Re: [VINUX-DEVELOPMENT] Orca caps-lock fix
Thanks for generating this patch, Attila. It looks good to me. Bill 2011/11/10 Hammer Attila hamm...@pickup.hu: Hy Bill, I tryed your last attached patch with my Oneiric system, The patch works wonderful with Orca master version. Thank you this patch. I attaching now a git diff command generated patch. Beginner users easyest appliing this patch, if already downloaded for example with Orca master version from git repository without need going in src/orca directory and run patch -p0 command. This situation need doing following: 1. Please go to top of the Orca main source directory. 2. Run simple following command: patch -p1 capslock.patch If the patch is right applied, you will be see the patch is applied with src/orca/orca.py file. 3. Do ./autogen.sh, make, make install commands, and restart Orca. After this nothing need doing, the Orca caps lock related issue is resolved. I not tested this patch with orca-xdesktop branch, because my Lucid system this issue is not happening. If you not need doing any work this issue related your patch, please attach your patch with following bugreport: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=658122 Hopefuly this way fix is acceptable with upstream level, and short time will be Joanie or other Orca developer committing this fix. Attila -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [VINUX-DEVELOPMENT] Orca caps-lock fix
I've attached an alternate patch to Orca to fix the caps lock problem
that does not require any change to any other package. It's a bit of
a hack. It calls xkbcomp to get the entire keyboard state, makes the
change we need, and calls xkbcomp again to write the modified keyboard
map.
On the positive side, it should in theory just work for everyone, and
there's no need to delay the fix while we wait on an upstream patch.
My recommendation is to go ahead and apply (and Orca-fy) the patch to
orca.py while we wait for upstream to add the new caps mode, and for
the various distros that work with orca to ship with the new mode.
Then we can ship the simpler patch that just enables the new caps lock
mode.
I'll get the upstream patch started ASAP, after a meeting I'm about to
attend. However, it will probably be a while before Orca can count on
having the new caps mode. In the meantime, this hack should work
well.
Bill
On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 9:54 AM, Don Marang donald.mar...@gmail.com wrote:
Great work! It appears that the right people are prepared to implement this
change for orca and Ubuntu.
Do I read this right that a change is also required from another package,
setxkbmap? Has the developers of this package been notified? I have no
visibility into their development. Are they receptive or will we need to
nag to get this change implemented?
Don Marang
On 11/8/2011 5:33 PM, Bill Cox wrote:
The old xmodmap program seems to be beginning to break down. It's
considered obsolete and has been replaced with setxkbmap. Orca uses
xmodmap to disable the caps lock key, but in newer versions of
xmodmap, that also causes it to no longer work as a modifier key. I
believe this is why we're seeing the caps lock key Unbuntu Oneiric
toggling whenever pressed.
On my system, I got it working with a patch to Orca to use setxkbmap,
and by editing some configuration files in the xkeyboard-config
package to add a new caps lock configuration, which I called orca.
Done this way, this option shows up in the Keyboard settings dialog
along with the other settings for the caps lock key, which is kind of
cool. I have Orca enable the orca mode with:
setxkbmap -option caps:orca
and disable it with:
setxkbmap -option
I've attached diff files created with diff -Naur. The orca.py patch
is fairly simple. The down side is that it requires the new orca mode
in the xkb configuration, so these patches have to be in sync.
Bill
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--- orca.py.saved 2011-11-08 17:11:33.584217326 -0500
+++ orca.py 2011-11-09 15:03:18.153468609 -0500
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@
import getopt
import os
+import subprocess
+import re
import signal
import sys
import time
@@ -1415,6 +1417,45 @@
settings.silenceSpeech = True
return True
+def _setXmodmap(xkbmap):
+Set the keyboard map using xkbcomp.
+p = subprocess.Popen(['xkbcomp', '-w0', '-', os.environ['DISPLAY']],
+stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=None, stderr=None)
+p.communicate(xkbmap)
+
+def _setCapsLockAsOrcaModifier(enable):
+Enable or disable use of the caps lock key as an Orca modifier key.
+interpretCapsLineProg = re.compile(
+r'^\s*interpret\s+Caps[_+]Lock[_+]AnyOfOrNone\s*\(all\)\s*{\s*$', re.I)
+capsModLineProg = re.compile(
+r'^\s*action\s*=\s*SetMods\s*\(\s*modifiers\s*=\s*Lock\s*,\s*clearLocks\s*\)\s*;\s*$', re.I)
+normalCapsLineProg = re.compile(
+r'^\s*action\s*=\s*LockMods\s*\(\s*modifiers\s*=\s*Lock\s*\)\s*;\s*$', re.I)
+normalCapsLine = 'action= LockMods(modifiers=Lock);'
+capsModLine ='action= SetMods(modifiers=Lock,clearLocks);'
+global _originalXmodmap
+lines = _originalXmodmap.split('\n')
+foundCapsInterpretSection = False
+for i in range(len(lines)):
+line = lines[i]
+if not foundCapsInterpretSection:
+if interpretCapsLineProg.match(line):
+foundCapsInterpretSection = True
+else:
+if enable:
+if normalCapsLineProg.match(line):
+lines[i] = capsModLine
+_setXmodmap('\n'.join(lines))
+return
+else:
+if capsModLineProg.match(line):
+lines[i] = normalCapsLine
+_setXmodmap('\n'.join(lines))
+return
+if line.find('}'):
+# Failed to find the line we need to change
+return
+
def _createOrcaXmodmap():
Makes
Oneiric accessibility: install, Unity, and Unity 2D
I'm in the process of installing Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10. Here's my first impressions. The install needs a bit of work, but when Orca is enabled on boot using the magic key sequence, it seems basically usable. I had a crash related to Orca I think, though I was poking around the desktop with my mouse during the install. Orca still has issues with Unity, though I didn't explore much of it. The same bug that I saw in Maverick where the caps lock key toggles on every Orca command is still there. By itself, I suspect Unity could be fully accessible by the 12.04 release. There's a big decision for Vinux: whether to try and use Gnome 3 in the future, or Unity. I have a slight preference for Unity, but I have a small screen and need large fonts and/or magnification, so Unity's netbook optimized layout is particularly good for me. I also suspect we could work easily with the Ubuntu team to enhance accessibility. A non-starter for me is that Unity doesn't work with Compiz, and I require it's inverse video and magnification capabilities. So, I've switched to Ubuntu 2D, which I believe was built using QT. Compiz works great, but Orca doesn't see the Unity desktop. So, I'm not sure what to recommend the Vinux community. Options on the table, I think, are Gnome shell 3.0, Unity 2D and the default Unity. I hear Gnome shell 3.0 is also incompatible with Compiz. Anyone have any opinions on the right way to build Vinux 4.0? Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Is Java accessibility broken?
I see that people seem to be using Java to play media in Ubuntu, but
with at-spi running in Ubuntu 10.10 x64, I can't get a simple Java
example off the web to run. The example I'm trying is attached.
I compile it with 'javac SoundTest.java', and run it with 'java
SoundTest'. The error dump follows:
src java SoundTest
Apr 18, 2011 10:37:40 AM com.sun.corba.se.impl.ior.IORImpl getProfile
WARNING: IOP00511201: (INV_OBJREF) IOR must have at least one IIOP profile
org.omg.CORBA.INV_OBJREF: vmcid: SUN minor code: 1201 completed: No
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.logging.IORSystemException.iorMustHaveIiopProfile(IORSystemException.java:473)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.logging.IORSystemException.iorMustHaveIiopProfile(IORSystemException.java:495)
at com.sun.corba.se.impl.ior.IORImpl.getProfile(IORImpl.java:334)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.encoding.CDRInputStream_1_0.read_Object(CDRInputStream_1_0.java:787)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.encoding.CDRInputStream_1_0.read_Object(CDRInputStream_1_0.java:761)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.encoding.CDRInputStream.read_Object(CDRInputStream.java:231)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.resolver.INSURLOperationImpl.getIORFromString(INSURLOperationImpl.java:120)
at
com.sun.corba.se.impl.resolver.INSURLOperationImpl.operate(INSURLOperationImpl.java:130)
at com.sun.corba.se.impl.orb.ORBImpl.string_to_object(ORBImpl.java:836)
at
org.GNOME.Accessibility.AccessUtil.getRegistryObject(AccessUtil.java:143)
at
org.GNOME.Accessibility.JavaBridge.registerApplication(JavaBridge.java:1154)
at org.GNOME.Accessibility.JavaBridge.init(JavaBridge.java:405)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
at
sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:57)
at
sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:532)
at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:372)
at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:325)
at java.awt.Toolkit.loadAssistiveTechnologies(Toolkit.java:786)
at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(Toolkit.java:875)
at java.awt.Window.getToolkit(Window.java:1170)
at java.awt.Window.init(Window.java:400)
at java.awt.Window.init(Window.java:438)
at java.awt.Frame.init(Frame.java:419)
at java.awt.Frame.init(Frame.java:384)
at javax.swing.JFrame.init(JFrame.java:174)
at SoundTest.main(SoundTest.java:19)
java.io.FileNotFoundException: x.wav (No such file or directory)
I see that it's dying in the Java accessibility bridge. Does any of
this work in Ubuntu today? Should I file a bug report?
Thanks,
Bill
import java.awt.event.KeyListener;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioInputStream;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioSystem;
import javax.sound.sampled.Clip;
import javax.sound.sampled.LineUnavailableException;
import javax.sound.sampled.UnsupportedAudioFileException;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class SoundTest {
/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setSize(300,300);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);
try {
AudioInputStream audio = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(new File(x.wav));
Clip clip = AudioSystem.getClip();
clip.open(audio);
clip.start();
}
catch(UnsupportedAudioFileException uae) {
System.out.println(uae);
}
catch(IOException ioe) {
System.out.println(ioe);
}
catch(LineUnavailableException lua) {
System.out.println(lua);
}
}
}
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Re: Testing A11y
Hi Penelope. There's also a11y user testing, which is not very good in any major distro. It's not their fault - only expert users of a11y software can do in depth user testing. I'm not capable of doing solid Orca testing myself, and rely on blind Vinux users to do it for me. I think everyone in Vinux land agrees that we want to help with in-depth a11y user testing of package updates in Ubuntu, so long as it's possible to do safely, without causing speech to go away. Nimer Jaber has volunteered to coordinate testing in Vinux. First, he wants to organize Vinux users to document which applications are screen-reader friendly, and document how to work around their limitations. Long term, I would like to see accessibility ratings and documentation incorporated into the software installers, so users could quickly find accessible applications. However, I think Nimer also wants to coordinate user testing of new packages as updates become available from Ubuntu. Doing this safely is a bit complicated, so I'm going to post a longer, more technical email to the vinux-dev list about it. Bill On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 7:14 PM, Penelope Stowe pst...@gmail.com wrote: Rather than continue to take over Bill's thread, I figured I'd start a new one. I'm interested in what works for Gnome and distros other than Ubuntu for testing a11y. We're really trying to figure out how to make it work, especially with all the new changes coming in, but many of us can't break our systems for a11y-related reasons (and don't have an extra machine) and we've had trouble getting people without impairments to do testing because they're worried they don't really understand what they're doing. I figure we can't be the only distro where this issue comes up and I'm curious how other distros and a11y groups deal with it. Thanks! Penelope ___ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-l...@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Upgrading pkexec to run X11 Orca-accessible applications as root.
On Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 6:43 PM, Luke Yelavich luke.yelav...@canonical.com wrote: From what I remember reading in a bug on GNOME bugzilla, gksu lacks a mainloop which is a contributor to the issues that we have with accessibility. There is also gksu-polkit, which at a glance, does the same thing, using policykit, and is already in Ubuntu universe, and likely Debian as well. My vote is that we should try gksu-polkit and see whether things are better or worse, using it as a gksu replacement. Luke Hi, Luke. I tried out gksu-polkit. First, it doesn't ask for a password using a GTK dialog box, and instead seems to want it on the command line, making it more similar to sudo. Maybe that's because I ran it from a gnome-terminal, but there's no . It's also somewhat unstable. For example, using it to run 'ls' crashes with this message: bill gksu-polkit ls GLib-ERROR **: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.24.1/glib/gmem.c:176: failed to allocate 140737488355328 bytes aborting... Aborted In another test, gksu-polkit hung, taking up 100% CPU cycles. If this code links to libgksu, my vote would be to abandon it. The pkexec code is only 819 lines of code, and was simple for me to understand and trivial to modify with, IMO, fairly low risk of introducing a major security hole. It also has a very cool dialog box. Reading the policykit code leaves me with a reasonably comfortable sense of security, while reading the gksu code makes me want to set my computer on fire. Anyway, that's just my not-very-informed opinion based on some time in both programs using gdb. In any case, I can significantly upgrade our hack in Vinux by switching to my slightly modified pkexec. Would that be worth testing? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Upgrading pkexec to run X11 Orca-accessible applications as root.
I've patched pkexec which is like gksu, but uses Policy Kit for
authentication. The patch is very simple - all I had to do is
uncomment some code the author already had in there to enable X11
applications. It seems that the author decided that running X11
applications as root is just too much of a security hole to justify,
so he commented out the code. As a result, Ubuntu has to rely on gksu
to run programs like Synaptic from the System/Administration menu.
gksu has problems. It's no longer a simple sudo wrapper, and has
evolved into a multi-threaded monster of such complexity that good C
debuggers (I count myself as one) can't easily fix major problems.
gksu has a many-year outstanding bug where it hangs Gnome if
at-spi-registryd is running. I've spent hours trying to find the bug,
as have others. If gksu is so complex that we can't debug it, how can
we trust it? This is very likely a security risk vs just using
pkexec. If we already have sudo and pkexec, why do we need gksu? Why
maintain and trust all three?
I believe the answer to why we still have gksu is that we needed a way
to run Synaptic and other X11 programs as root from Gnome menus, and
from some Python programs. What we've done in Vinux is to replace
/usr/bin/gksu with a simple bash script that uses a zenity wrapper
around sudo. This works around the bug where gksu locks up gnome, but
it's literally an ugly hack - the zenity dialog box looks pathetic.
Good thing the blind don't mind! What I would like to suggest is that
Ubuntu consider moving away from gksu, and to pkexec instead, with the
simple patch to support X11 applications. I see no reason this path
would not allow us to eventually retire gksu. In Vinux, we could
replace /usr/bin/gksu with a wrapper to call pkexec. My guess is that
Ubuntu would more likely start replacing calls to gksu in the menus,
Ubiquity, and other places, with calls to pkexec, and leave the gksu
package alone.
What do you think? Is enhancing policykit to support X11 and moving
away from gksu the right direction? I think many Orca users would
love to dump gksu. I've attached my patch, which is compatible with
the source package use of quilt.
Thanks,
Bill
Index: policykit-1-0.96/src/programs/pkexec.c
===
--- policykit-1-0.96.orig/src/programs/pkexec.c 2010-09-12 15:28:11.451549577 -0400
+++ policykit-1-0.96/src/programs/pkexec.c 2010-09-12 15:28:21.349307917 -0400
@@ -337,6 +337,15 @@
goto out;
}
}
+ else if (g_strcmp0 (key, DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID) == 0 || g_strcmp0 (key, XAUTHORITY) == 0 ||
+ g_strcmp0 (key, DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS) == 0 || g_strcmp0 (key, ORBIT_SOCKETDIR) == 0)
+{
+ if (g_strcmp0 (key, DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS) != 0 access (value, F_OK) != 0)
+{
+ g_printerr (Environment variable %s points to inaccessible file %s\n, key, value);
+ goto out;
+}
+}
else if (strstr (value, /) != NULL ||
strstr (value, %) != NULL ||
strstr (value, ..) != NULL)
@@ -398,13 +407,17 @@
*
* and surrounding comments for a lot of discussion about this.
*/
-#if 0
+/* For Vinux, we've added this stuff back in. The reason not to, refered to above,
+ is that cases where this works and doesn't aren't documented or even well known.
+ Therefore the policykit author decided to disable this feature, leaving us to require gksu
+ instead, which is broken in other ways, like not working at all when at-spi-registryd is
+ running. As pkexec seems better than pksu, enabling these variables is prefered to shipping
+ Ubuntu with gksu called in several places. */
DESKTOP_STARTUP_ID,
DISPLAY,
XAUTHORITY,
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS,
ORBIT_SOCKETDIR,
-#endif
NULL
};
GPtrArray *saved_env;
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Re: Orca/linux accessibility teaching material
Hi, Eleanor. If you are going to install the newest version of Ubuntu on these machines, you get a pretty decent setup if you enable an accessible install. You press space at the first screen to get to a text menu, F5 to open accessibility options, and 3 to select the Orca screen reader. It actually does a bunch of other stuff, too, and makes the machine boot talking. Default accessiblity in Ubuntu Lucid is actually pretty good. I'll also put in a plug for Vinux 3.0, which is basically Ubuntu Lucid with some tweaks to make it work a bit better with Orca, and with a console screen reader. Bill On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Eleanor Smyth mainstream...@camara.ie wrote: Hello! Camara (www.camara.ie) refurbishes old computers, sends them out to Africa and sets up learning centres. At the moment we are trying to make our Linux computers more accesible for students that are living with disabilities. After much debate, we decided to stick with the accessibity features already on Linux. The computers, already in Africa have various versions of Ubuntu, this means that Ocra functions to various degrees in the schools. We discovered that the speech on older versions of ocra was very fast and difficult to understand So, we want to update ocra by sending out a C.D with the latest version of orca to the schools in Africa and update orca when refurbishing the computers going out. With that done, we need to train our teachers on how to update orca (for the computers already sent out) and write up a manual on how to use ocra within the classroom. This is where we'll have to call upon some help. Setting up the accessibity features is difficult for someone who has very basic computer skills. Are there any good tutorials (audio and visual) out there that we could use? Any additional info that we should be aware of? All comments/material will be much appreciated. Kind Regards, Eleanor -- Eleanor Smyth Disability Officer Camara E-mail: mainstream...@camara.ie Camara Education The Digital Hub, 10-13 Thomas Street, Dublin 8. T: 0861217893 www.camara.ie -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Speakup wont compile in Ubuntu Maverick
I was able to fix two bugs, but the third has me confused still. First, /usr/bin/module-assistant needs to be modified to look in /usr/src/linux-headers-version/include/generated, rather than include/linux to find utsrelease.h. Second, three speakup files need to include linux/slab.h to have access to kmalloc. These files are i18n.c, kobjects.c, and selection.c. This let's speakup compile. However, speakup.ko doesn't work because the Maverick kernel does not provide the k_handle function. Does anyone know how to enable the k_handle function in the Linux kernel? Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Anyone know how to activate iaccessible2 interface to Qt apps?
