From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Tue Dec 2 19:20:21 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 19:20:21 -0000 Subject: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealth and taste! Message-ID: Greetings earthlings! My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly). My vision (or lack of it) is to produce an easy to use fully accessible version of Ubuntu, that just works out of the box for VI users, and still has all the glitz and glamour of Ubuntu for sighted users. In other words I am not trying to create a distro which will only be used by visually impaired users, but a generic distro that can be used by anybody to do the everyday kind of things people want to do like browse the internet, listen to music, send e-mails etc. For example so it could be used in schools, colleges and homes by those of us who can't afford or just don't want to pay through the nose for expensive proprietary solutions (no names mentioned). At the moment I am using remastersys to modify an installed system and create a distribution with a pre-configured user account, overcoming obstacles as I find them. The first issue to deal with is the problem of Orca not wanting to read out Ubiquity (or any other application opened with root permissions). I could do this by enabling a root user account for installation and admin tasks, but because of the security risks this would cause I am working on simple bash script that stops orca, restarts it in --no-setup mode, runs the app (e.g. Ubiquity) and then restarts the original Orca session. I already have a working script but it needs a few tweaks so that it is invisible as possible to the user. However, someone mentioned that this could be attained by simply editing one of the orca config files. If anyone can shed any light on this or other tweaks/tips I would be happy to include them in future versions of Vibuntu, so other people don't have to. I want to try and keep to the original Ubuntu releases as closely as possible, ideally not adding anything that isn't included on the official release unless absolutely necessary, and only then if it is open-source GPL licenced (unless permission is granted by the developers). In a perfect world Ubuntu would already be fully accessible to VI users and I wouldn't have to do this, I live in hope! The only app I have added so far is remastersys, which is absolutely essential at the moment. I am also very keen on trying to keep the iso below 702Mb so it fits on a CD, I don't really want to produce a bloated distro full of everything under the sun. I want to provide the basics and let people add extra apps and codecs etc themselves. I would be happy to receive any feedback, suggestions, criticisms, abuse, law suits and/or death threats (preferably in that order) about Vibuntu and what I am trying to acheive! Tony Sales (aka drbongo) Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chmiel at phil.muni.cz Tue Dec 2 20:20:12 2008 From: chmiel at phil.muni.cz (Mgr. Janusz Chmiel) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 21:20:12 +0100 Subject: [orca-list] Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealth and taste! References: Message-ID: <2F9F8B79CB3A4B66B43AE1CAC4DA4FE9@fadcf5b6ef56488> Dear master, I would like to recommend You to customize Viubuntu to support installation of this system with Orca and also to enable users to use administrative tasks. To enable users to edit administrative tasks, it is necessary tomake some procedure, this procedure can be found at The following link: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/SysAdmin#head-c6bea9c68db14ec4f21e7630623c104155d0f0a4 If You could include edited orbit file to Viubuntu, it would be ammazing. Thank You for Your ansfer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Tue Dec 2 21:31:00 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 21:31:00 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu 1.0 URL Message-ID: Someone has pointed out that I forgot to include the URL for Vibuntu in the post, I have included the URL's below but I recommend that you start at the original release announcement on the Ubuntu Assistive Technology and Accessibility forum which will help you decide whether to download the 2D or 3D version. Link to release announcement: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=996151 Link to 2D version: http://www.rnc.ac.uk/mct/linux/vibuntu/Vibuntu-2D-1.0.zip Link to 3D version: http://www.rnc.ac.uk/mct/linux/vibuntu/Vibuntu-3D-1.0.zip drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Dec 3 00:05:23 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:05:23 -0600 (CST) Subject: I have a question about updates? Message-ID: <0KB900AT3XKZBUV7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I notice that there has been some kernel updates to intrepid since it was released. Are kernels updated for the life of a ubuntu operating system or for just a short time after a system is released? I usually go right into using the development version, but this time decided to stick with intrepid for awhile since it works so good. Mike. From themuso at ubuntu.com Thu Dec 4 00:05:48 2008 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:05:48 -0800 Subject: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealth and taste! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 11:20:21AM PST, Anthony Sales wrote: > Greetings earthlings! > > My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development Officer at > the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I have recently > released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a customised version of > Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) which is aimed at visually > impaired users. It is still very early days, but I decided to make it > available straight-away so that I could collect feedback, suggestions and > advice from interested parties rather than keep it hidden away until it is > finished (alledgedly). Then I invite you to let me know what you are changing in your version of Ubuntu, so we can include it in the main Ubuntu release. I personally believe that it is much better to do as much as can be done in the main ubuntu release, so that people who don't have access to the net, or the resources that we have here, such as the orca list et al, can benefit. I pondered making a separate version of Ubuntu for this reason a while ago, but was convinced to put my changes into Ubuntu proper. Feel free to contact me off-list to discuss what you are doing, and how best we can integrate your changes into Ubuntu proper. Regards Luke Yelavich Ubuntu Accessibility Team Leader. From themuso at ubuntu.com Thu Dec 4 00:07:15 2008 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 16:07:15 -0800 Subject: I have a question about updates? In-Reply-To: <0KB900AT3XKZBUV7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KB900AT3XKZBUV7@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20081204000715.GB10170@barbiton> On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 04:05:23PM PST, mike wrote: > Hi, I notice that there has been some kernel updates to intrepid since it was released. Are kernels updated for the life of a ubuntu operating system or for just a short time after a system is released? I usually go right into using the development version, but this time decided to stick with intrepid for awhile since it works so good. Kernels are generally updated for the full supportd life of an Ubuntu release, which is usually 18 months, with the exception of the long term support releases, dapper and hardy. Luke From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 4 03:45:40 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:45:40 -0600 (CST) Subject: open office Message-ID: <0KBC00MZG2G4PR62@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, what is the best way to get open office 3 for intrepid. I know it wasn't included with the release, so is there a file that can be downloaded to install it in intrepid. One other thing. I see they started with the production of the new version of ubuntu a little early. Has anyone tried it yet? If so, is Orca working or is sound broken as it usually is for awhile in the new productions. Mike. From davidv at guidedogswa.com.au Thu Dec 4 06:26:23 2008 From: davidv at guidedogswa.com.au (David Vosnacos) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 15:26:23 +0900 Subject: Vibuntu developments Message-ID: Hi Anthony, I look forward to trying your distribution and letting you know what we find! We have Ubuntu 8.10 set up in our library (alongside the others: Windows and Mac) for our clients to trial. Seems like we are on the same path as we've been looking into a similar project. Regards, David Vosnacos Program Manager: Information Systems Association for the Blind of WA (Inc.) Street address: 61 Kitchener Avenue, Victoria Park WA, Australia 6100 Unless stated otherwise in the body of this message, the views / opinions expressed are purely personal and not those of the Association for the Blind of WA (Inc.) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 19:20:21 -0000 From: "Anthony Sales" Subject: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealth and taste! To: , Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Greetings earthlings! My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly). My vision (or lack of it) is to produce an easy to use fully accessible version of Ubuntu, that just works out of the box for VI users, and still has all the glitz and glamour of Ubuntu for sighted users. In other words I am not trying to create a distro which will only be used by visually impaired users, but a generic distro that can be used by anybody to do the everyday kind of things people want to do like browse the internet, listen to music, send e-mails etc. For example so it could be used in schools, colleges and homes by those of us who can't afford or just don't want to pay through the nose for expensive proprietary solutions (no names mentioned). At the moment I am using remastersys to modify an installed system and create a distribution with a pre-configured user account, overcoming obstacles as I find them. The first issue to deal with is the problem of Orca not wanting to read out Ubiquity (or any other application opened with root permissions). I could do this by enabling a root user account for installation and admin tasks, but because of the security risks this would cause I am working on simple bash script that stops orca, restarts it in --no-setup mode, runs the app (e.g. Ubiquity) and then restarts the original Orca session. I already have a working script but it needs a few tweaks so that it is invisible as possible to the user. However, someone mentioned that this could be attained by simply editing one of the orca config files. If anyone can shed any light on this or other tweaks/tips I would be happy to include them in future versions of Vibuntu, so other people don't have to. I want to try and keep to the original Ubuntu releases as closely as possible, ideally not adding anything that isn't included on the official release unless absolutely necessary, and only then if it is open-source GPL licenced (unless permission is granted by the developers). In a perfect world Ubuntu would already be fully accessible to VI users and I wouldn't have to do this, I live in hope! The only app I have added so far is remastersys, which is absolutely essential at the moment. I am also very keen on trying to keep the iso below 702Mb so it fits on a CD, I don't really want to produce a bloated distro full of everything under the sun. I want to provide the basics and let people add extra apps and codecs etc themselves. I would be happy to receive any feedback, suggestions, criticisms, abuse, law suits and/or death threats (preferably in that order) about Vibuntu and what I am trying to acheive! Tony Sales (aka drbongo) The information contained in this email and any attached files is strictly private and confidential. The intended recipient of this email may only use, reproduce, disclose or distribute the information contained in the email and any attached files with the permission of the Association for the Blind WA. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are strictly prohibited from using, reproducing, adapting, disclosing or distributing the information contained in this email and any attached files or taking any action in reliance of it. If you have received this email in error, please email the sender by replying to this message, promptly delete and destroy any copies of this email and any attachments. From themuso at ubuntu.com Thu Dec 4 06:36:47 2008 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 22:36:47 -0800 Subject: open office In-Reply-To: <0KBC00MZG2G4PR62@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KBC00MZG2G4PR62@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20081204063647.GA12459@barbiton> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, Dec 03, 2008 at 07:45:40PM PST, mike wrote: > Hi, what is the best way to get open office 3 for intrepid. I know it wasn't included with the release, so is there a file that can be downloaded to install it in intrepid. I believe that someone who maintains openoffice in Ubuntu has a package somewhere, hwoever I am not yet sure where that is. Leave it with me, and I'll chase it down tomorrow. > One other thing. I see they started with the production of the new version of ubuntu a little early. Has anyone tried it yet? If so, is Orca working or is sound broken as it usually is for awhile in the new productions. At least for a while, there is no garentee that accessibility or sound wil work, as many developers are not yet running the development version. I suggest waiting till at least late January if not early February before you consider running jaunty. Luke -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkk3en8ACgkQjVefwtBjIM7EegCg70Rt87re/4hY7BMzNp8V1tyr xBoAmgPyNVE5jA5RYxX3Y6lyDxZTdxfn =QzDb -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From emmajane at ubuntu.com Thu Dec 4 06:59:11 2008 From: emmajane at ubuntu.com (Emma Jane Hogbin) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:59:11 -0500 Subject: open office In-Reply-To: <0KBC00MZG2G4PR62@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KBC00MZG2G4PR62@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <49377FBF.8090603@ubuntu.com> mike wrote: > Hi, what is the best way to get open office 3 for intrepid. I know it > wasn't included with the release, so is there a file that can be > downloaded to install it in intrepid. One other thing. I see they > started with the production of the new version of ubuntu a little > early. Has anyone tried it yet? If so, is Orca working or is sound > broken as it usually is for awhile in the new productions. Mike. > I created a screen cast on how to install OOo v3. You can view it here: http://showmedo.com/videos/video?name=3720000&fromSeriesID=372 the "source code" section of the same page is a transcript of the video. The instructions are based on the HOWTO article at: http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-To-Install-OpenOffice-org-3-0-in-Ubuntu-8-10-96449.shtml regards, emma -- Emma Jane Hogbin https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EmmaJane https://launchpad.net/people/emmajane From isaac at porat.me.uk Thu Dec 4 07:07:22 2008 From: isaac at porat.me.uk (Isaac Porat) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 07:07:22 -0000 Subject: Speech-dispatcher as a service? In-Reply-To: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> References: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> Message-ID: <7E175834458C42838B1E80B60F2122A8@temporary> Hello Luke I am fairly new to Ubuntu and Orca - I use 8.10 it runs well thank you. I found that Orca runs much better in Ubuntu using speech-dispatcher rather than Gnome-Speech; it is more stable and response is better. Unfortunately in my opinion the setting of SD is cumbersome for a typical user. I have another angle to this as I would like possibly to port a talking application to Ubuntu and speech-dispatcher is the way to go offering speech server capabilities being able to cope with multiple inputs. With your reference to Tony Sales and a special distro for the blind, do you have plans or could you possibly consider offering speech-dispatcher as a service 'out of the box'? This will be great. Thanks Regards Isaac -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Luke Yelavich Sent: 04 December 2008 00:06 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealthand taste! On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 11:20:21AM PST, Anthony Sales wrote: > Greetings earthlings! > > My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development > Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I > have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a > customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) > which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early > days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could > collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties > rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly). Then I invite you to let me know what you are changing in your version of Ubuntu, so we can include it in the main Ubuntu release. I personally believe that it is much better to do as much as can be done in the main ubuntu release, so that people who don't have access to the net, or the resources that we have here, such as the orca list et al, can benefit. I pondered making a separate version of Ubuntu for this reason a while ago, but was convinced to put my changes into Ubuntu proper. Feel free to contact me off-list to discuss what you are doing, and how best we can integrate your changes into Ubuntu proper. Regards Luke Yelavich Ubuntu Accessibility Team Leader. