An Accessible Ubuntu Server installation via Braille Display

[Jeffrey Malewski]

Hi everyone,
Pawel Loba reports that he was able to sucessfully install Ubuntu Server
12.04 by starting the installation manually, passing parameters to enable
braille support at the boot prompt. I've compiled the steps Pawel used along
with the steps Bill Taylor provided to get speakup running on the installed
system as a "HowTo" guide. I hope this information is helpful to others.
Thank you Bill and Pawel for your contribution:)

Jeff 

Pawel reported that during the installation of Ubuntu Server 12.04 his
braille display began behaving erraticly.
The solution to that is to exit the gui menu and start the installer
manually, passing the appropriate parameters at the  command prompt.

To manually start the installation of Ubuntu server 12.04 perform the
following steps:

1) boot to the Ubutnu Server 12.04 installation CD;

2) After CD stopped spinning, exit the gui menu by pressing the escape key
twice and enter key to confirm that you want to  perform a manual install;

3) At the boot prompt type:
 install text brltty=auto and press enter;  (this will start a manual
install with braille support)

The rest of the installation is displayed on your unit,  just follow the
typical installation screens.

Unfortunately after restarting the system there is no Braille support.
 you will need to install brltty

  sudo apt-get -y install brltty and press enter.

 type your password hit enter and waited till your hd goes silent.

 start brltty:

  brltty -b auto -d usb:

 Install alsa

  sudo apt-get install alsa-utils  

 run   < alsamixer >   #to un-mute sliders oo below sliders , and 50 or more
on slide

 Install espeakup:

 sudo apt-get install espeakup -y >

 Start speakup:

 modprobe speakup_soft start=1

 sh /etc/init.d/espeakup start   

 manually edit /etc/modules to add the line: 

 speakup_soft start=1 

 to ensure speakup starts after shutdown / restarts.


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Talking debian installer (d-i) for Ubuntu

[Jeffrey Malewski]

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have little doubt
that it is something that is of interest to all of us. That i am low vision
has allowed me to get away with some operations that a blind user cannot,
and I have installed Ubuntu and derivitives of Ubuntu without having to go
to the desktop on the live Cd. That the Ubuntu d-i installer is not
accessible is something I've known for about 5 years, and that is a
roadblock to blind users that I'd like to remove. The Debian Squeeze net
installer has Speakup built into it and I've found it to be quite
accessible. Last spring I took on the challenge of bringing that to Ubuntu,
and asked the Debian Accessibility Team for some guidance. It was suggested
that I ask the Ubuntu Accessibility Team. I've continued on my own, it's
been an education but I've made little progress. I've extracted the
initrd.img from the Debian Cd and most recently the Ubuntu Server 12.04.
It's clear that the Debina d-i uses a modular kernel which speakup is built
into and the alsa driver, espeak-data, and espeakup are already in the
Debian initrd.img. I've recently found the latest kernel image 3.2 di, the
speakup module and all the necessary components in one of the Precise
Universe mirrors. They are available as .udeb or source (tar.bz2) I am
unsure how to add the alsa, espeak, and espeakup .udebs to the initrd.img so
my first question is whether I would be better off to build the di kernel as
a monolithic kernel or not. I am able to mount the file system extracted
from the initrd.img and I am also able to chroot into it. The environment is
ash rather than bash and apt hasn't been installed at that point.
 
My other question relates to the installer's gtk frontend. The Debian Cd has
a mechanism to disable the gtk frontend so that the installer runs in a pure
text environment (everything is directly on-screen rather than ina dialoge
box) which allows speakup to read the options as they appear on-screen. Is
this something I should try to incorporate into the modified initrd.img?
 
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Jeff
 
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