I saw a demo of a calculator showing it's accessible objects through dbus from 2007. I also see that the code to present iaccessible2 objects is in the Qt source code. Anyone know how to turn it on? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [OFF-TOPIC] Re: ideological speed bumps
I'm also following this thread. I had to program by voice for three years in the '90s, first with Dragon Dictate, and then with Naturally Speaking. I eventually wrote 1,600 voice macros mostly to control emacs to help me do my job. When I started with Dragon Dictate, I was excited about the rapid progress for the disabled. Dragon Systems was doing wonderful things for us. Then, Dragon Systems shipped a tool for voice-dictation aimed at regular users. Progress stopped, almost dead right then, and never picked up again. I want to add voice recognition solutions to Vinux, which is built on Ubuntu Lucid. However, Naturally Speaking remains the best voice recognition engine, and there's little reason to believe the recent owners, Nuance, will port it. Nuance also bought Eloquence, the best TTS engine for the blind, IMO, since it can be well understood at very high speeds. Eloquence use to run on Linux, but there is no evidence that Nuance will release any new version for our platform. Modern open-source research and advancement is somewhat promising. Espeak seems to get better each year, though it's far behind Eloquence for high speed. Then there's svox pico around the corner from Google, which may help bring open-source natural voices along. On the recognition side, there's some advancement, but I have yet to see any good FOSS demo on Linux. One dumb thought I had this morning: Could we just call the original developers and ask for their help as consultants on FOSS ASR and TTS? They must be long gone from their companies, and I imagine that their non-competes have expired. What really counts is the know-how. If they could consult on algorithm specification and development, without giving up any trade-secrets, they wouldn't have to write one line of code. I'd be we'd find FOSS devs willing to code it up. Bill On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 9:51 AM, Pia pmik...@comcast.net wrote: I just wanted to ask that you guys not take this topic off list. It was one of the most seriously useful conversations that has been on here for a long time, because it looks at the future of a barely functional state of things which is really what we all should be concerned about. So, I have been reading the thread closely. I just have not added much yet, because I would just be repeating much of what has already be said at this point. Kind Regards, Pia -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Accessibility improved in Synaptic
I've patched gtk+ to allow programmers to easily add descriptions to images. This is probably useful in many places, but I decided to start with Synaptic. Users can now hear the status of a package read to them, not just icon. Remember to right-click on package items with Orca+8 to get the package menu. I've filed a bug at bugzilla.gnome.org on this, and submitted a patch: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=617629 Without this patch or something like it, it is not possible for programmers to add accessible descriptions to icons in a tree view, which is also used for lists of items with check boxes. Should I file a bug at launchpad.net also? Vinux users can test the new synaptic version if they add the Vinux/Ubuntu Lucid Testing PPA. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: upgrading to lucid
I always ran $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade But I've had trouble most times with this. More often than not, I have not been able to boot my machine into Gnome after a dist-upgrade from a full release back. However, I hack my system pretty heavily, so my experience is probably not the norm. If you're running a recent Lucid Beta or release candidate, it will probably work. Be sure to do a full backup before the upgrade, and be prepared to do a full reinstall if things don't work out. Bill On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 7:46 AM, aerospace1...@hotmail.com wrote: greetings, I did some more research on how to update ubuntu distributions from the command line. The two options appear to be: (1) sudo update-manager (2) sudo do-release-upgrade -m desktop method 1 would just launch the graphical application from the command line (gnome-terminal) and in general is the recommended distribution upgrade method from the ubuntu wiki. I can't find much doccumentation on do-release-upgrade, are there any drastic differences btween what these two programs do? Does anyone have any advice on which is the better (faster? more accessible?) method for updateing my Ubuntu system to lucid? Thanks:-) The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Speech Dispatcher 0.7 Beta -- Please help with testing
I like the socket approach, but I guess your concern may be why Luke was thinking of using dbus. Still, a denial of service that requires users already be logged into the machine is a far smaller security hole. Right now, a clever hacker could most likely find a way to cause one of the less well maintained speech-dispatcher subsystems to execute arbitrary code, remotely though a wide-open TCP port. I think a switch to file sockets is a sensible short-term fix. One of my favorite tricks to play on blind guys I'm supporting in Vinux is to start talking to them through the speech-dispatcher TCP port. If you ever let me into a machine on your network, don't be surprised when your machines running Orca start saying the strangest things! Bill On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 7:07 PM, Samuel Thibault samuel.thiba...@ens-lyon.org wrote: trev.saund...@gmail.com, le Tue 27 Apr 2010 14:30:39 -0400, a écrit : THere is a rather large local security problem with your use of unix sockets. It is very easy for a local hostile user to cause a denial of service, because you put the unix sockets in a world readable place with *very* predictable names. They are so predictable because a the only thing that the attacker has to gues is the UID of the user, and because UID's for standard users start at 1000, and are assigned in order, the attacker would only have to create say 100 files, wich with a simple shell script is trivial. That's actually not really new, compared to the previous TCP/IP approach. The place (or port number) has to be well-known for applications to be able to connect to it anyway, so any security layer needs to be added after connection. Samuel -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Announcing the OpenTTS project, a fork of speech-dispatcher
Hi, Tomas. Everyone is are very pleased with Brailcom's work on speech-dispatcher, but as Brailcom's contract ran out, Brailcom necessarily moved on to new projects. Now, I for one support Brailcom getting more contracts to do more work, and if that happens, we may want to look at merging OpenTTS back into speech-dispatcher. Even better might be if Brailcom could get a contract to move forward with it's next-generation replacement for speech-dispatcher. It is clear that the volunteers have enough bandwidth to move speech-dispatcher forward, yet not enough to complete the new project to replace it. Luke has very generously offering to move OpenTTS forward in his free time, and as a pragmatic solution, it makes sense to let him.Since the fork, development has accelerated several-fold, which I think we all agree is a good thing, but it's still nowhere near what it would be if a couple of full time developers could be assigned to the project. In short, whoever has the ability to put in the hard work to move forward most effectively should lead. So, please consider this a friendly fork, focused on the good of the community. If Brailcom needs some voices of support for new contracts, I think you can count on us, as everyone here seems to be a fan of Brailcom and the excellent work they've done. In fact, if there is any specific action you could recommend that I can take to help Brailcom close new business, please let me know. Best regards, Bill On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 3:10 AM, Tomas Cerha ce...@brailcom.org wrote: Hello, just my few personal thoughts... While I respect anyone's freedom to take on the work that we started and continue in a direction he believes is the best, I am not quite convinced that making a fork is necessary and helpful. The announcement started by a question Why Fork Speech Dispatcher and Related Projects?, but I can't find anything that would answer the question for me even if I pretty much agree with all what was written below. It is true, that GPL grants the freedom to do it, that the importance of Speech Dispatcher grew over the time and that the non-profit organization Brailcom didn't find resources to finance the development in the last two years. But I fail to find a convincing reason in these facts. Brailcom has always officially supported the work done by Luke Yelavich and others. We linked Luke's git from the official Speech Dispatcher web page and we were trying to promote this work where possible. We also put at least some minimal effort into reviewing how the development continues and plan to make an official release (yes, without being able to promise the exact date) and we constantly put significant effort in attempts to find resources for continuation of the work and we believe we will succeed (though, as we announced, we can not promise anything, as it does not depend on our decision). I am just afraid, that having two projects with two names and different directions will not be really practical. What particularly is the key problem in the current model where the actual development takes place in Luke's git repo? I don't say it is ideal, but maybe there is less to do to make it better, then making a fork and renaming... Best regards, Tomas Cerha ___ Speechd mailing list spee...@lists.freebsoft.org http://lists.freebsoft.org/mailman/listinfo/speechd -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: April 13, 2010 Meeting Logs (forgot links)
I was asked to post my current gksu script to this thread, so here it is. There are two scripts, one to deal with some gksu options, which are translated into sudo options, and another to open the dialog box and ask for the password. Both of these should probably be rewritten as Python wrappers, and the dialog box that pops up should be enhanced to look like the gksu dialog. I find that with this change, I don't have issues with at-spi-registryd anymore. Most importantly, it enables the ubiquity installer to run reliably with Orca. I've created a Debian package for it, which is available through the Vinux/Lucid PPA. I have it directly overwrite /usr/bin/gksu, which is a hack. The down-side is that if you uninstall the package, you're left with no gksu executable at all. Bill gksu Description: Binary data askpass Description: Binary data -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: April 13, 2010 Meeting Logs
Thanks for the log. I agree 100% with Luke's goals for the next release. If it will help, we can do some early user-testing in Vinux alpha/beta releases based on the next Ubuntu release. I'll throw in two more wishes for the next release. First, can we bind starting Orca to Control+Alt+o, and have it work both at the gdm screen and while logged in? That way, blind users would be able to start Orca on a public Ubuntu machine. Second, would it be possible for Control+Alt+o to bring up Orca on the first screen of the Live CD installer, where we ask the user for his language preference? Now that this is a Gnome dialog, it may be possible. I'm willing to try and get this working if it's just a manpower issue. I think with Lucid Ubuntu has matched the best of the major Linux distros in terms of a11y, but with the changes proposed by Luke, it will have a clear lead. Kudos to Luke and the rest of the a11y team for an outstanding job on Lucid! Bill On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 7:07 AM, Penelope Stowe pst...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, For all of you who missed the meeting, the full logs are now up on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility/Team/MeetingLogs/20100413 I'll get minutes and other notes out later today. Penelope -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Just joined, how can I help?
Hi, Lesley. There's tons of work to do if you want to dive in and get your hands dirty, especially down in the code. Let me know if you're able to fix bugs in C, C++, or Python, as that's where a lot of issues are. There's also a need for writers to make tutorials and such. I do my contributions over in the Vinux distro, which lately is being built on Ubuntu Lucid. My thought is that we can patch and user-test code over there, and when we have something that works reliably, we can try and get Ubuntu to pick it up. Regards, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: April 13, 2010 Meeting Logs
On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 3:33 PM, Francesco Fumanti francesco.fuma...@gmx.net wrote: Due to incompatibility of at-spi with gksu, I wonder whether it would make sense to create a goal for lucid+1 to eliminate gksu from the distribution. This would at least remove part of the bugs caused by at-spi until at-spi2 takes over. For example, when starting the Synaptic Package Manager from the Administration menu while an application is actively using at-spi, the desktop becomes unresponsive. Some weeks ago, I started a thread about it on the devel discussion list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2010-March/010770.html In general, I think it is difficult to properly maintain both gksu and sudo independently. It's hard enough to keep sudo working with Orca, and gksu has not worked with Orca since I've been involved. My preference, not just for accessibility, but also for security, is to just have sudo, and make gksu a simple GDK wrapper for sudo. For Vinux, I wrote a simple wrapper script using zenity to replace gksu, and it seems to be working well. However, it's not good enough for distributions for sighted users. I was thinking of trying to write a better sudo wrapper in Python, so we could support all of the gksu options. I also looked into the gksu source code, but I have to admit getting frustrated at the complexity, and ending up thinking gksu should have stayed as a simple wrapper. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] Announcing the OpenTTS project, a fork of speech-dispatcher