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From hanke at brailcom.org Thu Dec 4 14:45:32 2008 From: hanke at brailcom.org (Hynek Hanke) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:45:32 +0100 Subject: Speech-dispatcher as a service? In-Reply-To: <7E175834458C42838B1E80B60F2122A8@temporary> References: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> <7E175834458C42838B1E80B60F2122A8@temporary> Message-ID: <4937ED0C.1040101@brailcom.org> Isaac Porat wrote: >> I have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a >> customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) >> which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early >> days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could >> collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties >> rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly). >> > > Then I invite you to let me know what you are changing in your version of > Ubuntu, so we can include it in the main Ubuntu release. Luke, Isaac, a clone of Ubuntu which is perfectly tuned for use with assistive tools for visually impaired users already exists. It's called Blind Ubuntu and contains Orca, Speech Dispatcher, Yasr, Brltty, speechd-el, espeak, Festival and other tools all configured to work together straight out of the box. So it also solves the audio problems etc. Another good thing is that apart from installing it as a separate system, there is a repository and a package, that you can just install and use in the ordinary Ubuntu and it works great! One problem is that it is currently setup by default for the Czech language and also documentation is in Czech, but we in Brailcom Speak Czech so we can be helpful to make the bridge. All the components themselves are international, so what is needed is only slight configuration modifications. I know the author Martin Sukany and he would very much like his work to be included in Ubuntu. So would it make sense to start from this, which is already ready and being successfully used here in Czech Republic, with the help of you Luke and Isaac bring it up to Ubuntu standards and solve the remaining issues and then put these packages into official Ubuntu repositories (at least universe, contrib or something)? Because that would be a huge step forward. People have great difficulties putting all these things together, so although we have good software, it is not really useful to the users as it is now. Especially since the default audio is currently all broken on Intrepid with regards to accessibility. These meta packages have a power to solve these things in an easy way without really comming into any conflict with anything. Luke, should we perhaps have a discussion about this on Ubuntu Accessibility IRC or on Jabber? With regards, Hynek Hanke From david at miradoiro.com Thu Dec 4 15:21:59 2008 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_Pic=F3n_=C1lvarez?=) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:21:59 +0100 Subject: Speech-dispatcher as a service? References: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton><7E175834458C42838B1E80B60F2122A8@temporary> <4937ED0C.1040101@brailcom.org> Message-ID: <26ADD350ED49424E9D586FAFA0019193@Nautilus> There is a similar initiative in the Spanish-speaking environment, called tiflobuntu. It seems clear that this solution is being replicated around. IMO it shows two things: 1) Ubuntu out of the box is too fiddly to set up right for accessibility. 2) There is a certain amount of reduplication of effort going on. It would be good if people who are working in this type of solution could (internationalization aside) get together and issue a common accessibility-optimized distro, run from same repositories, etc. Even better would be if Ubuntu came like that already, but that's probably harder to manage. --David. From chmiel at phil.muni.cz Thu Dec 4 15:30:59 2008 From: chmiel at phil.muni.cz (Mgr. Janusz Chmiel) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:30:59 +0100 Subject: Speech-dispatcher as a service? References: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton><7E175834458C42838B1E80B60F2122A8@temporary> <4937ED0C.1040101@brailcom.org> Message-ID: Blindubuntu even contained yasr screen reader connected to a Speech dispatcher and festival Czech database, so users can use yasr for reading texts displaied in console. Speakup can be added to The installed system too. And braille displays are automatically detected like Ubuntu feisty and Gutsi Gibbon. I would like to thank MR Hanke, that he published this message, because MR Sukany is very clever linux administrator, his knowledge of Linux operating system is ammazing, he is even publishing articles in The Czech magazine Linux Express. I think, that this man could cooperate with core developers of Ubuntu to make accessibility features in The box. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Thu Dec 4 16:19:18 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:19:18 -0000 Subject: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealthand taste! In-Reply-To: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> References: <20081204000548.GA10170@barbiton> Message-ID: Thanks for all of the feedback I have received so far on Vibuntu. I am probably going to open a huge can of worms, but here goes... The issue of whether there should be a special version of Ubuntu or a single Ubuntu which incorporates all of the necessary accessibility features is a complex and controversial issue. There have always been two conflicting theories regarding accessibility: one is that an operating system should be accessible to absolutely everybody no matter what their language or disability might be, the other school of thought is that there should be separate tools optimised for the target group involved. This is not easy to answer, in an ideal world I would like to think that a single system could be devised that was flexible enough to be universally accessible, but in practice as the empirical evidence shows this is difficult to achieve and as far as I know no-one has yet managed to produce such a system. (e.g. I recently had to convert some multimedia software to work on an Arabic language system and was horrified to find that the Arabic language goes from right to left...)One of the dangers of producing a single universal system is that by its very nature it must make compromises if it is to be truly accessible to all, such that it will meet everyone's needs to some extent, but no-ones completely. Therefore in recent years I have leaned more and more towards specialist software written for a specific target group i.e. the visually impaired. As long as this software is compatible with other generic software such that communication and the transfer of information between the different systems is possible I can see no reason to reject this approach. I have never heard a visually impaired person complain because they can access the same information but in a different way, but they rightly complain like hell if they cannot get access to the information at all, or without great effort on their part. But I would still like the specialised VI version to be usable by sighted people through a GUI interface, so that pupils at school or different family members could all use the same computer. Although I think Ubuntu is absolutely brilliant if you are sighted, the fact that several people have independently started to create their own specialised remixes for the visually impaired is evidence enough that the mainstream distro is not yet accessible or easy enough to use if you are visually impaired unless you have quite a high level of IT skills to begin with. The vast majority of visually impaired people are not hackers and don't want to be. They just want to browse the internet, send e-mails and write reports etc. My fantasy distro would be one that started speaking either during or just after boot up and then allowed you to use all of the GUI apps (including admin apps) without any tweaking, and provided magnification either instantly or at least at the press of a button. There should be clear instructions provided right out of the box so even a beginner with a bit of common sense could learn how to use the system independently, without having to trawl through forums and mailing lists etc. I think that trying to optimise the main version of Ubuntu for VI users would be too much of a sacrifice or change to make. It would require getting rid of the default orange colour scheme and desktop background for something with better contrast and larger easier to read fonts. It would require a speech engine and/or magnification to start up without having to press any keys etc, it would require including apps that are not in the main edition and probably removing some to make room for necessary packages. For all of these reasons I really do believe that in at least the short term a specialised version of Ubuntu is necessary. The whole point of Linux is freedom, and we shouldn't be afraid of letting people split into special interest groups. Ubuntu already supports this approach by releasing Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edbuntu, Server Editions, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Studio etc. I think it would be great if Ubuntu themselves released a special version optimised for VI users, but I feel that their priority at the moment is getting Ubuntu onto as many computers as possible and rightly so. They have done wonders for the popularity of Linux and I would not criticise any of their policies. They have far more expertise and resources that I or probably any other of the individual developers interested in specialised VI versions do, but the bottom line is do they consider the VI community a significant enough group to devote a whole version to. I wish they would, then I wouldn't have to spend hours fiddling around to get something I think is fit for purpose. Sometimes you just have to get off your arse and do something yourself if you want it done properly. I also agree that it would make more sense for the developers who have been working on this independently to collaborate in future, but again they may have different priorities, approaches and languages which can make working together impractical. I would of course be honoured if Ubuntu wanted to incorporate any of the changes I make into the main version but I would rather keep trying to solve the problems myself in parallel rather that expect or wait for other people to do it for me. I don't want to upset anyone, I am happy to contribute to other projects or even the main distro, and accept help, advice and suggestions from other people. We are all on the same side with similar goals, there are just different ways to achieve this. The fact is that Ubuntu, nor any other Linux distro (or windows or Mac for that matter) is yet fully accessible to a wide spectrum of VI users. I have read about Blind Linux but that fact it was in CZ meant I didn't think it would be accessible to a mono-lingual English Neanderthal like myself. I hope I haven't offended anyone or stepped on anyones toes I am still open to persuasion, feel free to send me convincing arguments why everything should go into the main distro, why different parties should be collaborating more effectively and hwy the US government won't admit the existance of UFO's etc.;) Tony Sales (aka drbongo) -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Luke Yelavich Sent: 04 December 2008 00:06 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm (not) a man of wealthand taste! On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 11:20:21AM PST, Anthony Sales wrote: > Greetings earthlings! > > My name is Tony Sales and I currently work as the ICT Development > Officer at the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. I > have recently released (in the loosest possible sense of the word) a > customised version of Ubuntu called Vibuntu (or Vinux - can't decide!) > which is aimed at visually impaired users. It is still very early > days, but I decided to make it available straight-away so that I could > collect feedback, suggestions and advice from interested parties > rather than keep it hidden away until it is finished (alledgedly). Then I invite you to let me know what you are changing in your version of Ubuntu, so we can include it in the main Ubuntu release. I personally believe that it is much better to do as much as can be done in the main ubuntu release, so that people who don't have access to the net, or the resources that we have here, such as the orca list et al, can benefit. I pondered making a separate version of Ubuntu for this reason a while ago, but was convinced to put my changes into Ubuntu proper. Feel free to contact me off-list to discuss what you are doing, and how best we can integrate your changes into Ubuntu proper. Regards Luke Yelavich Ubuntu Accessibility Team Leader. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Thu Dec 4 20:59:21 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 20:59:21 -0000 Subject: New Mirror for Vibuntu 1.0 Message-ID: UPDATE: Vibuntu 1.0 is now also available from the following mirrors* http://vibuntu.blinuxman.net/index.php/ http://blinuxman.net/vibuntu/ *Special thanks to Osvaldo La Rosa (aka Ald0) for this generous offer! Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 4 21:22:07 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:22:07 -0600 (CST) Subject: this may save some of you the time Message-ID: <0KBD00FFVFCV4TM8@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, for anyone wanting to try blindubuntu. It isn't in English. Mike. From hanke at brailcom.org Thu Dec 4 21:30:36 2008 From: hanke at brailcom.org (Hynek Hanke) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:30:36 +0100 Subject: this may save some of you the time In-Reply-To: <0KBD00FFVFCV4TM8@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KBD00FFVFCV4TM8@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <49384BFC.7090709@brailcom.org> mike: > Hi, for anyone wanting to try blindubuntu. It isn't in Englishis It basically is, because all the components are international, but documentation needs to be translated and some configuration modified a bit. I don't think that it's useful for non-english speakers right now, but I'm pretty sure that the amount of work needed to make it international is very little (no programming etc.). With regards, Hynek Hanke From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 4 22:24:14 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:24:14 -0600 (CST) Subject: blindubuntu Message-ID: <0KBD00AFRI8C170B@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I guess I should clarify what I meant. Blindubuntu isn't setup to speak in English. I did contact the one who put it together to see if the actual menus are in English or not. If they are, it should only be a matter of changing Orca to speak in English. Mike. X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 081203-0, 12/03/2008), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean From samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org Thu Dec 4 23:01:29 2008 From: samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org (Samuel Thibault) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:01:29 +0100 Subject: Speech-dispatcher as a service? In-Reply-To: <26ADD350ED49424E9D586FAFA0019193@Nautilus> References: <4937ED0C.1040101@brailcom.org> <26ADD350ED49424E9D586FAFA0019193@Nautilus> Message-ID: <20081204230129.GA5119@const.famille.thibault.fr> David Picón Álvarez, le Thu 04 Dec 2008 16:21:59 +0100, a écrit : > Even better would be if Ubuntu came like that already, but that's > probably harder to manage. Why? Yes, working with people is difficult, but keeping a parallel distribution is a lot of long-term work. See what happened in Debian: I pushed the support for braille devices, and added a wiki page describing how to check that it still works. The result is that a few debian-installer people actually do test it themselves, so I don't need to do _any_ work any more on that regard and I could push the support for speakup, for which I added a wiki page, etc. Samuel From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Mon Dec 8 11:41:03 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 11:41:03 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu 1.1 Realeased! Message-ID: Vibuntu 1.1 is ready! The new release of Vibuntu is ready for download! It incorporates several significant improvements over the first version and a handful of small changes. Vibuntu is a remaster of the Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex' live CD customised to the needs of blind and partially sighted users! It is designed to boot from a live cd or USB memory stick, log you in automatically and then start up the Orca screen-reader. Full-screen magnification can then be activated with a simple keystroke. IMPROVEMENTS... Firstly I have resolved the problem of Orca not working with applications run with root permissions by following the recommendations posted on the official Orca website: i.e. I created an .orbitrc file for the root user, disabled the gksu keyboard grab and edited the sudoers file. This allows Orca to work with applications like the Ubiquity installer and the Synaptic Package Manager etc. However, the recommended way to launch these applications is to open a terminal by pressing 'Ctrl+Shift+t' and then typing the name of the application e.g. 'sudo ubiquity'. The reason for this is that launching these applications from the panel menus or desktop icons produces inconsistent results. In other words sometimes Orca works and sometimes it doesn't. Finding a way to solve this problem is still my top priority. Secondly I have now merged the 2D and 3D versions of Vibuntu into a single .iso image. Vibuntu will now boot into the standard 2D magnification mode by default, however you can enable/disable the 3D magnification by simply clicking on a desktop icon or menu entry. This means that you can try the 3D version without any risk of major problems because if it doesn't work or crashes the display you can simply disable the 3D effects or restart your xserver by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Backspace'. Some minor improvements include Braille support being enabled at boot, a slightly larger red mouse pointer to enhance its visibility on both dark and light backgrounds, some new keybindings to open a terminal 'Ctrl+Shift+t', to open the home directory 'Ctrl+Shift+h', to toggle window maximisation 'Ctrl+Shift+m' and to toggle fullscreen mode 'Ctrl+Shift+f'. DOWNLOAD... The new release is available from the following URL: http://www.rnc.ac.uk/mct/linux/vibuntu/Vibuntu-1.1.zip Inside the zip file you will find iso image and a text file containing the md5sum of the iso image (not the zip file). The image should also be available at Osvaldo La Rosa's blinuxman.net mirror within the next 24 hours: http://vibuntu.blinuxman.net/ or http://blinuxman.net/vibuntu/ Osvaldo has also kindly set up a homepage for Vibuntu at: http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php INFORMATION... You can use Vibuntu as a live CD, a portable operating system on a USB memory stick (Using Unetbootin) or you can install it to your hard drive either alongside or as a replacement for Windows. In order to fit all of the accessibility settings on the CD I have had to remove some applications including: The GIMP graphical image manipulation program, the F-Spot photo-manager, Gnome Games and the Ekiga voice over IP package. You can easily reinstall these and many more open-source applications if you choose to install it on your hard-drive. I used the RemasterSys package to create Vibuntu and I have included this package on the CD in case you want to make your own customised live CD. N.B. The default username and password is 'orca', and this will be retained even if you install it to your hard-drive, no matter what you type in during the installation process. (You can change this by typing 'sudo passwd orca' into a terminal and then typing the new password twice) As always I would of course appreciate any feedback on Vibuntu. Post any feedback: good, bad or just plain ugly on this thread. KEYSTROKES... What follows is a list of keystrokes you can use to control the screen-reader and magnification software. I will only provide a few basic keystrokes for Orca to get you started as they are all listed in the preferences window and are unchanged from the default settings. I have provided an exaustive list of the magnification/display keystrokes as I have customised them to make them easier to remember! ORCA... Open Preferences Window: insert+space Open Main Menu: alt+F1 Move Through Menu/Text: up, down, left and right Move Through Form: tab, shift+tab Toggle Voice On/Off: insert+s Quit Orca: insert+q BASIC 2D MAGNIFICATION... Toggle Magnification On/Off: insert+m Increase Magnification: insert+(plus) Decrease Magnification: insert+(minus) ADVANCED 3D MAGNIFICATION... Zoom In: win+z (win+left-mouse) Zoom Out: win+x (win+right-mouse) Zoom x1: win+1 Zoom x2: win+2 Zoom x4: win+3 Toggle Magnifier Box: win+m Zoom In Magnifier Box: ctrl+left-mouse Zoom Out Magnifier Box: ctrl+right-mouse Resize Window: win+r Zoom To Window: win+w ADVANCED 3D MOVEMENT... Pan Right: win+right Pan Left: win+left Pan Up: win+up Pan Down: win+down Lock Zoomed Window: win+l Centre Mouse Pointer: win+c Toggle Highlight Mouse Pointer: win+h ADVANCED 3D COLOURS... Toggle Invert Colours: win+i Toggle Invert Window Colours: shift+win+i Toggle Filter Colours: win+f Toggle Window Filter Colours: shift+win+f Switch Filter Colours: win+s Decrease Window Brightness: win+(minus) Increase Window Brightness: win+(plus) Decrease Window Saturation: shift+win+(plus) Increase Window Saturation: shift+win+(minus) Toggle Dim Inactive Windows: win+d GNOME... Open a Terminal: ctrl+shift+t Open the Home Directory: ctrl+shift+h Toggle Window Maximisation: ctrl+shift+m Toggle Full-screen Mode: ctrl+shift+f This list of keystrokes will automatically load into Gedit when Vibuntu boots! Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hammera at pickup.hu Mon Dec 8 14:13:34 2008 From: hammera at pickup.hu (Hammer Attila) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:13:34 +0100 Subject: Vibuntu 1.1 Realeased! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <493D2B8E.9090602@pickup.hu> Dear List! Anthony, i would like congratulation your hard and beautiful work. Interesting, but I make a similar specific release for hungarian blind people in september 18, the distribution name is BeLin, and the applyed changes similar with you distribution. :-):-) I hope partial sighted and blind users like your distribution, in hungary since september 18 50 blind people using Belin, and very happy using Linux. If I help you anything, send an e-mail. Congratulation your beautiful work! Attila From thomaslloyd at yahoo.com Mon Dec 8 16:14:53 2008 From: thomaslloyd at yahoo.com (Thomas Lloyd) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:14:53 +0000 Subject: Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 37, Issue 6 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1228752893.12082.1.camel@dual-core> I think this information might find a useful place on the homepage for the distro. Tom > KEYSTROKES... > > > > What follows is a list of keystrokes you can use to control the screen-reader > and magnification software. I will only provide a few basic keystrokes for > Orca to get you started as they are all listed in the preferences window and > are unchanged from the default settings. I have provided an exaustive list of > the magnification/display keystrokes as I have customised them to make them > easier to remember! > > > > ORCA... > > > > Open Preferences Window: insert+space > > Open Main Menu: alt+F1 > > Move Through Menu/Text: up, down, left and right > > Move Through Form: tab, shift+tab > > Toggle Voice On/Off: insert+s > > Quit Orca: insert+q > > > > BASIC 2D MAGNIFICATION... > > > > Toggle Magnification On/Off: insert+m > > Increase Magnification: insert+(plus) > > Decrease Magnification: insert+(minus) > > > > ADVANCED 3D MAGNIFICATION... > > > > Zoom In: win+z (win+left-mouse) > > Zoom Out: win+x (win+right-mouse) > > > > Zoom x1: win+1 > > Zoom x2: win+2 > > Zoom x4: win+3 > > > > Toggle Magnifier Box: win+m > > Zoom In Magnifier Box: ctrl+left-mouse > > Zoom Out Magnifier Box: ctrl+right-mouse > > > > Resize Window: win+r > > Zoom To Window: win+w > > > > ADVANCED 3D MOVEMENT... > > > > Pan Right: win+right > > Pan Left: win+left > > Pan Up: win+up > > Pan Down: win+down > > > > Lock Zoomed Window: win+l > > > > Centre Mouse Pointer: win+c > > Toggle Highlight Mouse Pointer: win+h > > > > ADVANCED 3D COLOURS... > > > > Toggle Invert Colours: win+i > > Toggle Invert Window Colours: shift+win+i > > > > Toggle Filter Colours: win+f > > Toggle Window Filter Colours: shift+win+f > > Switch Filter Colours: win+s > > > > Decrease Window Brightness: win+(minus) > > Increase Window Brightness: win+(plus) > > > > Decrease Window Saturation: shift+win+(plus) > > Increase Window Saturation: shift+win+(minus) > > > > Toggle Dim Inactive Windows: win+d > > > > GNOME... > > > > Open a Terminal: ctrl+shift+t > > Open the Home Directory: ctrl+shift+h > > Toggle Window Maximisation: ctrl+shift+m > > Toggle Full-screen Mode: ctrl+shift+f > > > > This list of keystrokes will automatically load into Gedit when Vibuntu > boots! > > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-accessibility/attachments/20081208/7918b966/attachment.htm > > ------------------------------ > From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Tue Dec 9 19:13:14 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 19:13:14 -0000 Subject: Installing Vibuntu/Braille Support Message-ID: I need to clarify the install procedure for Vibuntu, because although I did include instructions I foolishly put them towards the end of the text file which opens automatically. People who did not read the whole file have run into unnecessary problems. Once Vibuntu has booted and you hear Orca talk, all you have to do is press 'ctrl+shift+t' to open a terminal and then type 'sudo ubiquity'. You can then navigate through the installer using Orca. The same procedure applies to running any admin app. Although some admin apps work from the menus or desktop icons, their performance is inconsistant, so as advised on the Orca website launch admin apps from the terminal for now. Fixing this problem is my top priority. I have a working script but there are a few tweaks needed. I will explain the problem in another post to see if anyone can help out. Secondly I claimed that Vibuntu 1.1 would support Braille from boot, and unfortunately I assumed that brltty was enabled by default as it used to be, but it wasn't. Thanks to Osvaldo La Rosa for pointing this out and explaining what I needed to change. I have tested this an got a Teiman working. I will include this in the next version. I will probably just enable Braille and remaster it so this service is available. There will then be a longer delay until the next version as I will have to go back to square one and remake Vibuntu from scratch as the iso gets slightly bigger each time I remaster and each generation increases the chances of a 'genetic deficency' creeping in which might come back and bite me in the ass later on. drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From speakup at lists.tacticus.com Tue Dec 9 22:04:07 2008 From: speakup at lists.tacticus.com (luke) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 17:04:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Replacing Pulseaudio with JackD in Ubuntu Message-ID: Has anyone replaced Pulseaudio in Ubuntu 8.10, with the JackD subsystem? I am more familiar with Jack for audio work, and as far as I know it has better performance. I am contemplating installation of orca and Gnome on a (so far) command line driven digital audio workstation I built on Linux, which uses an M-Audio Delta1010 sound interface, configured to work with Jack. I don't know if I can use Pulseaudio for the normal sound card, and Jack for the Delta1010, but I thought it might be easier to just rip out Pulseaudio all together. Thoughts or ideas? Luke From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Dec 10 00:01:14 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 18:01:14 -0600 (CST) Subject: ubuntu or usb Message-ID: <0KBM00KMUW219QM0@vms044.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I have used the included USB creator that comes with ubuntu quite a bit. Here is what I have found. You seem to get all updates fine except for kernel updates. I always get a message about the kernel not installing because of being a live CD. I thought that may be of interest to anyone getting updates on a usb instillation. I don't really know what is causing this, and it may be something that could be corrected in a remastered copy of ubuntu. Mike. From sanktepernr2 at yahoo.com Wed Dec 10 03:27:56 2008 From: sanktepernr2 at yahoo.com (Peter Fork) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 19:27:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Vibuntu In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <67305.71841.qm@web34701.