml -- new > file to enable a11y > ~jack/.conf/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop -- new file to start the > PulseAudio daemon > ~jack/.conf/autostart/orca.desktop -- new file to start Orca > > Related to this, I need to figure out how to set > GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge in the environment that's running nwamd. > Without it, the nwamd GUI dialogs are inaccessible. Plus, I need to > figure out why the autologin stuff isn't setting things up jack's a11y > environment properly -- right now, I need to log out and log back in > on the live CD in order for the a11y environment to work right. > > 2) We need to write a script for Orca to provide better access to the > installer. We also need to do a thorough keyboard-only analysis of > the installer. I think it's pretty good, but there might be some room > for improvement (e.g., first letter navigation for very long lists in > the timezone/region selection combo boxes). > > 3) For gravy, we could look into autostarting brltty for people with > braille displays. Not sure how to do that, and I need to figure out > where the missing symbol lives (ld.so.1 _ex_unwind). > > I wonder - should we consider making an accessibility project page for > OpenSolaris/Indiana if one doesn't already exist? I'm trying to find > the best spot to put my notes (once I write them) and for people to > contribute/share. > > Will > > On Jan 30, 2008, at 6:59 AM, Brian Nitz wrote: > >> Willie, >> >> This is fantastic! I've often though about how useful an accessible >> livecd could be to provide accessibility on borrowed computers at >> libraries, coffee shops, but I had no idea we were so close with >> OpenSolaris. >> >> I'll have a look at the ubuntu "F5 accessibility" option and your iso if >> you provide a link to it. It may be a customization of the grub menu. >> >> >> Willie Walker wrote: >>> Hi All: >>> >>> This is just an FYI of some midnight work I've been doing -- literally >>> in the middle of the night due to insomnia. ;-) >>> >>> I lead the Orca screen reader project, and I've been doing >>> accessibility >>> work for X Windows, Java, GNOME, etc., almost 20 years. >>> >>> One of the important developments I've seen in the accessibility space >>> is an accessible live cd and installer for people with disabilities: I >>> saw a number of people with disabilities migrating to Ubuntu and away >>> from a number of distributions this time last year because of Ubuntu's >>> accessible live CD and installer. >>> >>> The Caiman work and the distro_constructor have helped enable us to get >>> moving in this direction. With a number of people's help, I was >>> actually able to put some missing pieces together and create a live CD >>> which I could manage to get speaking with Orca. Not perfect, but >>> pretty >>> neat. >>> >>> Here's where things stand: >>> >>> 0) Almost everything was already in place. Yeah! >>> >>> 1) I needed to pull in some SFE packages. These were to get me eSpeak >>> (a very small speech synthesis engine) working. The SFEespeak.spec >>> file is new as of this morning since I was tired of updating my >>> IPS the manual way. Here's the extra packages. The *-devel's >>> probably are not needed. >>> >>> SFEespeak SFElibsndfile SFEpulseaudio >>> SFEespeak-devel SFElibsndfile-devel SFEpulseaudio-devel >>> SFElibsamplerate SFEogg-vorbis SFEpulseaudio-root >>> SFElibsamplerate-devel SFEogg-vorbis-devel >>> >>> tarred and zipped, these packages account for an extra 1459233 >>> bytes, >>> still keeping the iso image small enough to fit on a CD. >>> >>> 2) I also had to hack here and there to get some other smallish >>> files in place (e.g., the gnome-speech driver for eSpeak). They'll >>> fall out with a reworked gnome-speech spec file. >>> >>> 3) There's still lots of work to do, and help is welcome: >>> >>> a) I would love to have an initial dialog similar to >>> Ubuntu's where the user can select accessibility options. >>> This is the very first screen you see when you boot from the >>> Ubuntu live CD, and it allows you to select the assistive >>> technology you'd like to use for the live session. If you >>> look really hard at the following image, you'll see an >>> "F5 Accessibility" option at the bottom of the screen: >>> >>> http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/images/livecd-boot-menu-zoomed.png >>> >>> No clue how to do this. But, if it can be done, it might be >>> a way to dynamically modify the 'jack' user with stuff to launch >>> Orca and the things it needs. >>> >>> For now, if I can just make a one-off CD with a modified 'jack' >>> user burnt on the CD, I'd be happy. Not quite sure how to do >>> this, though. If anyone wants to push me in the right >>> direction, >>> I'm all ears. :-) >>> >>> b) I'd also like to figure out how to start brltty automatically. >>> Right now, some prerequisite is missing (ld.so.1 _ex_unwind: >>> can't find symbols), so a little more work is needed before >>> getting to that. >>> >>> c) We will need to script a fair amount in Orca for the installer. >>> These kinds of wizard dialogs wreak havoc on Orca's focus >>> tracking logic, and we end up needing to provide a custom >>> script to make sure important information is presented to >>> the user. Nothing we didn't already know, though, based upon >>> the investigation we did last year. >>> >>> d) Things like the network automagic dialog are completely >>> inaccessible. I don't know what's going on with that at all, >>> but it doesn't even seem to appear on the accessibility radar >>> screen. Heck, I don't even know what app is running to cause >>> that to pop up. If it's the nwamd process running as root, >>> we have some work to do to modify root's environment (e.g., >>> enable accessible and set up a /.orbitrc file). >>> >>> 4) I'm struggling to reproduce these things on a 79b box. Getting >>> there >>> one step at a time. >>> >>> In any case, fun stuff. In addition, I'll bet we can get a whole >>> community of people migrating to Indiana if we can make the accessible >>> install a reality. >>> >>> Thanks folks! The Indiana work and the Caiman work are really helping >>> in many ways. Again, help is welcome, too. :-) >>> >>> Will >>> _______________________________________________ >>> indiana-discuss mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> indiana-discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss > _______________________________________________ indiana-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/indiana-discuss