Luke is project lead, though I believe a couple of others may also have authority to commit changes. However, Luke has to date worked to form consensus on the opentts-dev mailing list before making significant changes. Progress in the last several weeks has been truly outstanding, and I for one am happy that opentts is in good hands, and that I probably wont have to go digging into this code anymore :-) Bill On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 1:09 AM, A ava...@friendofpooh.com wrote: Who's project lead or is there a committee? Sorry but it is not obvious from the announcement who's having the final word on decisions. Thanks. On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:07 AM, Luke Yelavich them...@ubuntu.com wrote: I am writing to announce a fork of speech-dispatcher, the open source text-to-speech framework, initially developed by Brailcom as a part of the freebsoft project, http://www.freebsoft.org. The fork also includes other important components of the speech stack, including speechd-up, the connector between speakup and speech-dispatcher, and the speech-dispatcher java bindings. As you may have guessed from the subject, the fork is now called OpenTTS. OpenTTS refers to both the speech server, API and documentation, as well as the umbrella project as a whole. The other projects mentioned above have also been given new names, speechd-up is now known as OSpeakup, and speechd-java is now known as OpenTTS-java. Why Fork Speech Dispatcher and Related Projects? One of the fundamental freedoms granted by the GPL is the freedom to publish one's modifications to the source code of a software product. Sometimes, such publication takes the form of a fork, in which the modified product is developed separately from the original. In this case, we've chosen to make forks of software initially produced by the Brailcom group. We'll describe our reasons for doing that below. The Brailcom group had a great idea. They wanted to provide a system or user-level service to control synthetic speech. That was Speech Dispatcher. They created libraries to ease the task of communicating with that service, so that it would be possible for programmers to speech-enable their applications , simply by calling output functions provided by one of these libraries. For several years, Brailcom actively maintained and promoted Speech Dispatcher and the software associated with it. They innovated, and the community at large was slow to adopt. Over time, projects within the accessibility community began to embrace Speech Dispatcher. It is now the preferred speech synthesis backend of the Orca screenreader. The Speakup screenreader can control many software-based text-to-speech engines with the help of Speech Dispatcher and a small connector program. One advantage of that strategy is that Orca and Speakup can cooperatively use the same text-to-speech engine. The key point is that many projects have adopted Speech Dispatcher, to a greater or lesser extent. As time passed, the tables turned. The most recent official release of Speech Dispatcher was made in the summer of 2008. The developers began taking less and less of a role in the project. The source code moved from a CVS repository to git in 2009. During much of that year, active development took place in a repository hosted by Luke Yelavich. Mr. Yelavich even produced several unofficial release candidate versions of Speech Dispatcher. Unfortunately, the official release process is stalled. In an effort to clarify the current status of the software, members of the community contacted Brailcom. Replies to these requests for information were somewhat non-committal. In effect, Brailcom stated that they were interested in developing Speech Dispatcher, but they had no current plans. That, in short, is why we forked. Members of the open-source accessibility community need and want an actively-developed speech framework. The OpenTTS project hopes to fulfill that need by carrying forward the vision set forth by Brailcom. The OpenTTS.org website is now live, although there is not much there at the moment. The site will be expanded in the near future to add areas for documentation, and feature specification tracking, to help developers better outline and indicate what the next release of OpenTTS will contain. You will also find a link to our mailing lists, where you can discuss OpenTTS development. We welcome all contributors from the community who wish to help us further develope the OpenTTS framework, and encourage any interested contributors to join the opentts-dev mailing list. To get more information on this list, or other lists relating to OpenTTS, please go to http://lists.opentts.org. We also especially welcome any Brailcom staff who wish to contribute to the project. I plan to announce the focus for OpenTTS development over the next 6 months very soon, and will do so on the
Re: Accessible mail clients
I think I've read more positive comments about Thunderbird than anything else. Bill On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 10:47 PM, David Sexton da...@rustytelephone.net wrote: I am really getting fedup with evolution, which other mail clients are accessible with orca? David -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: I think I fixed Firefox
Thanks, Luke. I will file a bug in launchpad. Unfortunately, while my patch fixes the worst structural navigation problems, there are still major issues. The Bookmarks dialog becomes inaccessible, and there are some other more minor navigation goobers. I think I'll need to dive into the code in more depth. Bill On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 8:37 PM, Luke Yelavich them...@ubuntu.com wrote: On Sat, Apr 03, 2010 at 07:11:35AM EST, Bill Cox wrote: I've tracked down the structural navigation issue with Firefox and Orca, and submitted a patch to the Mozilla guys. I would like to go ahead and patch firefox and make it available through the Vinux PPA, so Vinux users can start testing it. Hopefully there aren't any more bugs in Orca navigation, and hopefully I haven't created any new ones! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it works out ok, I'd love to see Ubuntu Lucid's firefox get fixed as well. The bug report is at: If you would like to see this addressed in Ubuntu, please file a bug against the firefox package in Launchpad. Luke -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Accessibility Meeting
So long as we'er putting ideas out there, I would like to bring up the possibility of using Vinux as a testing ground for accessibility. One of my goals in working with Vinux is to feed new technologies into ubuntu once debugged and proven. Bill On Apr 5, 2010 12:38 PM, Laura Czajkowski la...@lczajkowski.com wrote: On 05/04/10 17:24, Penelope Stowe wrote: On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 2:34 AM, Glen Darbyglen.m.da...@v... I'm free any evening this week after 7pm UTC for a meeting Laura -- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/czajkowski http://www.lczajkowski.com Skype: lauraczajkowski -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu... -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Firefox patch, testing and further work
I've uploaded a version of Firefox to the Vinux/Ubuntu Lucid PPA. Anyone testing Vinux 3.0 Beta should run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade'. This should install the patched version of firefox for testing with Orca. Unfortunately, there are still some navigation issues with Orca. I find it works a bit better with Grab focus on objects disabled in the Firefox settings. If someone more familiar with Orca could look into the problems on the Python end, I'll support them on the Firefox C++ end. One example of a navigation goober is using Control+Tab to switch to another tab. Orca remains on the previous tab, and navigation keys just read old tab. Users more familiar with Orca than me could probably find more issues. Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
I think I fixed Firefox
I've tracked down the structural navigation issue with Firefox and Orca, and submitted a patch to the Mozilla guys. I would like to go ahead and patch firefox and make it available through the Vinux PPA, so Vinux users can start testing it. Hopefully there aren't any more bugs in Orca navigation, and hopefully I haven't created any new ones! I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If it works out ok, I'd love to see Ubuntu Lucid's firefox get fixed as well. The bug report is at: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/process_bug.cgi Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] lucid and login
Yes, you can get around the gksu problem. In a terminal, run: sudo /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity Don't run the script in /usr/bin/ubiquity. That's the script that calls gksu. In Vinux, we patch this script to use sudo. Bill On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 2:49 PM, Dave Hunt dave.hu...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bill! Can one work around the gksu problem by starting ubiquity in a terminal, with 'sudo'? On Apr 1, 2010, at 2:39 PM, Bill Cox wrote: You need to enable orca at the boot screen using this special magic sequence: So, in summary: space every 3-4 seconds for 30 seconds, then F5, 3, and enter twice. If you do this, Orca should come up talking. However, there's still some bugs in gksu, which is used by ubiquity. If you install this on your hard drive, installation may stop talking half way through. If this happens, reboot and try again from the beginning. Bill ___ Orca-list mailing list orca-l...@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions Netiquette Guidelines are at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/NetiquetteGuidelines Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: accessible login
I prefer to set this option as a global default value. That, when users update their system and gdm is upgraded, they still have a talking login. The command I use is: gconftool-2 --direct --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/applications/at/screen_reader_enabled true That should fix the problem long-term. Bill 2010/3/29 José Vilmar Estácio de Souza vil...@informal.com.br: Hi, On 03/29/2010 08:44 AM, Hammer Attila wrote: Hy Jose, What result shows following command in gnome-terminal with your system? sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -g /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility /desktop/gnome/applications/at/screen_reader_enabled This command need write with one line. The result returned is false. If any get back result is false, need you do following command: sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility true /desktop/gnome/applications/at/screen_reader_enabled true This command need write with one line in gnome-terminal. After this command, try restart your system. Works after this step this feature with you? My machine accessible login is working perfect now. I'll try later, as soon I arrive at home. Thanks. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Fix to ubiquity
When installing with screen reader enabled, ubiquity stops talking
about half the time, which is very frustrating for blind users. I've
been able to get it to work reliably, with only two edits.
First in /usr/bin/ubiquity, change the call from gksu to sudo:
toexec = ['gksudo', '--preserve-env']
if desktop:
toexec.extend(['--desktop', desktop])
toexec.append('--')
Should be just:
toexec = ['sudo', '-E']
The second thing is more minor. If you select a large font, and
install in a VirtualBox machine, with an 800x600 display, then ubquity
hangs when the partitioner screen starts. This is caused by a
one-line bug in /usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtk_ui.py. Just
comment out line 554, the last line of win_size_req:
widget.resize(w, h)
should be:
#widget.resize(w, h)
Bill
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Re: Speakup doesn't speak when I log into a text console
This is most likely an issue with pulseaudio. I run pulseaudio in system-wide mode, which tends to get rid of such problems. Bill On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 2:42 AM, John Robinson jbr10...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi everyone. I've recently upgraded to the latest version of Lucid but am having some problems with Speakup used with Espeakup. Speakup speaks fine while I'm logging into a text console, but stops speaking altogether as soon as I have logged in. It speaks fine as soon as I log out again. This happens irrespective of which console I try to log into. I've never seen this behaviour before and would very much appreciate any suggestions as to how to fix this problem. Many thanks in advance for any help. John Robinson -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: problems with the lucid live cd
The new boot sequence on the Lucid Live CD is very cool, if you're not blind. Instead of bringing up console based text to ask your language whether you want to install or just try Ubuntu, it boots directly into a gnome session where it asks the same questions in a nice graphical form with a pretty background image. However, accessibility options have not yet been ported from the initial console screen to the new graphical form. Instead, for a few seconds during boot, a graphic is displayed on the screen that indicates you need to press a key to access accessibility options. If you press a key while this graphic is displayed, it takes you to the old boot menu, where you can do the old sequence to get Orca talking. Bill On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 5:58 AM, E.J. Zufelt ever...@zufelt.ca wrote: On 2010-03-11, at 5:53 AM, Bill Cox wrote: The magic key sequence to bring up Orca in a Live CD boot of Lucid is now: Press space every 3-4 seconds, several times, then enter, then F5, then 3, then enter twice. That seems a bit extreme to me. Couldn't we simplify that? * Do you know what the purpose of the space bar at the beginning of this sequence is? Just curious more than anything else. And, thank you for sending this message out to the list. Thanks, Everett -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: problems with the lucid live cd
There seems to be new timing involved in getting accessibility working in the latest ISO. It takes several seconds to boot to the first screen, but you only have a few seconds once you reach it to press any key. There is an image at the bottom that says in effect Keyboard = accessibility. Try pressing the space bar every 3 or 4 seconds for about 30 seconds on power up, and then press F5, 3, and enter, as usual. Bill On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Guy Schlosser guyster...@att.net wrote: I can confirm this as a problem. I downloaded the live CD yesterday, and had the exact same problem as described. I was also told about fuzzy video, but that could've been with the video card on the computer I was working with, so not concerned about that one as of yet. Thanks, Guy On 03/08/2010 07:08 PM, Mike Coulombe wrote: Hi, I downloaded the live cd today and found that aparently axcessibility isn't being enabled. I pressed enter once, then f5 and 3. Then enter twice. After the system boots, orca doesn't start. I can start it, and it does go through the setup with speech. But when I log in again, Orca doesn't work. Mike. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
GDM keeps losing Orca speech
I installed Lucid 3 days ago, with Orca enabled (option F5, and item 3 in the first install window). Orca comes up reading the gdm login window just fine. However, yesterday, I did an sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade, and gdm lost it's configuration and stopped talking. I found the magic commands to get it working again in Luke's 30accessibility scripts in casper. They are: sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility true sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/applications/at/visual/startup true sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -s -t string /desktop/gnome/applications/at/visual/exec orca sudo -u gdm gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/applications/at/screen_reader_enabled true Gdm was somewhat broken 3 days ago, so I wasn't too worried that it's config was lost when I upgraded. However, today I upgraded again, and gdm stopped talking again, and I had to re-execute the commands above to fix it. Is this a long-term problem that blind users will keep running into? -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Lucid update broke accessibility
So, I did another apt-get update, and apt-get upgrade, and rebooted, and now speech is working again! Robert, can you give this a gry? On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Samuel Thibault samuel.thiba...@ens-lyon.org wrote: Bill Cox, le Thu 04 Mar 2010 10:03:27 -0500, a écrit : Anyone have any ideas what's going on? Shall I file a bug report on bugs.launchpad.net? Unless somebody speaks within a day, report a bug. Better report bugs several times and they will be merged, than risk not reporting the bug at all. Samuel -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Switching to stable yelp
The gnome maintainers do not recommend switching to the unstable yelp branch and instead recommend the stable version which is still accessible. They will only switch when webkit becomes accessible. I'll update the bug report but its been marked low priority. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Web Browsing
For Ubuntu, it's best to use the Orca screen reader with Firefox to see if your web page is accessible, since that's how most users do it. You can start it from the command line with 'orca'. However, there are some current bugs in Orca related to changes in Firefox 3.6, which are being worked on actively. Bill On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 4:47 PM, Phill Whiteside phi...@phillw.net wrote: Hi, a couple of questions .. 1) Is Fire Vox now un-supported (I cannot find anything for 3.6 and 3.7 is in release candidate testing) ? 1a) If no longer supported, is there a Web Reader available that I can use to check to see if my understanding of the various 'standards' actually works ? Thanks, Phill. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: How to make Yelp accessible?