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi Allthough all efforts towards more and better accessibility is welcome I feel that some fundamentals of linux need to be preserved and guarded in regards to the prolification of distrobutions with accessibility in mind. 1. Security should be tight and permission granted only when authentication can be established. Therefor forcing users to use a certain user acount instead of letting her choose an own acount name is wrong it not only takes away some security it also it takes away the control from the user. The same thing goes for the password part. Even if there is a way to change the password afterwords with a command line. 2. Activevating all accessibility aids from the start is just strange. Its not intuitive and takes away resources from the user. Again let the user choose what to use and how to use it! People use linux because Apple and Microsoft doesn't let them use there computers like they would like to do, so don't make the same misstake and asume what others want just because you or someone you know wants it. 3. Letting someone log in automaticaly is not good security and even Microsoft doesn't do that anymore. Plus ubuntu now come with guest acounts if someone want to use your computer without your supervision. If a user does want this they can always change this later but it shouldn't be default. 4. If the accessibility aid can't read menus icons and such as you say you'd better file a bug since that would be a major problem if it is so. What is the thought on this from all you others that use Orca and Gnome?! Is Orca unreliable?! \Peter __________________________________________________________ Låna pengar utan säkerhet. Jämför vilkor online hos Kelkoo. http://www.kelkoo.se/c-100390123-lan-utan-sakerhet.html?partnerId=96915014 From sanktepernr2 at yahoo.com Thu Dec 11 03:50:48 2008 From: sanktepernr2 at yahoo.com (Peter Fork) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:50:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [orca-list] Vibuntu In-Reply-To: <493FD334.8080000@aim.com> Message-ID: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hi Since people like to bounce emails all over the place I've subscribed to the orca list as well so my mails won't get caught in the spam filter. If I have missed an email list I appologize in advance. On the other hand I would rather keep the discussion to one list to keep the amount of mails sane and the debate centralized. Therefore I think gnome-accessibility list is better than the orca list for the debate since it is more generall in nature than specific to Orca. Replies follows to all letters in the debate. As I read all replies I got "much appriciation for that:-)" I don't see that we're having very diffrent views from each other. Rather diffrent views from the same side of the fence if you follow my metaphor. I agree that Sun and all involved are doing a great job we're all in debt to all of these people wether they are payed to do it or not. Anthony's work is a good start and surely something that lowers the bar for people to test out linux. I might have wished he organized it with the community first so maybe double work could have been avoided or bonds of cooperation could have been formed earlier. But no reason to cry over spilled milk right and actions speak louder than words so I can only cheer for Vibuntu and hope it only improves over time. My questioning was made in the goodest of intents to get a creative discussion started of best practices pros and cons of diffrent implementations and so on. Iam glad so many has an opinion and that you have made me think about what I said reevaluate that and sharpen the arguments and thoughts on the subject. About logging in automatically I can accept it as long as it is used on the live cd and not after proper install. About what accessibility aids should be activated I just suggested that a user centric view much like in usability design where you lett the user decide what to use and how, would be more preferable. If not in an kiosk system like a live cd defenetly in a normaly installed system. I might even agree that the guest user acount could be enabled from the start with all aids when installed onto disk since you might not know which user will be your computers next guest and since I asume we're talking about a fairly new machine. Alternative the user could state a disability category and all relevant aids for that would load if the system provided aids for more than one category witch Vibuntu doesn't seem to aim for. A small wizard with some questions could have made it easy to collect relevant data to configure a setup for the user needed. During this process all aids should be activated so that you no matter what disability could complete the wizard. Let me give an example: 1. What kind of disability do you need after setup? "You can mark several options with the spacebar and arrow keys. Press Enter when done. a. Braille b. Text to speech c. Speech to text d. Visual ques e. Magnification f. Mousekeys g. Extra keyboard function (typerate, sticky keys, etc) h. pictogram After pressing okey next steps would be to configure the selected options to the users liking one by one. Maybe those options that is language specific could be set in advance depending on what language the user has chosen at install or bootup if live cd is used. Finaly: Thank you for completing setup of the system your computer is ready to be used. This would enable only wanted aids and disable all others plus configured them. We know that aids take a toll on performance and expecialy in "live" environments be it from cd,dvd or usb. It also would minimize risk for conflicts and bugs since less code is running. For a new user with a system that has frozen or where he isn't familiar and might not understand how to navigate etc is not very faar from hitting the hard reset button and turning to windows instead. End example Iam not realy sure witch user group Anthony is targeting. A new user probably will not do this alone. An early adopter would probably forgive some rough spots and an experienced user would probably be able to "as many of you pointed out" fix most of these things himself. Since visual impairment is a disability that affects all parts of your life Iam wondering if anyone could just put a vibuntu cd in anyones hand and just leave them to figure out the rest. Even though the year of the linux desktop has been many times anounced and improvements in usability certainly has been made I doubt its enough especialy when having a disability. Therefore I believe more instructional and guiding content might be needed for new users. A thought might be to strip out the 10mb of example files if it hasn't been done already to gain some room. I heard they might increase this in next release. Thanks for the straighting me out on the admin tools issue. Guess it is some twitching nerv in me that go off when I hear userspace programs needing root access to work. I might have thought the problem was bigger than it was as well. okey thats it for now. Feels good to have straighted those things out. cu on the list \Peter __________________________________________________________ Låna pengar utan säkerhet. Jämför vilkor online hos Kelkoo. http://www.kelkoo.se/c-100390123-lan-utan-sakerhet.html?partnerId=96915014 From William.Walker at Sun.COM Thu Dec 11 13:25:39 2008 From: William.Walker at Sun.COM (Willie Walker) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:25:39 -0500 Subject: [orca-list] Vibuntu In-Reply-To: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <494114D3.80308@sun.com> Hi Peter: Thanks for the comments! With respect to your wizard idea, Jon McCann and friends at RedHat worked on some ideas for GNOME: http://blogs.gnome.org/mccann/2008/05/19/ease-of-access/ It's not necessarily a wizard, but more of an accessibility control panel that is available at the login screen and session. Perhaps this kind of thing might be an interesting dialog to present when configuring new users, both while setting up a machine for the first time and when managing users on an already installed machine? Will Peter Fork wrote: > Hi > Since people like to bounce emails all over the place I've subscribed to the orca list as well so my mails won't get caught in the spam filter. If I have missed an email list I appologize in advance. On the other hand I would rather keep the discussion to one list to keep the amount of mails sane and the debate centralized. Therefore I think gnome-accessibility list is better than the orca list for the debate since it is more generall in nature than specific to Orca. > > Replies follows to all letters in the debate. > > As I read all replies I got "much appriciation for that:-)" I don't see that we're having very diffrent views from each other. Rather diffrent views from the same side of the fence if you follow my metaphor. > > I agree that Sun and all involved are doing a great job we're all in debt to all of these people wether they are payed to do it or not. > > Anthony's work is a good start and surely something that lowers the bar for people to test out linux. > > I might have wished he organized it with the community first so maybe double work could have been avoided or bonds of cooperation could have been formed earlier. > > But no reason to cry over spilled milk right and actions speak louder than words so I can only cheer for Vibuntu and hope it only improves over time. > > My questioning was made in the goodest of intents to get a creative discussion started of best practices pros and cons of diffrent implementations and so on. Iam glad so many has an opinion and that you have made me think about what I said reevaluate that and sharpen the arguments and thoughts on the subject. > > About logging in automatically I can accept it as long as it is used on the live cd and not after proper install. > > About what accessibility aids should be activated I just suggested that a user centric view much like in usability design where you lett the user decide what to use and how, would be more preferable. If not in an kiosk system like a live cd defenetly in a normaly installed system. I might even agree that the guest user acount could be enabled from the start with all aids when installed onto disk since you might not know which user will be your computers next guest and since I asume we're talking about a fairly new machine. Alternative the user could state a disability category and all relevant aids for that would load if the system provided aids for more than one category witch Vibuntu doesn't seem to aim for. > > A small wizard with some questions could have made it easy to collect relevant data to configure a setup for the user needed. During this process all aids should be activated so that you no matter what disability could complete the wizard. Let me give an example: > > 1. What kind of disability do you need after setup? > "You can mark several options with the spacebar and arrow keys. Press Enter when done. > a. Braille > b. Text to speech > c. Speech to text > d. Visual ques > e. Magnification > f. Mousekeys > g. Extra keyboard function (typerate, sticky keys, etc) > h. pictogram > > After pressing okey next steps would be to configure the selected options to the users liking one by one. Maybe those options that is language specific could be set in advance depending on what language the user has chosen at install or bootup if live cd is used. > > Finaly: Thank you for completing setup of the system your computer is ready to be used. > > This would enable only wanted aids and disable all others plus configured them. We know that aids take a toll on performance and expecialy in "live" environments be it from cd,dvd or usb. It also would minimize risk for conflicts and bugs since less code is running. For a new user with a system that has frozen or where he isn't familiar and might not understand how to navigate etc is not very faar from hitting the hard reset button and turning to windows instead. > > End example > > > Iam not realy sure witch user group Anthony is targeting. > A new user probably will not do this alone. > An early adopter would probably forgive some rough spots > and an experienced user would probably be able to "as many of you pointed out" fix most of these things himself. > > Since visual impairment is a disability that affects all parts of your life Iam wondering if anyone could just put a vibuntu cd in anyones hand and just leave them to figure out the rest. Even though the year of the linux desktop has been many times anounced and improvements in usability certainly has been made I doubt its enough especialy when having a disability. Therefore I believe more instructional and guiding content might be needed for new users. > > A thought might be to strip out the 10mb of example files if it hasn't been done already to gain some room. I heard they might increase this in next release. > > Thanks for the straighting me out on the admin tools issue. Guess it is some twitching nerv in me that go off when I hear userspace programs needing root access to work. I might have thought the problem was bigger than it was as well. > > okey thats it for now. > Feels good to have straighted those things out. > cu on the list > \Peter > > > __________________________________________________________ > Låna pengar utan säkerhet. Jämför vilkor online hos Kelkoo. > http://www.kelkoo.se/c-100390123-lan-utan-sakerhet.html?partnerId=96915014 > From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Thu Dec 11 20:13:32 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:13:32 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu 1.2 is ready! References: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I am happy to announce that Vibuntu 1.2 is ready. It will be available for download from around 17:00 tomorrow afternoon (Friday 12th Dec, 2008) and I will post a more detailed release announcement tomorrow. With help from Luke I have now solved the problem of Orca not working with admin apps opened from the panel menus and enabled Braille support from boot. I feel this is a significant release because I have now achieved all of my short term goals for Vibuntu: Speech, magnification and Braille support available at boot with speech access to admin apps opened from the administration menu. I have limited the orca support for admin apps to the menu entries, users who do not need speech support should use the desktop icons to launch them. This will probably be the last release of 2008 as the next release will be rebuilt from scratch. I will be posting detailed instructions on how to recreate these modifications and a wish list of future improvements etc. I would still welcome feedback and suggestions positive or negative and would like to thank everyone for all their support, encouragement, and hate mail! ;) drbongo -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com on behalf of Peter Fork Sent: Thu 11/12/2008 03:50 To: Michael Whapples Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Subject: Re: [orca-list] Vibuntu Hi Since people like to bounce emails all over the place I've subscribed to the orca list as well so my mails won't get caught in the spam filter. If I have missed an email list I appologize in advance. On the other hand I would rather keep the discussion to one list to keep the amount of mails sane and the debate centralized. Therefore I think gnome-accessibility list is better than the orca list for the debate since it is more generall in nature than specific to Orca. Replies follows to all letters in the debate. As I read all replies I got "much appriciation for that:-)" I don't see that we're having very diffrent views from each other. Rather diffrent views from the same side of the fence if you follow my metaphor. I agree that Sun and all involved are doing a great job we're all in debt to all of these people wether they are payed to do it or not. Anthony's work is a good start and surely something that lowers the bar for people to test out linux. I might have wished he organized it with the community first so maybe double work could have been avoided or bonds of cooperation could have been formed earlier. But no reason to cry over spilled milk right and actions speak louder than words so I can only cheer for Vibuntu and hope it only improves over time. My questioning was made in the goodest of intents to get a creative discussion started of best practices pros and cons of diffrent implementations and so on. Iam glad so many has an opinion and that you have made me think about what I said reevaluate that and sharpen the arguments and thoughts on the subject. About logging in automatically I can accept it as long as it is used on the live cd and not after proper install. About what accessibility aids should be activated I just suggested that a user centric view much like in usability design where you lett the user decide what to use and how, would be more preferable. If not in an kiosk system like a live cd defenetly in a normaly installed system. I might even agree that the guest user acount could be enabled from the start with all aids when installed onto disk since you might not know which user will be your computers next guest and since I asume we're talking about a fairly new machine. Alternative the user could state a disability category and all relevant aids for that would load if the system provided aids for more than one category witch Vibuntu doesn't seem to aim for. A small wizard with some questions could have made it easy to collect relevant data to configure a setup for the user needed. During this process all aids should be activated so that you no matter what disability could complete the wizard. Let me give an example: 1. What kind of disability do you need after setup? "You can mark several options with the spacebar and arrow keys. Press Enter when done. a. Braille b. Text to speech c. Speech to text d. Visual ques e. Magnification f. Mousekeys g. Extra keyboard function (typerate, sticky keys, etc) h. pictogram After pressing okey next steps would be to configure the selected options to the users liking one by one. Maybe those options that is language specific could be set in advance depending on what language the user has chosen at install or bootup if live cd is used. Finaly: Thank you for completing setup of the system your computer is ready to be used. This would enable only wanted aids and disable all others plus configured them. We know that aids take a toll on performance and expecialy in "live" environments be it from cd,dvd or usb. It also would minimize risk for conflicts and bugs since less code is running. For a new user with a system that has frozen or where he isn't familiar and might not understand how to navigate etc is not very faar from hitting the hard reset button and turning to windows instead. End example Iam not realy sure witch user group Anthony is targeting. A new user probably will not do this alone. An early adopter would probably forgive some rough spots and an experienced user would probably be able to "as many of you pointed out" fix most of these things himself. Since visual impairment is a disability that affects all parts of your life Iam wondering if anyone could just put a vibuntu cd in anyones hand and just leave them to figure out the rest. Even though the year of the linux desktop has been many times anounced and improvements in usability certainly has been made I doubt its enough especialy when having a disability. Therefore I believe more instructional and guiding content might be needed for new users. A thought might be to strip out the 10mb of example files if it hasn't been done already to gain some room. I heard they might increase this in next release. Thanks for the straighting me out on the admin tools issue. Guess it is some twitching nerv in me that go off when I hear userspace programs needing root access to work. I might have thought the problem was bigger than it was as well. okey thats it for now. Feels good to have straighted those things out. cu on the list \Peter __________________________________________________________ Låna pengar utan säkerhet. Jämför vilkor online hos Kelkoo. http://www.kelkoo.se/c-100390123-lan-utan-sakerhet.html?partnerId=96915014 -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From suelen.alencar at gmail.com Thu Dec 11 20:27:26 2008 From: suelen.alencar at gmail.com (Su) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:27:26 -0300 Subject: Vibuntu 1.2 is ready! In-Reply-To: References: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi everybody i have a doubt! I´m doing a research about accessibility and Linux distributions developed to people with disability I want to know what the difference between ubuntu 8.04 and vibuntu! Waiting for answer Thanks Suelen 2008/12/11 Anthony Sales > I am happy to announce that Vibuntu 1.2 is ready. It will be available for > download from around 17:00 tomorrow afternoon (Friday 12th Dec, 2008) and I > will post a more detailed release announcement tomorrow. With help from > Luke > I have now solved the problem of Orca not working with admin apps opened > from > the panel menus and enabled Braille support from boot. I feel this is a > significant release because I have now achieved all of my short term goals > for Vibuntu: Speech, magnification and Braille support available at boot > with > speech access to admin apps opened from the administration menu. I have > limited the orca support for admin apps to the menu entries, users who do > not > need speech support should use the desktop icons to launch them. This will > probably be the last release of 2008 as the next release will be rebuilt > from > scratch. I will be posting detailed instructions on how to recreate these > modifications and a wish list of future improvements etc. I would still > welcome feedback and suggestions positive or negative and would like to > thank > everyone for all their support, encouragement, and hate mail! ;) > > drbongo > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com on behalf of Peter > Fork > Sent: Thu 11/12/2008 03:50 > To: Michael Whapples > Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; > gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org > Subject: Re: [orca-list] Vibuntu > > Hi > Since people like to bounce emails all over the place I've subscribed to > the > orca list as well so my mails won't get caught in the spam filter. If I > have > missed an email list I appologize in advance. On the other hand I would > rather keep the discussion to one list to keep the amount of mails sane and > the debate centralized. Therefore I think gnome-accessibility list is > better > than the orca list for the debate since it is more generall in nature than > specific to Orca. > > Replies follows to all letters in the debate. > > As I read all replies I got "much appriciation for that:-)" I don't see > that > we're having very diffrent views from each other. Rather diffrent views > from > the same side of the fence if you follow my metaphor. > > I agree that Sun and all involved are doing a great job we're all in debt > to > all of these people wether they are payed to do it or not. > > Anthony's work is a good start and surely something that lowers the bar for > people to test out linux. > > I might have wished he organized it with the community first so maybe > double > work could have been avoided or bonds of cooperation could have been formed > earlier. > > But no reason to cry over spilled milk right and actions speak louder than > words so I can only cheer for Vibuntu and hope it only improves over time. > > My questioning was made in the goodest of intents to get a creative > discussion started of best practices pros and cons of diffrent > implementations and so on. Iam glad so many has an opinion and that you > have > made me think about what I said reevaluate that and sharpen the arguments > and > thoughts on the subject. > > About logging in automatically I can accept it as long as it is used on the > live cd and not after proper install. > > About what accessibility aids should be activated I just suggested that a > user centric view much like in usability design where you lett the user > decide what to use and how, would be more preferable. If not in an kiosk > system like a live cd defenetly in a normaly installed system. I might even > agree that the guest user acount could be enabled from the start with all > aids when installed onto disk since you might not know which user will be > your computers next guest and since I asume we're talking about a fairly > new > machine. Alternative the user could state a disability category and all > relevant aids for that would load if the system provided aids for more than > one category witch Vibuntu doesn't seem to aim for. > > A small wizard with some questions could have made it easy to collect > relevant data to configure a setup for the user needed. During this process > all aids should be activated so that you no matter what disability could > complete the wizard. Let me give an example: > > 1. What kind of disability do you need after setup? > "You can mark several options with the spacebar and arrow keys. Press Enter > when done. > a. Braille > b. Text to speech > c. Speech to text > d. Visual ques > e. Magnification > f. Mousekeys > g. Extra keyboard function (typerate, sticky keys, etc) > h. pictogram > > After pressing okey next steps would be to configure the selected options > to > the users liking one by one. Maybe those options that is language specific > could be set in advance depending on what language the user has chosen at > install or bootup if live cd is used. > > Finaly: Thank you for completing setup of the system your computer is ready > to be used. > > This would enable only wanted aids and disable all others plus configured > them. We know that aids take a toll on performance and expecialy in "live" > environments be it from cd,dvd or usb. It also would minimize risk for > conflicts and bugs since less code is running. For a new user with a system > that has frozen or where he isn't familiar and might not understand how to > navigate etc is not very faar from hitting the hard reset button and > turning > to windows instead. > > End example > > > Iam not realy sure witch user group Anthony is targeting. > A new user probably will not do this alone. > An early adopter would probably forgive some rough spots > and an experienced user would probably be able to "as many of you pointed > out" fix most of these things himself. > > Since visual impairment is a disability that affects all parts of your life > Iam wondering if anyone could just put a vibuntu cd in anyones hand and > just > leave them to figure out the rest. Even though the year of the linux > desktop > has been many times anounced and improvements in usability certainly has > been > made I doubt its enough especialy when having a disability. Therefore I > believe more instructional and guiding content might be needed for new > users. > > A thought might be to strip out the 10mb of example files if it hasn't been > done already to gain some room. I heard they might increase this in next > release. > > Thanks for the straighting me out on the admin tools issue. Guess it is > some > twitching nerv in me that go off when I hear userspace programs needing > root > access to work. I might have thought the problem was bigger than it was as > well. > > okey thats it for now. > Feels good to have straighted those things out. > cu on the list > \Peter > > > __________________________________________________________ > Låna pengar utan säkerhet. Jämför vilkor online hos Kelkoo. > http://www.kelkoo.se/c-100390123-lan-utan-sakerhet.html?partnerId=96915014 > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above > named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you > must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to > anyone: > please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge > that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We > advise > that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and > attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good > computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus > free. > > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above > named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you > must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: > please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge > that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We > advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing > us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and > attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good > computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ans at meo.pt Thu Dec 11 21:49:34 2008 From: ans at meo.pt (Andre Nuno Soares) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:49:34 +0000 Subject: Accessible Linux Wish List Message-ID: <1229032174.11048.117.camel@shogun> Hi all, On the subject of Vibuntu and Peter Fork's "thread", here is what I found missing in Ubuntu 8.10: 1. orbitrc / sudoers "Hack" for sysadmin tools to work with Orca, as recommended in http://live.gnome.org/Orca/ 2. Console Mode TTS, like Speakup or UASR for when things go wrong. It has to support the startup messages and the recovery menu that Ubuntu presents you when you select a recovery kernel in GRUB. 3. A talking GRUB or any other accessible Boot Loader 4. ORCA shortcut key to speak the current time (the clock in the top panel needs too many key strokes). 5. ORCA shortcut key to access a special menu to change the spoken language (Person option in ORCA preferences). I, for one, browse the Net and exchange mails in english, portuguese and spanish. 6. When creating a new user (with the graphical tool, for instance) defining what accessibility aids should be actovated at logon. There are others, but they're more issues of personal taste. A distro that would give me all this out of the box would own my Tuxedo soul :-) Regards, Andre PS: as I'm nearly blind, I've concentrated my mail on V.I. accessibility. From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 11 23:05:05 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:05:05 -0600 (CST) Subject: Linux WISH LIST Message-ID: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> I agree, a talking bootloader would be nice. I don't know how this could be done with software speech though? Maybe another Linux kernel could load and then offer speech to pick from the ubuntu menu. I realize booting would take longer, but it would be worth it to have the accessibility. We also need a good soleution for e-mail.Mike. From speakup at lists.tacticus.com Fri Dec 12 06:53:01 2008 From: speakup at lists.tacticus.com (luke) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:53:01 -0500 (EST) Subject: Accessible Linux Wish List In-Reply-To: <1229032174.11048.117.camel@shogun> References: <1229032174.11048.117.camel@shogun> Message-ID: On Thu, 11 Dec 2008, Andre Nuno Soares wrote: > 4. ORCA shortcut key to speak the current time (the clock in the top > panel needs too many key strokes). See here: http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#head-bcfe3804b1ae7680a73da0e1ee3e6604cca6508e I know, you are saying put it in before distributing Orca, but there it is for anyone who wants it anyway. Luke D. From cabrero at udc.es Fri Dec 12 12:20:14 2008 From: cabrero at udc.es (David Cabrero Souto) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:20:14 +0100 Subject: Linux WISH LIST In-Reply-To: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <92D67972-863E-49E9-BAAD-82818F38CFFE@udc.es> El 12/12/2008, a las 0:05, mike escribió: > I agree, a talking bootloader would be nice. I don't know how this > could be done with software speech though? Maybe another Linux > kernel could load and then offer speech to pick from the ubuntu > menu. I realize booting would take longer, but it would be worth it > to have the accessibility. > We also need a good soleution for e-mail.Mike. > Hi everybody. We, a research group at the University of A Coruña, Spain, have been developing a small toy implementation based on the idea of Mike. It's far from complete, neither usable for final users, but we have been able to validate positively the idea. I will try to explain what we did and what are our conclusions. The mechanics of the system are: 1. The system boots directly into a linux kernel with a special initrd disk image. That initrd launches a boot menu with speech synthesys and braille support. 