Hi, Attila. I'll do as you suggest, and have a gecko based version of Yelp for Vinux, until webkit becomes accessible. Bill On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 10:13 AM, Hammer Attila hamm...@pickup.hu wrote: Dear List, Bill, I tryed your ydea, because yesterday I read your purposes with Vinux mailing list. If actual Yelp version is not accessible before final release, my openion need do a separate package with containing oldest 2.28.0 Yelp version, with using Gecko. I replace Lucid webkit Yelp version without any problem. I downloaded Yelp source code with my wife Karmic system, and rebuilded the Yelp package with my Lucid system without any errors. Yelp is wonderful working with Orca again when I install new package. But, I think the developers is does'nt do this (for example creating a yelp-gecko package with Karmic Yelp source code), but Vinux is handle this problem with a PPA version wonderful. Not an elegant method, but working. Luke, what your openion? Attila -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Rant about accessibility testing
Two key pieces of accessibility software in Gnome used to be accessible, but are no longer in Lucid - Yelp and the Ubuntu Software Center. Ubuntu does a terrific job in general insuring packages are functional and not buggy before allowing them into the distro. There must be some check-list for accepting packages at Ubuntu. Why is accessibility not on this list? Isn't this simply a matter of adding one extra item to the list of tasks for a package to be accepted? Ubuntu is in a unique position to improve lives for the disabled. Simply by raising their standards, Ubuntu can raise the standards throughout the FOSS community. I am amazed that Ubuntu has not taken this simple step. Is there any good reason? Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Speakup is now in Debian kernel package
Which is nice! Today, anyone in Ubuntu using speakup has to type 'm-a a-i -f speakup-source' whenver the kernel is upgraded. I understand it's too late to get it into Lucid, but I'll put in a vote for getting it in whenever possible! Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Donations to Ubuntu accessibility
Hi, Storm. Personally, I think you should save your money for beer, and continue contributing as you have - with your time. What we really need is at least another full time person at Canonical working full-time on accessibility, and of course, I vote for Willie. Short of that, perhaps we can do a better job organizing the community to focus on work that needs to get done. My own feeling is that we should work in an accessibility sand-box, which feeds into Ubuntu and the other distros. I think we can do that with Vinux based on Ubuntu. Bill On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 11:07 AM, Storm Dragon stormdragon2...@gmail.comwrote: Hi, Is there a site, or some way to donate to Ubuntu in such a way that the donated funds will go towards accessibility specifically? I would like to be able to donate to projects like Orca and speech-dispatcher, but as far as I know, right now that would meen donating to Oracle. This, I will never do, not even if hell does freeze over. So, the next best thing would be to donate to the distro specifically, but I would like to know that my donations are supporting the programs that make the distro accessible to me. thanks Storm -- Follow me on Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/stormdragon2976 My blog, Thoughts of a Dragon:http://www.stormdragon.us/ What color dragon are you?http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/alustriel07/what-color-dragon-would-you-be/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Draft Willie for Ubuntu Accessibility
I don't need to introduce Willie on this forum. If you don't know him and some of his work, you're not involved. Willie is looking for a new job as the result of the Oracle/Sun merger. I've said before that Ubuntu could own the accessibility space with one more full time guy. If that guy is Willie, he'll prove me right. I don't know the situation at Canonical, but getting Willie roped in would be super-huge. RedHat would do great with Willie as well, but I'd rather see his skills go to Ubuntu first, and let Fedora get his work downstream from Ubuntu. Anyone interested in forming a Draft Willie campaign? Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: retrieving synthesized auio data?
Hi, Luke. Count me in for a supporting role on speech-dispatcher. I was also thinking of enhancing speech-dispatcher to create audio files. There's some discussion on the Vinux list about creating an audio book creation app, and sometime over the next year, I'd like to see it happen. Personally, I'm not a fan of using dbus for inter-process communication. I prefer file sockets generally, but I'm old-school. Actually, assuming we don't mind losing the TCP capability in speech-dispatcher, I don't see why speech-dispatcher can't become a shared library, with no daemon running. Do you know a good reason? Bill On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 3:12 PM, Luke Yelavich luke.yelav...@canonical.com wrote: On Thu, Feb 04, 2010 at 12:04:00PM PST, Luke Yelavich wrote: I intend to write up some roadmap/specification documentation as to what I would like to work on with speech-dispatcher next. I think first, we get a 0.6.8 release out the door, then start thinking what needs major work, to ensure speech-dispatcher is still usable both as a system service for those who want it, and for the ever changing multi-user desktop environment. One such idea I have, is to consider dbus as a client/server communication transport layer. This could even go so far as to solve the issue of using system level clients like BrlTTY with a system level speech-dispatcher, which would then communicate with a user level speech-dispatcher for example. One final thing. Canonical will not be funding future developments of speech-dispatcher. Any work I do on Speech-dispatcher from here on out, will be done mostly in my own time. I may fix bugs here or there with my Canonical hat on, but the rest will be me personally contributing to the project. I really want to see speech-dispatcher succeed, and become the standard speech API on linux, and perhaps other POSIX OSs like BSD etc. In order to do this, we need to clearly document the changes we want to make going forward, so we can keep on track to achieving that goal. Once again, if Brailcom are unable to give speech-dispatcher the time it deserves, I am willing to lead the project development, manage releases, and code quality as much as I can in my own time, with Brailcom's blessing of course. So stay tuned for futher development plans. Luke ___ Speechd mailing list spee...@lists.freebsoft.org http://lists.freebsoft.org/mailman/listinfo/speechd -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Lucid and speech dispatcher
I guess first I need to understand why you want it in system-wide mode. Having it ru as user has benefits. In particular, you can bind a command like sh -c 'killall speech-dispatcher; orca --replace' to a key like Shift+Ctrl+O, to restart both speech-dispatcher and Orca when needed. In theory two different blind users could have different speech-dispatcher configurations, but I never heard of two blind users sharing a machine. I run speech-dispatcher both in system-wide mode, and in user mode. I turn on speech-dispatcher in system-wide mode so that I can run speechd-up and get speakup working with speech-dispatcher. I prefer this mode for it's stability. Speech-dispatcher still crashes now and then (about every other day for me), in user-space, so it's nice to have a speakup specific version running that is rock-solid. For some reason, the speakup copy of speech-dispatcher just doesn't seem to crash, but I use Orca far more than speakup. To get two copies of speech-dispatcher running and playing nicely together, you need to run PulseAudio in system-wide mode. In the future, hopefully, this will be fixed, but for now, I recommend all users who need speakup run it this way. Here's how I run PulseAudio in system-wide mode in Karmic and Lucid: Edit /etc/defaults/pulseaudio, and change: PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=0 to PULSEAUDIO_SYSTEM_START=1 Then, edit /etc/pulse/client.conf, and add the line autospawn = no After the line that says '#autospawn = yes'. Then, delete the file /etc/xdg/autostart/pulseaudio.desktop. Finally, you have to disable group-based authentication to use the sound system. This is not ideal, but it works, and I don't know any way to get the installer to automatically add users to the pulse-access group. Edit /etc/pulse/system.pa. Find the line that reads: load-module module-native-protocol-unix and change it to read: load-module module-native-protocol-unix auth-anonymous=1 Bill On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 10:49 AM, mk360 re...@tutopia.com wrote: Hi, First of all, really many thanks to luke for the work on spd and ubuntu lucid, finally its working good, probably at the level of spd with alsa. Now a question... can I configure spd to start in system mode? usually I set yes on /etc/default/speech-dispatcher, but under karmic I had many problems with this losing all sound, so I prefer to ask, becouse my lucid is working really good... Regards, and again, congratulations. mk. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Compiz keybinds conflicts
Hi, Arky. Someone just pointed out this problem in my Vinux/Ubuntu Lucid ISO. I turned off Static Application Switcher, and turned on Application Switcher, and reassigned ControlAltTab to next_panel, and ShiftControlAltTab to prev_panel. The results are awesome. I've been using the Compiz magnifier for over a year, and I've never been able to access the panels accept with the mouse. Getting next_panel and prev_panel working in Compiz is huge. This is the last major accessibility issue I know of with Compiz. I think Lucid would be a good platform to switch to the normal application switcher, and fixing this key binding should be done as well. Thanks, BIll On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Arky rakesh_amb...@yahoo.com wrote: Hi, Compiz keybindings often conflit with gnome defaults. Perhaps we can provide a patch to resolve this in lucid. Any ideas? https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lucid/CompizDefaults Cheers --arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati| IT Consultant| http://www.braillewithoutborders.org | Blog: http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Accessible install and Vinux?
I think Lucid is on track to be a fabulous distro for accessibility. I'm working on a Vinux ISO based on Ubuntu Lucid, and I'm pretty excited about it. However, even better than having a separate ISO would be having a Vinux-like install option. Is there any chance that the we Vinux guys could work with the Luke and the Ubuntu accessibility guys on adding a bunch of cool accessibility stuff automatically when an accessible install is selected? In particular, a more accessible desktop environment (different /etc/skel), and speakup support would be a huge improvement for an accessible install, IMO. I'd much rather work on an accessible install for Ubuntu than a separate Vinux/Ubuntu ISO. Any chance this could happen? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Anyone know how to increase the console font size
In Ubuntu Lucid Alpha, the fonts on the console are really tiny. In Karmic, they were nice and large. Does anyone know how to modify the console font size? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Orca fails to run in latest Lucid update
Anyone else seeing this? After an apt-get upgrade, Orca no longer
works. Here's what gets reported:
vi...@vinux-laptop:~$ orca
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: AT_SPI_REGISTRY was not started at
session startup.