2. Once the user selects the OS to boot we use the kexec service of the kernel to start up the new operating system. The main advantage of using kexec is that does its work whithout rebooting the machine. This saves tons of time of the booting process. In our tests, kexec was able even to start grub4dos, and grub4dos started a ms windows OS. Always whithout any reboot. 3. Whenever the user chooses to boot ubuntu, it starts up using a customized initrd that adds sound feedback to the boot progress bar. The feedback is just a ping-like sound every time the slide reaches one ending of the progress bar. And our conclusions are: 1. We didn't implemented everything, but the prototype was functional and the resulting system was viable. We think that actually implementing the systems is worth the effort, but there are some problems to solve ... 2. The initial initrd is quite big because it must contain the following items: - The kernel modules for the sound card drivers - The alsa subsytem, containing customized config files and librarys - An application that runs a grub-like menu in order to allow the user to choose the OS she wants to boot - The espeak speech synthetizer plus the c++ library it depends on. - The brltty for braille support. 3. It is necessary to automate the customization of the linux OS initrd in order to add sound feedback to the progress bar. This customization must be done in a per-distribution basis, in other words, what we will do for ubuntu may not be usefull for other distros. 4. It is necessary to automate the update of the boot menu list every time the package manager adds a new kernel. I think it will be a lot easier if the boot menu could read directly the grub menu config file. At present we are not working in this project due to the lack of human resources, but i'd like to continue as soon as possible. I hope this information would be usefull. Best regards. -- David From samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org Fri Dec 12 12:39:03 2008 From: samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org (Samuel Thibault) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:39:03 +0100 Subject: Linux WISH LIST In-Reply-To: <92D67972-863E-49E9-BAAD-82818F38CFFE@udc.es> References: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> <92D67972-863E-49E9-BAAD-82818F38CFFE@udc.es> Message-ID: <20081212123903.GE5413@const.bordeaux.inria.fr> David Cabrero Souto, le Fri 12 Dec 2008 13:20:14 +0100, a écrit : > 1. The system boots directly into a linux kernel with a special initrd > disk image. That initrd launches a boot menu with speech synthesys and > braille support. Mmm, a very similar project (not related to accessibility) exists: Linux As Bootloader (LAB). It would be good to merge efforts, to save them the accessibility work and to save you the technical work. Samuel From labrad0r at edpnet.be Fri Dec 12 13:01:31 2008 From: labrad0r at edpnet.be (Labrador) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:01:31 +0100 Subject: [orca-list] Vibuntu 1.2 is ready! In-Reply-To: References: <810563.27648.qm@web34703.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20081212130131.GL3177@starfish> On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 05:27:26PM -0300, Su wrote: > Hi everybody > i have a doubt! > > I?m doing a research about accessibility and Linux distributions developed > to people with disability > > I want to know what the difference between ubuntu 8.04 and vibuntu! http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php Reading is the message! From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Fri Dec 12 16:34:56 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:34:56 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu 1.2 is ready for download! Message-ID: Vibuntu 1.2 Released! I am happy to formally announce the realease of Vibuntu 1.2 and I feel that this is a significant release because I have now resolved the problem of Orca beong unable to read admin apps launched from the menus and activated USB Braille Display autoprobing. This was achieved by simply changing the entries in the admin menu so they launched as an 'application in terminal' using the sudo or gksu command when necessary. This simply opens a terminal, asks for the admin password if required and then runs the gui application. When you close the application the terminal closes automatically and focus is returned to the Orca window. The only exception to this is remastersys gui which for some reason does not retain focus, you have to alt+tab to move from the terminal to the remastersys gui. (This is a problem with remastersys rather than Orca/Gnome etc). Sighted or partially sighted users are advised to open the admin apps using the desktop icons which will run the admin applications in the standard way. (Thanks to Luke Davies for this suggestion) Of course this solution oly works on top of the changes recommended on the Orca SysAdmin page. The download URL's are: http://www.rnc.ac.uk/mct/linux/vibuntu/Vibuntu-1.2.zip (This is a zip file containing iso and md5sum) http://vibuntu.blinuxman.net/ and http://blinuxman.net/vibuntu/ (These are standard iso downloads) The homepage is here: http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this project by offering feedback, suggestions and criticisms. I would especially like to thank Osvaldo La Rosa who has enthusiastically taken on the responsibility for hosting a Vibuntu webpage and mirroring the images. This will in all probability be the last release of the year as I now want to take stock of what has been done, make available a list of features/changes, instructions on how to create Vibuntu from scratch and a wishlist of possible new features divided into easy, difficult and impossible! As ever I would appreciate continued feedback and suggestions. I will set up a thread on the Ubuntu Assistive Technology and Accessibility section for people to post their suggestions! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Fri Dec 12 21:00:20 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 21:00:20 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Press Release Message-ID: I have written a short press release aimed at VI users who may not know about Linux. I would be grateful if you could post it on any general accessibility/software sites/forums you use if you think it would be a good way of getting the uninitiated to give Linux a try! If we manage to get enough interest from a few institutions, charities or government agencies it may be possible to obtain some funding for a few developers to work on the project full or part-time! Thanks for all the support. I hope people on the mailing lists don't think I just a self-promoting megalomaniac, I really do want to help VI users and I believe (perhaps naively) that Vibuntu is a step in the right direction. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames! The press release follows! Vibuntu - The first Linux distro to be fully accessible to blind and partially sighted users out of the box! Vibuntu is a customised version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution optimised to meet the needs of visually impaired users by default. Vibuntu comes in the form of a live CD which you place in the CD drive and then restart your computer. Once it boots a screen-reader is activated, USB Braille displays are automatically detected and full screen magnification can be turned on/off with a simple keystroke. Vibuntu also provides an attractive visual interface which makes it suitable for sighted, partially sighted and blind users. You can navigate the menus and applications using the screen-reader and/or Braille display or switch this support off and use the full screen magnification. This is an ideal way of introducing visually impaired users to the Linux operating system which offers a free and open-source alternative to expensive proprietary software. This is very safe and secure way to let someone experience Linux and experiment without taking any risks or making any changes to your computer. You can continue to use Vibuntu as a live CD or install it to your hard drive either alongside Windows or as a complete desktop replacement. It is also possible to install and run Vibuntu from a USB memory stick if your computer supports USB booting. If you are interested in trying Vibuntu or would just like to know more about it please visit the project website at http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From ans at meo.pt Sat Dec 13 00:11:02 2008 From: ans at meo.pt (Andre Nuno Soares) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:11:02 +0000 Subject: Linux WISH LIST In-Reply-To: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KBQ00J20ISGGJM0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <1229127062.7321.43.camel@shogun> Hi Mike, On Thu, 2008-12-11 at 17:05 -0600, mike wrote: > We also need a good soleution for e-mail. I'm more or less happy with Evolution. I'm familiar with the shortcut keys (because of Outlook at work) and it works well with ORCA. I did have to enable Character Mode (press F7) to be able to read messages without the Flat Review, but other than that no accessibility problems. Andre > From info at theblindtechsnetwork.com Sat Dec 13 10:59:25 2008 From: info at theblindtechsnetwork.com (The BlindTechs Network) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 03:59:25 -0700 Subject: Vibuntu 1.2 is ready for download! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: can some one give me the url to the talking puppy linux distro. sorry if this is the wrong list but I am in need of this particular distro be ause I want to run linux on some older p2 and p3 boxes. On Dec 12, 2008, at 9:34 AM, Anthony Sales wrote: Vibuntu 1.2 Released! I am happy to formally announce the realease of Vibuntu 1.2 and I feel that this is a significant release because I have now resolved the problem of Orca beong unable to read admin apps launched from the menus and activated USB Braille Display autoprobing. This was achieved by simply changing the entries in the admin menu so they launched as an ‘application in terminal’ using the sudo or gksu command when necessary. This simply opens a terminal, asks for the admin password if required and then runs the gui application. When you close the application the terminal closes automatically and focus is returned to the Orca window. The only exception to this is remastersys gui which for some reason does not retain focus, you have to alt+tab to move from the terminal to the remastersys gui. (This is a problem with remastersys rather than Orca/Gnome etc). Sighted or partially sighted users are advised to open the admin apps using the desktop icons which will run the admin applications in the standard way. (Thanks to Luke Davies for this suggestion) Of course this solution oly works on top of the changes recommended on the Orca SysAdmin page. The download URL’s are: http://www.rnc.ac.uk/mct/linux/vibuntu/Vibuntu-1.2.zip (This is a zip file containing iso and md5sum) http://vibuntu.blinuxman.net/ and http://blinuxman.net/vibuntu/ (These are standard iso downloads) The homepage is here: http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this project by offering feedback, suggestions and criticisms. I would especially like to thank Osvaldo La Rosa who has enthusiastically taken on the responsibility for hosting a Vibuntu webpage and mirroring the images. This will in all probability be the last release of the year as I now want to take stock of what has been done, make available a list of features/changes, instructions on how to create Vibuntu from scratch and a wishlist of possible new features divided into easy, difficult and impossible! As ever I would appreciate continued feedback and suggestions. I will set up a thread on the Ubuntu Assistive Technology and Accessibility section for people to post their suggestions! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sat Dec 13 12:23:22 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:23:22 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Press Release In-Reply-To: <00c801c95cc6$58217f00$08647d00$@com> References: <00ab01c95cb7$70d026f0$527074d0$@com> <00c801c95cc6$58217f00$08647d00$@com> Message-ID: Ken, I agree with what you have said, the but as you state - it is 'skilled users' that are able to do such things, not beginners who have never heard of or tried Linux. I am not trying to steal anyones thunder, because my target audience is different to yours - I am aiming at schools, colleges and institutions which need accessible software but cannot afford expensive commercial products and don't have staff who have used Linux themselves. This is the very specific niche at which this distro is aimed - and I challenge you to use Orca with any admin apps on the ubuntu 8.04/8.10 desktop without making complicated changes and/or knowing how to use the terminal. I still maintain that this is the first Linux live CD to be accessible to sighted, blind and partially sighted users out of the box with no prior experience of linux. I agree that 99% of the credit for this lies with Gnome, Orca, Compiz and Ubuntu, probably in that order. All I have done is make a few small but significant changes which Ubuntu could have done if they wanted, but they didn't and neither has anyone else to my knowledge. Again send me a link to an iso which is as easy to use for novices out of the box and I will abandon the project, because I don't believe in wasting my time reinventing the wheel, its just that all the wheels out their seem to be round and I want a square one! ;) I appreciate you thoughts, and welcome this kind of discussion, if you are correct then there is no need for a Vibuntu type distro and the project will fail. I have taken the liberty of posting these communications on the Orca, Ubuntu and Gnome mailing lists as I would like to open this debate up to the wider community. Keep in Touch Drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Ken Perry [mailto:whistler at blinksoft.com] Sent: 13 December 2008 01:59 To: Anthony Sales Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release Maybe saying easily usable and accessible then because I am sorry but skilled users have been using Redhat as far back as Redhat 6 and I am not talking about from telnet. I have used that from day one of Slackware with telnet. Furthermore Ubuntu 8.04 seems to have solved most of the administration problems and again while it has problems its more accessible than windows or Mac and I think you would have a hard time if you came out and said you have the first accessible Vista box. I might be arguing semantics but I feel saying it's the first accessible Linux distribution degrades the work the Speakup team has done all the way up to current Fedora to the work Ubuntu has done to make the Ubuntu 8.04 distro work out of the box. Just because it is hard to do something does not mean it's not accessible. If you want to talk usability then I would agree with you on the points you have already pointed out. As I would agree with someone if they finally made a safe mode for Windows we could use or a bios editor