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: IOR not set.
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: Could not locate registry
Traceback (most recent call last):
File string, line 1, in module
File /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/orca/orca.py, line 1747, in main
init(pyatspi.Registry)
File /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/orca/orca.py, line 1266, in init
registry.registerEventListener(_onChildrenChanged,
File /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pyatspi/registry.py, line
331, in __getattribute__
raise RuntimeError('Could not find or activate registry')
RuntimeError: Could not find or activate registry
I can track this down, but if you have already figured it out, or have
pointers for me, I'd like to hear from you.
Thanks,
Bill
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Re: Orca fails to run in latest Lucid update
D'oh! This is just what Willie told me to do before:
$ gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/interface/at-spi-corba --type bool true
If you execute this, then at-spi-registryd can run, and Orca starts.
Bill
On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 11:08 AM, Bill Cox waywardg...@gmail.com wrote:
Anyone else seeing this? After an apt-get upgrade, Orca no longer
works. Here's what gets reported:
vi...@vinux-laptop:~$ orca
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: AT_SPI_REGISTRY was not started at
session startup.
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: IOR not set.
(orca:1830): atk-bridge-WARNING **: Could not locate registry
Traceback (most recent call last):
File string, line 1, in module
File /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/orca/orca.py, line 1747, in main
init(pyatspi.Registry)
File /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/orca/orca.py, line 1266, in init
registry.registerEventListener(_onChildrenChanged,
File /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pyatspi/registry.py, line
331, in __getattribute__
raise RuntimeError('Could not find or activate registry')
RuntimeError: Could not find or activate registry
I can track this down, but if you have already figured it out, or have
pointers for me, I'd like to hear from you.
Thanks,
Bill
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Re: [orca-list] [ANNOUNCE] libao (new audio driver for speechd including working pulseaudio support).
Hi, Luke. Adding the ability to set PulseAudio parameters in speechd.conf was harder than I thought it would be, but it's done. Attached are two patches. The first is the patch file to get the basic pulseaudio driver that you've tested. The second is the work I had to do to get the PulseAudio buffering parameters exposed to the user through speechd.conf. Just add these to your debian/patches directory and the 00list file. I wasn't sure where to e-mail these... sorry for the spam! Bill On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 7:56 AM, Bill Cox waywardg...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Luke. That's great! For some reason, I keep expecting the Magic Code Fairies to clean up code before it gets included anywhere. Earlier in this thread, Rui Batista said he was going to do some cleanup - making PulseAudio buffer parameters configurable again. So, naturally I didn't bother. If you can wait a few hours, I'll do that change, and post an improved patch here. Bill On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Luke Yelavich luke.yelav...@canonical.com wrote: On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 03:25:47PM EST, Luke Yelavich wrote: On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 03:19:32PM EST, Bill Cox wrote: Hi, Luke. The new pulse drivers work well for me on both Karmic and Lucid, and I haven't heard of users with poor performance so far, but it could be machine specific. The strange thing is you're reporting libao works well, and all I did was cut and paste the pulseaudio calls libao makes into the libao driver, so I would expect similar performance, other than for the buffering settings I make in the pulse-simple interface. *slaps head. I didn't apply the patch I created with the new pulse file. I'll test again and get back to you, Ok, now that I actually have it aplying and built, the difference is *VERY* noticable. Currently using espeak with pulse, but will try with portaudio again since bits of short text, especially if arrowing very fast, are a little bit clicky. Long term, there is the power consumption issue that Lennart raised, since we are using the simple API, but we need to work that out as best we can, and go from there, but I think this will be going into Ubuntu very shortly, once I have done a few more tests. Great work! Luke patches.tar.bz2 Description: BZip2 compressed data -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [orca-list] [ANNOUNCE] libao (new audio driver for speechd including working pulseaudio support).
Oops... It was pointed out that I got the credits wrong in the header. I've regenerated the second patch to correct it. Bill On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 1:08 PM, Bill Cox waywardg...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Luke. Adding the ability to set PulseAudio parameters in speechd.conf was harder than I thought it would be, but it's done. Attached are two patches. The first is the patch file to get the basic pulseaudio driver that you've tested. The second is the work I had to do to get the PulseAudio buffering parameters exposed to the user through speechd.conf. Just add these to your debian/patches directory and the 00list file. I wasn't sure where to e-mail these... sorry for the spam! Bill On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 7:56 AM, Bill Cox waywardg...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, Luke. That's great! For some reason, I keep expecting the Magic Code Fairies to clean up code before it gets included anywhere. Earlier in this thread, Rui Batista said he was going to do some cleanup - making PulseAudio buffer parameters configurable again. So, naturally I didn't bother. If you can wait a few hours, I'll do that change, and post an improved patch here. Bill On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 12:31 AM, Luke Yelavich luke.yelav...@canonical.com wrote: On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 03:25:47PM EST, Luke Yelavich wrote: On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 03:19:32PM EST, Bill Cox wrote: Hi, Luke. The new pulse drivers work well for me on both Karmic and Lucid, and I haven't heard of users with poor performance so far, but it could be machine specific. The strange thing is you're reporting libao works well, and all I did was cut and paste the pulseaudio calls libao makes into the libao driver, so I would expect similar performance, other than for the buffering settings I make in the pulse-simple interface. *slaps head. I didn't apply the patch I created with the new pulse file. I'll test again and get back to you, Ok, now that I actually have it aplying and built, the difference is *VERY* noticable. Currently using espeak with pulse, but will try with portaudio again since bits of short text, especially if arrowing very fast, are a little bit clicky. Long term, there is the power consumption issue that Lennart raised, since we are using the simple API, but we need to work that out as best we can, and go from there, but I think this will be going into Ubuntu very shortly, once I have done a few more tests. Great work! Luke patches.tar.gz Description: GNU Zip compressed data -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Anyone know how Fedora 12 launches root apps?
I've read that Fedora 12 applications that need root privileges are all accessible to Orca. Does anyone know how Fedora does this? Ubuntu uses gksu, and all programs launched in Ubuntu with gksu are not accessible to Orca. Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Help needed for system-wide pulseaudio for blind users
I also posted this on the pulseaudio list, but there may be more help to be found here... I'm trying to build a Vinux (blind-user Linux distro) release based on Ubuntu/Lucid. There's too much code to rewrite to have everything working the right way with pulseaudio by May, so I want to release Vinux/Ubuntu Lucid with the system-wide hack. I've enabled PA to start in system wide mode by editing /etc/defaults/pulseaudio, and enabling it there. I've added gdm, root, speech-dispatcher, and my user name to the pulse-access group. Pulseaudio starts, and speech-dispatcher and speechd-up work with it just fine at boot. Since this is a distro for the blind, I boot into a console, not gdm. The login prompt is read nicely, as is text when I log in. However, if I try to play a .wav file, there is no sound. None of the apps with PA back-ends will play sound for me. When I type 'startx', Gome comes up, but the sound preference dialog tells me there's no sound card. I suspect that rights to use it have been granted to the speech-dispatcher user, and I'm not able to access it. If there is anyone who can help me get such a settup working, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Can pulseaudio be made to work with consoles and Orca at the same time?
I'm trying to get a basic Karmic system working with the two critical applications for the blind: Orca and speakup. Pulseaudio is being a huge PITA. Whether I use espeakup or speechd-up, pulseaudio is launched as another user as soon as the speakup module starts during boot. However, when the user logs into gnome, another instance of pulseaudio is created. The first one locks the sound card, and the second is mute. Orca wont talk. If I kill the first one, Orca comes up talking, but then my Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6] consoles stop talking. Any basically usable Linux system for the blind needs Orca and speakup working together. Pulseaudio, SFAIK, only allows one instance to use the sound card at a time. Pulseaudio also requires each user to have his own copy. Speakup runs before any user logs in, and therefore must run as it's own user. Therefore... pulseaudio can't work on any truely accessible Linux box? Is this basically true? If this can be fixed, which peice of code needs fixing (I'm willing to fix it)? Should we try and make multiple instances of pulseaudio play nice together so they can share the sound card? Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Best way to change default user configurations?
I've got a couple packages now on the Vinux/Ubuntu Karmic ppa on launchpad.net. They provide an updated pulseaudio driver for speech-dispatcher, and some 32-bit binaries for voxin compatibility on 64-bit systems. I'd like to make a couple virtual-packages, called vinux-metacity and vinux-compiz, that would automatically set up default keybindings, menu settings, and several other things that make Ubuntu more like Vinux, which is more a much more user-friendly setup for the blind and visually impaired than the default settings. The easy way for me to do this is to create a package that installs a ton of files in /etc/skel. Alternatively, I could modify the various packages involved so that their default settings are compatible with Vinux. What is the right way to do this, and what is the expediant way, given that I don't have much time to work on this? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Accessibility bugs in Lucid have been tracked down
I'm very happy to say that I don't know of any major bugs in Lucid at the moment related to accessibility that haven't been tracked down. Of course, there are still some there... I cheat and use the mouse all the time, I haven't checked Braille, or done an install by voice. Also, some of the bugs have known fixes, but haven't been included yet, like the patch to speakup-source and a minor environment variable related bug in using sudo to launch accessible gnome apps like synaptic. However, performance issues have been fixed, as have several goobers that kept the system from working properly. The biggest problem on my laptop at the moment is the stupid proprietary ATI drivers don't work (again). I'm very excited about Lucid at this point. I think it's going to be the best Ubuntu release ever for accessibility. If anyone runs into significant accessibility bugs, let me know. I'll see if I can find some time to help track them down. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: a question about the live cd
I'd venture a guess that you still would want the accessibility install in order to enable Orca during installation, and to enable it by default when booting Ubuntu. I would guess that pulseaudio will be enabled in Lucid either way. With a Vinux/Lucid install, speech would be enabled regardless, with pulseaudio, but ideally you'd get options for whether or not to boot into Gnome, or go with raw speakup in a command line interface. In an ideal world, Ubuntu would incorporate many of the accessibility improvements found in Vinux when you select the accessibility install, and Vinux/Ubuntu as a seperate ISO would go away (Vinux would still be needed for other distros). That would include critical accessibility programs like speakup, the Vinux key bindings, Stormdragon's cool Orca utils, emacspeak in the DVD version, etc. Ideally, the background would be black, fonts would be 18-ish points, and we'd even have an audio-book creator app that talks to bookshare.org. Sounds pretty pie-in-the-sky-ish to me, but is there any chance us Vinux guys could get seriously involved with what happens in an Ubuntu accessibility install? I'm confident there'd be a lot of interest from the blind/VI community, and there are a bunch of us who are big geeks, with a personal stake in the game. Bill On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 8:03 PM, mike kb8...@verizon.net wrote: Hi, if these new patches are included in the live CD will we still need the blind install? Or will pulse be enabled and we will boot the CD normally? Mike. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Unacceptable delay in pulseaudio continues in Lucid
When pulseaudio is enabled, all sound is delayed on the order of 1/2 seconds, which makes Orca a nightmare to use for blind users. It's completely unacceptable for a main machine. When pulseaudio is disabled, speech performance is great. I filed a bug about this in November: http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-b...@lists.ubuntu.com/msg1823018.html However, there's no progress on this issue so far. My question is: Are we going to be able to fix the unacceptable delay in pulseaudio before Lucid releases in April, or should blind/VI users instead focus on finding workarounds for all the bugs that now exist when pulseaudio is disabled? I know the right answer is to fix pulseaudio. What I'm looking for is the practical solution that will actually exist in April. If anyone knows how to begin tracking down the pulseaudio delay problem, let me know and I'll take a look. For now, I have no idea. Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Latest source for pulseaudio works great!
I downloaded from git the latest pulseaudio repository and recompiled on Ubntu Lucid. The speech performance is excellent! There are several goobers that we already had when disabling pulseaudio: the volume control disappears, the volume starts muted after boot, and I'm sure the other usual stuff. Based on this, I'm strongly recommending that Ubuntu update to the latest pulseaudio for Lucid! The current 1/2 second delay makes Ubuntu terrible for anyone who needs a screen reader (Orca). Updating packages should fix this! Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: [pulseaudio-discuss] Latest source for pulseaudio works great!
Sorry, Dan, and others I hastily spammed... pulseaudio compiles and installs just fine on my system, but doesn't run! It exits with this message: E: module.c: Failed to open module module-dbus-protocol: file not found Without pulseaudio, alsa takes over and of course we get back to the good Orca performance I'm use to. I'll switch back to the version in Ubuntu and see if I can find anything there. Let me know if I can help you track down the delay issue. Thanks, Bill On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:28 AM, Daniel Chen seven.st...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:21 AM, Bill Cox waywardg...@gmail.com wrote: I downloaded from git the latest pulseaudio repository and recompiled on Ubntu Lucid. The speech performance is excellent! There are several goobers that we already had when disabling pulseaudio: the volume control disappears, the volume starts muted after boot, and I'm sure the other usual stuff. Tracking origin/master is not the same as the latest stable -- 0.9.21, which is in Lucid -- but I'm highly keen to narrow down what the source of performance differences is. How are you compiling? Which build-dependencies do you have installed? Based on this, I'm strongly recommending that Ubuntu update to the latest pulseaudio for Lucid! The current 1/2 second delay makes Ubuntu terrible for anyone who needs a screen reader (Orca). Updating packages should fix this! As explained above, Ubuntu already carries the latest stable, and the differences to origin/master HEAD aren't significant (other than dbus, eq). -Dan ___ pulseaudio-discuss mailing list pulseaudio-disc...@mail.0pointer.de https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: orca out of the box
Hi, Arki, and thanks for working on the bugs. I think there are a few of us who would like to help get Orca working well in Lucid. I've installed alpha1, and have run into the pyatspi bug you know about. Any help getting Orca working well is appreciated. I'm comfortable debugging C code, but I don't understand the whole D-bus/atspi/COBRA stuff at all, or even if that's where the bug lies. Another issue with continues to be pulseaudio. Disabling it with the .pulse_a11y_nostart hack leads to far superior audio performance. Do you think we have time to fix the pulseaudio problems for Lucid, or should we focus on making the accessibility install with pulseaudio disabled less buggy and more usable? I'd like to help track down bugs in Lucid related to accessibility from now until the April release. Thanks, Bill On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 2:19 AM, Isaac Porat is...@porat.me.uk wrote: Hello Arki and all Your reply implies that all is well, in fact those who tried speech with Karmic knows that it is for all practical purposes unusable. It is my impression that even geeks can't get it to work reliably PulseAudio is too deeply embedded into the system and it seems that those looking after audio in Canonical never considered the impact of this on the blind community. There is a bold statement about accessibility on Ubuntu's website but it seems to have no roots in reality at least with Karmic. Jaunty had at least a clean way to remove PulseAudio and in fact it is the first distro I can use as a blind person productively - thanks to all concerned. Karmic is completely the other way - unusable. Yes I am aware of the various tweaks with limited effect and completely unworkable for the typical blind Windows or Mac user looking for an alternative. http://live.gnome.org/Orca/UbuntuKarmic When Karmic was released I thought this problem was a glitch, an oversight which will be sorted out; there are no visible sighnes of this yet, at least nothing that the blind community is aware of. Regards Isaac -Original Message- From: ubuntu-accessibility-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Arky Sent: 11 December 2009 05:30 To: Josh; ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: orca out of the box Hi Josh, Ubuntu LiveCD has an accessibility mode that enables blind users to use Orca screen reader and magnifier. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Accessibility/#Starting%20Orca%20on%20the% 20Live%20CD Cheers --arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati| IT Consultant| http://www.braillewithoutborders.org | Blog: http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com From: Josh jkenn...@gmail.com To: ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com Sent: Fri, 11 December, 2009 6:40:12 AM Subject: orca out of the box Hi, I think in the next release when ubuntu live cd/dvd starts up it should detect the sound card then say: if you're blind do this to start the live cd with orca and dothat to start the installer with orca. make it more like the mac with voiceover kind of. Josh My email address is: jkenn...@gmail.com . www.satogo.com Get klango at www.klango.net it's free! Get NVDA www.nvda-project.org it's free! Grab Ubuntu at www.ubuntu.com it's free! and www.twitter.com/jkenn337 follow-me-on-twitter. The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage http://in.rd.yahoo.com/tagline_yyi_1/*http://in.yahoo.com/ . -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: karmic problem is somewhat fixed
Hi, Labrador. I've enjoyed reading your posts. Anyway, as an old (I'm 45) software developer myself, I wish anything I shipped where half as stable as Ubuntu. It's damed hard to build the QA suite, and testing's a bitch. I'm sure the developer in charge of this decision thought: A) Switching to PulseAudio wouldn't break important functionality like Orca B) Any bugs that cause problems could be quickly handled. Unfortunately, we developers are often wrong, as in this case. Luke has already posted that it's high priority for him to track down the performance problems between speech-dispatcher and PulseAudio. At this point, we should just hope that Luke succeeds and that in the future Canonical tests Orca performance before making major sound system changes. Anyway, this is hardly the only problem in Karmic, and hardly the only remaining issue in Linux. My wife came to me today, because she couldn't figure out how to install Adobe Air on Ubuntu. She had downloaded some installer ending in '.bin', and was double-clicking it, saying, It wont start! It wont start! Linux is not yet for the masses, though I hope Ubuntu eventually gets there. In the meantime, it's the most awesome system for programmers and hackers ever conceived, and has it's use in business, too. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: To turn Karmic, or remain Jaunty?
Short answer: Wait for Ubuntu 10.4 LTE. Unless you're just too curious. Having gotten Jaunty working for you means you're good at hacking the system a bit. I think Karmic is similar in effort as Jaunty, but everyone's experience seems to vary a lot. The thing is, I don't see any major draw for Karmic over Jaunty for blind/VI users who already have a stable system working well with Orca. Ubuntu 10.4 (release April next year), will be a long-term-support edition, which means the focus is on stability. A ton of stuff that's broken in Karmic, like resume from suspend, video driver problems, etc, will be fixed in the next release. That said, I just couldn't help myself, and I went ahead and upgraded my Jaunty x64 laptop. My effort to just dist-upgrade failed pretty badly, but my system was pretty heavily modified already. The clean install worked, except for the noted problems with pulseaudio (a big PITA, frankly). If you're like me, you'll go through a similar process, simply because we're so damed curious about what's in the latest and greatest distro. I like it. The Software Center is interesting, with fascinating potential. I'm waiting for Canonical to allow paid-applications on it, which would send a real jolt through the linux world, one we need IMO. Some minor goobers in Jaunty are cleaned up. Shutdown speed is amazing, and boot isn't bad. VPN in Network Manager is currently broken for me, but use to work, and I use gnome-alsa-mixer since the volume control is broken (since you have to remove pulseaudio). Now and then the system crashes when I restart X, like when I log out. The speech performance isn't bad with alsa and speech-dispatcher. I use voxin for the voice, so I don't know if espeak is still causing speech-dispatcher crashes. It works well with voxin. Bill On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Dave Hunt dave.hu...@verizon.net wrote: Given all the trouble with sound in Karmic, especially as regards Orca and speech, is there anything to recommend upgrading from a stable Jaunty system? Are there enough other improvements to justify all the effort needed in order to overcome the sound issues? If I decide that an upgrade is worth the trouble, what think you of my doing an in-place upgrade, rather than a clean re-install? Thanks for your thought, Dave H. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 Koala positive feetback related toaccessibility and speech responsiveness
I'm very glad to hear about positive experiences so far with Karmic. I installed the x64 version yesterday on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400). Orca did work out-of-the-box, which is nice. If blind users absolutely must do a few things on linux, Karmic can do the job. However, I found there to be a delay due to pulseaudio of about 1/2 second, making key and word echo useless. The delay is so bad, I don't see how I could use Karmic with Orca full-time. I installed voxin as well (far nicer than espeak, IMO), and had two additional problems, besides the delay. When using speech-dispatcher, speech would pause every few seconds for about half a second, which is seriously annoying. When using Gnome Speech Services, instead of pausing, it simply stops speaking, so it is very tedious to listen to an entire document. I suspect both problems are related to the delay in pulseaudio. With the virtual machine install, I was able to get Orca working well by uninstalling pulseaudio, as described here: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/UbuntuKarmic However, when installed on my laptop, removing pulseaudio caused speech-dispatcher to hang, with 100% CPU utilization. So, for now, I have no suitable Karmic-based Orca solution. Are other people seeing the delay problem? Is it only with the x64 version? Are you using Karmic/Orca as your main machine, or just playing around a bit? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 Koala positive feetback related toaccessibility and speech responsiveness
Hi, Storm. Once again, you totally rock! I did in fact forget to change pulse to alsa in speechd.conf (D'oh!). I'll edit the Orca/Karmic wiki page and add this step. Now key echo is working well, and I'm having currently no problems in Karmic with Orca using voxin with speech-dispatcher/alsa. I'm basically a happy camper at the moment. I'm still having trouble getting the volume control to show up in the gnome panel. I delete .pulse and .pulse-cookie, but some process keeps recreating them! Do you also know the solution to this? Thanks, Bill. On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Storm Dragon stormdragon2...@gmail.comwrote: Hi, I was having the same problems with pulseaudio. The pauses every few wordes were quite interesting. Removing pulse solved sound problems for more than just orca though. I am still using speech-dispatcher with no problems. Did you remember to run spd-conf and set it to use alsa instead of pulse? I am using 64 bit Karmik. -- Thoughts of a Dragon:http://www.stormdragon.us/ What color dragon are you?http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/alustriel07/what-color-dragon-would-you-be/ On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 08:57 -0500, Bill Cox wrote: I'm very glad to hear about positive experiences so far with Karmic. I installed the x64 version yesterday on my laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400). Orca did work out-of-the-box, which is nice. If blind users absolutely must do a few things on linux, Karmic can do the job. However, I found there to be a delay due to pulseaudio of about 1/2 second, making key and word echo useless. The delay is so bad, I don't see how I could use Karmic with Orca full-time. I installed voxin as well (far nicer than espeak, IMO), and had two additional problems, besides the delay. When using speech-dispatcher, speech would pause every few seconds for about half a second, which is seriously annoying. When using Gnome Speech Services, instead of pausing, it simply stops speaking, so it is very tedious to listen to an entire document. I suspect both problems are related to the delay in pulseaudio. With the virtual machine install, I was able to get Orca working well by uninstalling pulseaudio, as described here: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/UbuntuKarmic However, when installed on my laptop, removing pulseaudio caused speech-dispatcher to hang, with 100% CPU utilization. So, for now, I have no suitable Karmic-based Orca solution. Are other people seeing the delay problem? Is it only with the x64 version? Are you using Karmic/Orca as your main machine, or just playing around a bit? Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Getting Orca working with Karmic
Has anyone gotten Orca working well in Karmic Beta? If so, what changes did you have to make? One thing that seems to have helped was to remove pulseaudio. However, before that, you need to install alsa-oss, or you wont have a sound system at all. This seems to have made Orca able to clear out the speech-dispatcher queue of sound you don't want to hear. It's still pretty unstable. I haven't been able to use it in any productive way for more than a couple minutes at a time before something crashes. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: karmic and voxin
I'm trying to get voxin working in karmic beta x64 under VirtualBox. I can get the 'say' program working without error. However, I've failed so far to get it working with either speech-dispatcher or Gnome Speech services. To install, I used the voxin-update-0.24 program. I had to modify voxin-installer.sh to include 9.10 in a case statement, but then the install runs. However, Orca does not show ibmtts as an option when using SD, and it doesn't show IBM ViaVoice when using Gnome Speech Services. What steps did you use to install Voxin? Also, I didn't have any luck removing pulseaudio. All it did was fry my sound. Thanks, Bill On Sun, Sep 27, 2009 at 7:34 PM, jose vilmar estacio de souza vil...@informal.com.br wrote: I tried to run on my 64 bits installation without success. My machine froze completely. On 09/27/2009 08:22 PM, Luke Yelavich wrote: On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 01:53:32AM EST, jose vilmar estacio de souza wrote: Anyone running voxin in karmic? I tried running it last week for some testing, and it worked without issue on i386. Luke -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: How's Karmic these days?
Well, yes, there are work-arounds for the volume. However, though I realise it's not Ubuntu's fault, having to restart speech dispatcher every few minutes makes the whole release a PITA for Orca users. Let's face it... Ubuntu kind of fell off the wagon for accessibility. Blind users are currently forced to use older Debian based releases, even though there is a strong desire to use Ubuntu. Vinux is the current best option, which is no longer based on Ubuntu. Sorry guys, I know there's some of you out there who actually work on Ubuntu accessibility, but the current state sucks. I certainly hope Ubuntu decides at some point to make accessibility a priority. Bill On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Arky rakesh_amb...@yahoo.com wrote: --- On Wed, 21/10/09, Jon j.orcau...@googlemail.com wrote: WARNING, if you dont have volume buttons on your keyboard/laptop then its probably not worth your time. The issue seems to be that pulse audio volume is set to 0 when it starts, and if you dont have keys for changing the volume, or a sighted person to change it for you then you wont be able to hear orca. Hi, Perhaps you should not fear this so much. You can use gnome-keybinding-properties and set Volume down / up to key binding for example Alt+F11 and Alt+F12 and you would find its possible to increase and decrease the volume. I have just tried this on a Karmic machine and assure it works. Cheers --arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati| IT Consultant| http://www.braillewithoutborders.org | Blog: http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com Connect more, do more and share more with Yahoo! India Mail. Learn more. http://in.overview.mail.yahoo.com/ -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: How's Karmic these days?
Hi, Luke. Thanks for working on accessibility. I feel really rotten about complaining about the bugs without putting in effort into debugging. However, my boss is all over me at the moment to get another project back on schedule. I'm sure you know what that's like. However, over the next year, I promise to find some time to nail a bug or two, like the crash in speech dispatcher. In the meantime, we should probably set expectations for users, and let them know it will be a while before Orca is working in a stable manner in the latest Ubuntu. It's an unfortunate situation, but blind users are simply not able to chip in and fix things when accessibility is broken, so it will be up to the very few of us interested in accessibility who still have decent vision to pull it off. Best regards, Bill On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 5:59 PM, Luke Yelavich them...@ubuntu.com wrote: On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 08:46:26AM EST, Bill Cox wrote: Sorry guys, I know there's some of you out there who actually work on Ubuntu accessibility, but the current state sucks. I certainly hope Ubuntu decides at some point to make accessibility a priority. I can understand why, as a user, you feel that way. Unfortunately I am the only one so far as I know of, actively working on improving Ubuntu's accessibility, and while I do as much as I can to make things work as well as they can, I have other matters that I need to attend to, due to working for Canonical and being responsible for other parts of the desktop as well, so I can only do so much in the time I allocate for accessibility work. Unfortunately the speech-dispatcher crasher is at the moment, somewhat beyond my current skills to debug, although learning valgrind will likely help me get better with sed debugging, and hopefully get rid of the speech-dispatcher crash. So if you really want Ubuntu's accessibility to get better, I urge you to consider helping out in whatever way you can, even if its only filing and triaging bugs, thats something. The more bugs that are in a triaged state, the less work I have to do, and the more bugs I can attempt to fix. I hope you all understand, and will do what you can to help. Regards Luke -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Voxin voices work great, espeak not so much in Ubuntu 9.04 x64
I'm running the latest code for atk, at-spi, orca, and compiz. I also have upgraded from the proposed repository. I have found that the old IBM Viavoice speech engine works great with pulseaudio and Gnome Speech Services, when using the IBM Viavoice GNOME Speech Driver. However, the espeak driver still gets cut off and choppy, and is basically unusable. I would recommend to anyone out there who prefers Viavoice over espeak to just install it, and don't bother removing pulseaudio or installing speech-dispatcher to get espeak working. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Untested vinux/ubuntu 9.04 x64 ISO available
I have put a developer version of vinux on my home server which in theory is similar to vinux 1.5, but based on Ubuntu 9.04 x64. It requires a DVD or USB key to install, since it's about 1.2G. I've labeled it 'alpha1', but that's generous, since I've never tried installing it! I don't have another machine capable of it right now. If anyone has a machine and time to test it, I would appreciate it. Your machine should have = 1gig RAM, be 64-bit capable, and it should have a fairly recent ATI or Nvidia graphics card capable of supporting Compiz. If you succeed in installing it, I recommend installing the voxin Viavoice package, as described in the document on the desktop. This version installs the most recent source code for atk, at-spi, and orca, in your home directory. It also pulls packages from Ubuntu's 'proposed' repository, and it has many developer tools pre-installed. The ISO is at: http://www.billrocks.org/vinux_ubuntu9.04_amd64_alpha1.iso Your download speed will be pretty pathetic, since I only have about 40KB/sec upload. If I can get the first major bugs fixed, I'll respin the ISO, and find a nicer home for it. Thanks, Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu
I have to eat a little crow now. I installed Ubuntu 8.10 x64, and had most of the same stability problems I found in Ubuntu 9.04 x64. So, the problems I've seen are probably somewhat related to the x64 distros, and going back in time to older distros will probably just make things worse, as 64-bit distros have been improving rapidly. While I an still see OK, I'm going to try and use recent versions of x64 Debian and Ubuntu, and I'll try and help track down the bugs. Bill On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Bill Coxwaywardg...@gmail.com wrote: I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive criticism, rather than pointless ranting. I would like to raise a red-flag at Canonical with this post. Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the visually impaired. Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced to switch future development to Debian branches. Until now, Ubuntu has had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other distros, but 9.04 has trashed that. If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero testing of Orca for 9.04. At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance for the visually impaired would be a good step. If Ubuntu wants to own the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the taking. Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it. Otherwise, I suspect that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian. There's some sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited by Ubuntu and several other great distros. However, making Linux easy to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on Ubuntu. Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu. I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend anyone. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Future of accessibility under Ubuntu
I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive criticism, rather than pointless ranting. I would like to raise a red-flag at Canonical with this post. Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the visually impaired. Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced to switch future development to Debian branches. Until now, Ubuntu has had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other distros, but 9.04 has trashed that. If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero testing of Orca for 9.04. At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance for the visually impaired would be a good step. If Ubuntu wants to own the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the taking. Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it. Otherwise, I suspect that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian. There's some sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited by Ubuntu and several other great distros. However, making Linux easy to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on Ubuntu. Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu. I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend anyone. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
Re: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu
On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 15:13 -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote: Bill Cox wrote: If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero testing of Orca for 9.04. I hope you do not consider me root for pointing out the accessibility doesn't stop with the blind. As much as you may be dependent on text-to-speech, I am extremely dependent on speech to text (i.e. speech recognition). Naturally speaking kind of works under wine and it really needs some dedicated effort/money/something to get it to the point where we can dictate into any of the next application. I have some ideas on how to bridge that gap but first we need a stable NaturallySpeaking. I agree completely. In fact, for three years, from 1996 to 1999, I had to use Dragon Dictate and Naturally Speaking to control Emacs in order to keep my job as a programmer. Porting Naturally Speaking would be my #1 enhancement request if I could get it. I'm not much of a Wine hacker, though. current open source speech recognition systems are a waste of time and money. They are the wrong tool for the application, says the man with 15 years experience using speech recognition. As a man with three years experience, and being familiar with Sphinx and such, I have to agree, though some of the open-source efforts are commendable. Bill -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