for mother boards. Just because we cannot do these things does not. I thank you for making a more usable accessible distribution but I don't like miss leading advertisement. make the OS un-accessible. Ken -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Sales [mailto:tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 7:47 PM To: Ken Perry Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release True, but my release clearly states that it is the first linux distro to be accessible and have a full gui desktop for sighted`users as well. I may be wrong, but I am an experienced Linux user and I and many other people having been looking for a distro like this for years. Also in a default Ubuntu install Orca will not work with many of the admin applications like ubiquity etc unless you know how to turn Orca off and restart it in --no-setup mode in the terminal etc, which means you will have no speech feedback and need to know the keystrokes from memory. It is unlikely that a beginner would know how to do this and that is why Vibuntu is aimed at VI users who have never tried Linux before, but the provision of a gui desktop allows other sighted users to use the same distro. I have no intentions of misleading anyone and if you could point me to the URL of a linux distro that does everything Vibuntu does out of the box I would love to know about it as then I wouldn't have to spend hours modifying someone else's inaccessible distro! drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Ken Perry [mailto:whistler at blinksoft.com] Sent: Sat 13/12/2008 00:12 To: Anthony Sales Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release I do have to say that saying that ViBuntu is the first accessible Linux out of the box is a bit um untrue. There is the Speakup distributions and Ubuntu is accessible just with picking the access options so I think your add is miss leading. Ken -----Original Message----- From: gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org [mailto:gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Sales Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 4:00 PM To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Subject: Vibuntu Press Release I have written a short press release aimed at VI users who may not know about Linux. I would be grateful if you could post it on any general accessibility/software sites/forums you use if you think it would be a good way of getting the uninitiated to give Linux a try! If we manage to get enough interest from a few institutions, charities or government agencies it may be possible to obtain some funding for a few developers to work on the project full or part-time! Thanks for all the support. I hope people on the mailing lists don't think I just a self-promoting megalomaniac, I really do want to help VI users and I believe (perhaps naively) that Vibuntu is a step in the right direction. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames! The press release follows! Vibuntu - The first Linux distro to be fully accessible to blind and partially sighted users out of the box! Vibuntu is a customised version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution optimised to meet the needs of visually impaired users by default. Vibuntu comes in the form of a live CD which you place in the CD drive and then restart your computer. Once it boots a screen-reader is activated, USB Braille displays are automatically detected and full screen magnification can be turned on/off with a simple keystroke. Vibuntu also provides an attractive visual interface which makes it suitable for sighted, partially sighted and blind users. You can navigate the menus and applications using the screen-reader and/or Braille display or switch this support off and use the full screen magnification. This is an ideal way of introducing visually impaired users to the Linux operating system which offers a free and open-source alternative to expensive proprietary software. This is very safe and secure way to let someone experience Linux and experiment without taking any risks or making any changes to your computer. You can continue to use Vibuntu as a live CD or install it to your hard drive either alongside Windows or as a complete desktop replacement. It is also possible to install and run Vibuntu from a USB memory stick if your computer supports USB booting. If you are interested in trying Vibuntu or would just like to know more about it please visit the project website at http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. = Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sat Dec 13 15:54:25 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:54:25 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Press Release References: <00ab01c95cb7$70d026f0$527074d0$@com> <00c801c95cc6$58217f00$08647d00$@com> <00d501c95d2e$f78d6f50$e6a84df0$@com> Message-ID: It is obvious that we are not going to agree over this, but everyone is entitled to express their own opinions and I understand and respect your position even though I don't completely agree with it. Our peers in the wider VI community will ultimately be the judges not me or you. I am not going to make any money out of this and I am trying to reach as wide an audience as possible, which I wouldn't call advertising but dissemination. I hope we can agree to differ on this issue, and I would of course welcome feedback and or suggestions regarding Vibuntu if you think it can be improved in some way. Have a good xmas! drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Ken Perry [mailto:whistler at blinksoft.com] Sent: Sat 13/12/2008 14:27 To: Anthony Sales Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release I am not arguing that your distro is needed I am arguing that its "the First accessible" distro. I like to see things stand on their own merit not some advertising claim. Ken -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Sales [mailto:tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk] Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 7:23 AM To: Ken Perry Cc: orca-list at gnome.org; ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release Ken, I agree with what you have said, the but as you state - it is 'skilled users' that are able to do such things, not beginners who have never heard of or tried Linux. I am not trying to steal anyones thunder, because my target audience is different to yours - I am aiming at schools, colleges and institutions which need accessible software but cannot afford expensive commercial products and don't have staff who have used Linux themselves. This is the very specific niche at which this distro is aimed - and I challenge you to use Orca with any admin apps on the ubuntu 8.04/8.10 desktop without making complicated changes and/or knowing how to use the terminal. I still maintain that this is the first Linux live CD to be accessible to sighted, blind and partially sighted users out of the box with no prior experience of linux. I agree that 99% of the credit for this lies with Gnome, Orca, Compiz and Ubuntu, probably in that order. All I have done is make a few small but significant changes which Ubuntu could have done if they wanted, but they didn't and neither has anyone else to my knowledge. Again send me a link to an iso which is as easy to use for novices out of the box and I will abandon the project, because I don't believe in wasting my time reinventing the wheel, its just that all the wheels out their seem to be round and I want a square one! ;) I appreciate you thoughts, and welcome this kind of discussion, if you are correct then there is no need for a Vibuntu type distro and the project will fail. I have taken the liberty of posting these communications on the Orca, Ubuntu and Gnome mailing lists as I would like to open this debate up to the wider community. Keep in Touch Drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Ken Perry [mailto:whistler at blinksoft.com] Sent: 13 December 2008 01:59 To: Anthony Sales Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release Maybe saying easily usable and accessible then because I am sorry but skilled users have been using Redhat as far back as Redhat 6 and I am not talking about from telnet. I have used that from day one of Slackware with telnet. Furthermore Ubuntu 8.04 seems to have solved most of the administration problems and again while it has problems its more accessible than windows or Mac and I think you would have a hard time if you came out and said you have the first accessible Vista box. I might be arguing semantics but I feel saying it's the first accessible Linux distribution degrades the work the Speakup team has done all the way up to current Fedora to the work Ubuntu has done to make the Ubuntu 8.04 distro work out of the box. Just because it is hard to do something does not mean it's not accessible. If you want to talk usability then I would agree with you on the points you have already pointed out. As I would agree with someone if they finally made a safe mode for Windows we could use or a bios editor for mother boards. Just because we cannot do these things does not. I thank you for making a more usable accessible distribution but I don't like miss leading advertisement. make the OS un-accessible. Ken -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Sales [mailto:tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 7:47 PM To: Ken Perry Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release True, but my release clearly states that it is the first linux distro to be accessible and have a full gui desktop for sighted`users as well. I may be wrong, but I am an experienced Linux user and I and many other people having been looking for a distro like this for years. Also in a default Ubuntu install Orca will not work with many of the admin applications like ubiquity etc unless you know how to turn Orca off and restart it in --no-setup mode in the terminal etc, which means you will have no speech feedback and need to know the keystrokes from memory. It is unlikely that a beginner would know how to do this and that is why Vibuntu is aimed at VI users who have never tried Linux before, but the provision of a gui desktop allows other sighted users to use the same distro. I have no intentions of misleading anyone and if you could point me to the URL of a linux distro that does everything Vibuntu does out of the box I would love to know about it as then I wouldn't have to spend hours modifying someone else's inaccessible distro! drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Ken Perry [mailto:whistler at blinksoft.com] Sent: Sat 13/12/2008 00:12 To: Anthony Sales Subject: RE: Vibuntu Press Release I do have to say that saying that ViBuntu is the first accessible Linux out of the box is a bit um untrue. There is the Speakup distributions and Ubuntu is accessible just with picking the access options so I think your add is miss leading. Ken -----Original Message----- From: gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org [mailto:gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Sales Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 4:00 PM To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Subject: Vibuntu Press Release I have written a short press release aimed at VI users who may not know about Linux. I would be grateful if you could post it on any general accessibility/software sites/forums you use if you think it would be a good way of getting the uninitiated to give Linux a try! If we manage to get enough interest from a few institutions, charities or government agencies it may be possible to obtain some funding for a few developers to work on the project full or part-time! Thanks for all the support. I hope people on the mailing lists don't think I just a self-promoting megalomaniac, I really do want to help VI users and I believe (perhaps naively) that Vibuntu is a step in the right direction. Please feel free to shoot me down in flames! The press release follows! Vibuntu - The first Linux distro to be fully accessible to blind and partially sighted users out of the box! Vibuntu is a customised version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution optimised to meet the needs of visually impaired users by default. Vibuntu comes in the form of a live CD which you place in the CD drive and then restart your computer. Once it boots a screen-reader is activated, USB Braille displays are automatically detected and full screen magnification can be turned on/off with a simple keystroke. Vibuntu also provides an attractive visual interface which makes it suitable for sighted, partially sighted and blind users. You can navigate the menus and applications using the screen-reader and/or Braille display or switch this support off and use the full screen magnification. This is an ideal way of introducing visually impaired users to the Linux operating system which offers a free and open-source alternative to expensive proprietary software. This is very safe and secure way to let someone experience Linux and experiment without taking any risks or making any changes to your computer. You can continue to use Vibuntu as a live CD or install it to your hard drive either alongside Windows or as a complete desktop replacement. It is also possible to install and run Vibuntu from a USB memory stick if your computer supports USB booting. If you are interested in trying Vibuntu or would just like to know more about it please visit the project website at http://blinuxman.net/projects/vibuntu.php Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. = Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. = Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sat Dec 13 18:41:16 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:41:16 -0000 Subject: Change username in Vibuntu after install. Message-ID: Because Vibuntu uses a pre-configured user account, the username and password are retained after an install. This has confused a few people. You can change both your user name and password after install using the terminal. To change your password type 'sudo passwd orca', enter the password orca, then enter the new password twice. To change your username type 'sudo usermod -l newname oldname' into a terminal, enter your password, press enter and then log out and back in again using the new username. I will include the username change command in the help file in the next version of Vibuntu. drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From j.t.laurie at gmail.com Sun Dec 14 06:40:34 2008 From: j.t.laurie at gmail.com (Michell Sudyka) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:40:34 -0600 Subject: accessing the desktop? Message-ID: Hi there, I know that this may seem like a very basic "how do I" question, but I got my ubuntu 8.04 lts burned to cd tonight and tried it out. Surprise, it worked like a charm. Only, the only app I can make run is firefox. How do I get out of the orca window and access other programs other than from the command terminal? Thanks! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From guyster at bex.net Sun Dec 14 12:36:38 2008 From: guyster at bex.net (Guy Schlosser) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:36:38 -0500 Subject: accessing the desktop? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4944FDD6.8060700@bex.net> On 12/14/2008 01:40 AM, Michell Sudyka wrote: > Hi there, > I know that this may seem like a very basic "how do I" question, but I > got my ubuntu 8.04 lts burned to cd tonight and tried it out. > Surprise, it worked like a charm. Only, the only app I can make run is > firefox. How do I get out of the orca window and access other programs > other than from the command terminal? > Thanks! Hi Michell, by default, there are no items on the desktop with a fresh Ubuntu install. You can press alt+f1, and that will pull down a menu where you can access all the other apps. From there, if you want to place items on the desktop, you can. For example, I have Mozilla Thunderbird, Pidgin, Fire fox, and my video game console emulators as shortcuts on my desktop. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask. Later, Guy From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sun Dec 14 20:14:24 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 20:14:24 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Development Blog Message-ID: I have set up a Vibuntu Development Blog at http://www.vibuntu.blogspot.com/ for anyone who is interested! I will use this to document the development of Vibuntu and any relevant issues so that anyone who wants to create their own accessible remix of Ubuntu, or just modify their existing installation can do so easily. There is an RSS feed available if anyone wants to be automatically notified of new posts. I will still post any significant announcements such as the release of new versions and/or notable improvements on the mailing lists and forums, as well as continuing to asking for help, advice and suggestions and providing them when I can. I am planning to have a well deserved rest over the xmas break so it is unlikely there will be any major developments until the new year! Thanks again for everyone's support, advice, suggestions and criticisms! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From thomaslloyd at yahoo.com Sun Dec 14 22:02:16 2008 From: thomaslloyd at yahoo.com (Thomas Lloyd) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:02:16 +0000 Subject: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for the Visually Impaired EVA III In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1229292136.6025.44.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> I also agree that the claim of the first accessible Linux is a tad far fetched and maybe the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for the Visually Impaired. Is more accurate? We all fall victim to claims of self grandeur at times, especially when it our baby. I think that the proof is in the pudding as Tony has said himself the community will decide. I have no issues with slightly misleading marketing if it saves any disabled people money and opens up more opportunity for them. This is not to undermine what has been done in the past by other groups and if there are better products for those people they will find them. But we all need a starting point and if you are forced to spend a small fortune to start on a computer many people who can, either can not or don't. So all in all keep up the good work make sure you add in a feature that forces the user to change their password at least and maybe their username after an install and I will stop worrying about security. NL From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sun Dec 14 22:50:11 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:50:11 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually Impaired EVA III References: <1229292136.6025.44.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Message-ID: Hi Tom, its the self-deluded megalomaniac who thinks he has solved all of the world's problems with a simple remix of Ubuntu. I think the key here is to remember that this distro is not really aimed at Linux users at all - but visually impaired users who maybe haven't even heard of linux before. I am trying to 'sell it' (for free remember) to teachers, trainers, colleges and institutions in the UK who probably have never heard of or used Linux before. When promoting something it is usually to emphasise its strengths rather than weaknesses. No one is going to sell many cars if they use the slogan, 'its OK, its pretty much like other models really'. In the same spirit that Carlsberg claim to brew 'probably the best larger in the world', I have claimed to have produced 'the first fully accessible version of Linux for visually impaired users who have never used Linux before'. It has certainly got peoples attention and a bit of a debate going! You know that I don't take myself that seriously, but I think you would have to agree that Vibuntu, even though it still needs lots of work, is probably the only Linux distro that you or I know of that could be booted and experimented with by someone with no experience of Linux, who would have no chance of being able to configure it themselves without support and/or sighted help. I think a lot of people in the Linux VI community forget just how difficult it is to get into Linux, and the fact they they are so technically competant themselves etc makes them lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of VI users are not hackers and have no ambitions to be so. They just want to browse the web, send a few e-mails or write a letter etc. If Vibuntu helps just a few people kick their dependancy on microsoft than I will consider it a time well spent. (What would you rather be doing - translating T3 scripts into Welsh or tinkering with Ubuntu?) Yours in humble modesty, drbongo. -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com on behalf of Thomas Lloyd Sent: Sun 14/12/2008 22:02 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually Impaired EVA III I also agree that the claim of the first accessible Linux is a tad far fetched and maybe the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for the Visually Impaired. Is more accurate? We all fall victim to claims of self grandeur at times, especially when it our baby. I think that the proof is in the pudding as Tony has said himself the community will decide. I have no issues with slightly misleading marketing if it saves any disabled people money and opens up more opportunity for them. This is not to undermine what has been done in the past by other groups and if there are better products for those people they will find them. But we all need a starting point and if you are forced to spend a small fortune to start on a computer many people who can, either can not or don't. So all in all keep up the good work make sure you add in a feature that forces the user to change their password at least and maybe their username after an install and I will stop worrying about security. NL -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sun Dec 14 23:12:38 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:12:38 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Development Blog References: <77925AA344F84642A93489E1F0DF754C@DigitalDarragh.local> <2CE4EBEEBF63DD43991FB2B6C337C05CD54C@server.DigitalDarragh.local> Message-ID: Hi Darragh, I am in the process of writing up detailed notes on how I have made Vibuntu to go on the development blog ASAP. But I have spent quite a bit of time in the last week or so having to justify why I feel that there is a need for vibuntu, and whether it does offer anything new over other distros. I think you are correct about the difference between accessibility and usability, but one of my biggest bugbears is that when people claim something is accessible, and what they really mean is someone who really knows what they are doing can access it. If it requires a high level of technical competence to access it, then in my books it is not accessible at all to the vast majority of people. For me usability is a prerequisite of accessibility, if it is not usable then it is not accessible. Now I may be wrong, but I have been looking very hard for at least five years and I have not found a single distro that offers what Vibuntu offers at present. I am not claiming that Vibuntu is perfect, in fact there are a lot of flaws which I still need to try and iron out before I will really be comfortable with people trying it. I have also made it very clear in my blog and other posts that it is not really aimed at the existing Linux community per se, although many existing users seem to like it. I work in the British education sector, and my main motivation for creating Vibuntu is to try and get British Schools and institutions to try and use Linux, with both sighted and VI users. If I can offer them a simple free alternative to Microsoft and Jaws etc then I am going to try to get this to happen, even if I have to blow my own trumpet or talk like a second-hand car salesman! I am not at all egotistical,as anyone who knows me will tell you, and I would absolutely be over the moon if someone else produced an accessible Linux for beginners, because I would much rather be sitting on my fat arse eating a kebab and watching the telly than spending hours trying to solve other peoples problems, as I am not blind or partially sighted myself. I see Vibuntu primarily as a charitable project for the benefit of the wider VI community and I am very surprised at the amount of criticism I have received for trying to do this! Finally as I stated in my blog, I realise that 99% of the credit for Vibuntu lies with Gnome, Orca, Compiz and Ubuntu etc. I have just made a few small but significant changes by standing on the shoulders of giants! My goal is an accessible Linux distro that even a beginner can use and if I have to upset a few people along the way then so be it. Have a good xmas, drbongo -----Original Message----- From: Darragh [mailto:lists at digitaldarragh.com] Sent: Sun 14/12/2008 22:42 To: Anthony Sales; ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Cc: Matthew Horspool (Learner); Mobeen Iqbal (Learner); Arthur Turner (Learner) Subject: RE: Vibuntu Development Blog Anthony, Firstly, again well done. I'd personally like to see some posts on your development blog related to how you got so many administrative apps working with Orca as I see this as the most significant reason to use your version. I also have to echo the points raised by a few here, You really do need to be very careful in your wording. Your version of Ubuntu is really not the most accessible distribution out there. There is a major difference to accessible and usable. To say something is inaccessible means it cannot be made to work no matter what configuration is used. Usable on the other hand means it is available to the user with a minimum of knowledge and tweeking. This is not of course to belittle the work you hav done. I just really hate to see the work of so many diminished in stature due to some bad wording in a press release. Let's be honest. If it wasn't for the work of people in the Speakup, BRLTTY, EmacsSpeak, SBL, Yasr, and other projects, none of us would have had the opportunities in Linux we have today. Keep up the good work. Darragh -----Original Message----- From: gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org [mailto:gnome-accessibility-list-bounces at gnome.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Sales Sent: 14 December 2008 20:16 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Cc: Matthew Horspool (Learner); Mobeen Iqbal (Learner); Arthur Turner (Learner) Subject: Vibuntu Development Blog I have set up a Vibuntu Development Blog at http://www.vibuntu.blogspot.com/ for anyone who is interested! I will use this to document the development of Vibuntu and any relevant issues so that anyone who wants to create their own accessible remix of Ubuntu, or just modify their existing installation can do so easily. There is an RSS feed available if anyone wants to be automatically notified of new posts. I will still post any significant announcements such as the release of new versions and/or notable improvements on the mailing lists and forums, as well as continuing to asking for help, advice and suggestions and providing them when I can. I am planning to have a well deserved rest over the xmas break so it is unlikely there will be any major developments until the new year! Thanks again for everyone's support, advice, suggestions and criticisms! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. _______________________________________________ gnome-accessibility-list mailing list gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-accessibility-list Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Sun Dec 14 23:53:23 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 23:53:23 -0000 Subject: Booting Vibuntu from a USB pen drive. Message-ID: If any of you have succeeded in getting Vibuntu to boot from a USB pen, using Unetbootin, then you may have realised by now that this is booted as a read only image which means you cannot save any changes or documents to the pen. The disadvantage of this is that you can't save anything you produce during the session to the USB pen itself, although you can access any music files etc you have placed on the pen by inserting it as a USB memory stick during another session. The advantage of this however is that you can experiment as much as you like and if it all goes pair-shaped you can simply reboot and return to the default settings. However it would be nice to have the choice of whether to have a persistent directory enabled or not. The USB installer provided in Ubuntu 8.10 only seems to work with the original distro or iso, and I have not been able to find a way around this yet. I know that this can be done manually, but I really want to find a simple way to do this that a novice should be able to attempt. In the meantime I have found that a pragmatic solution is to simply carry around 2 1Gb USB pens, one to boot from the other to save documents to etc. If anyone knows a way to fool the Ubuntu USB installer into installing a customised distro please let me know. drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From speakup at lists.tacticus.com Mon Dec 15 06:44:35 2008 From: speakup at lists.tacticus.com (luke Davis) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:44:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually Impaired EVA III In-Reply-To: References: <1229292136.6025.44.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Message-ID: I have avoided chiming in on this one to date, and I will probably avoid it in future, but I wanted to say this... I am a person who reads those stock and investment plan (some would say scheme) newsletters, such as the stuff produced by the Sovereign Society and S&A Research (basically the whole Agora family) for fun and amusement (and the odd useful piece of investment information). If you know what I'm talking about, then you know that I know whereof I speak, when I say that I have seen copyrighting and "creative" advertising, ranging from the absolutely absurd, to the world class. While claiming Vibuntu as "the first fully accessible version of Linux...", or variations on that phrase, is certainly hyperbolic and rather overdone, it may have some effect with the target population. and isn't that the point of marketing? Getting a foot in the door? I probably would not have said it, but then I have never been good at selling things. Systems like Slackware, and I think even Redhat, have been fully accessible (or at least as accessible) for years, _if_ you knew how to get started. But that's the problem: if you need a howto in order to get it going, even if it's a relatively short one, you're already behind the ball, in trying to get your foot in the door. I believe it can be said to be true that most blind people using Windows, had a sightie do the installation. By the time the blind user got to the system, it was likely already talking, or could be made so with relative ease. With Linux, having someone else do the install is rarely an option. So, you start out, when promoting it, in "catch up" mode. Add to that, having to go to some web site, and follow a possibly complex set of instructions in a howto (complex to someone who has only ever used Windows, or never used anything), when they have never actually heard of a HowTo, and aren't convinced that "this Linux thing" is worth all the trouble, is not at all a good beginning. I have nothing invested in VIbuntu (except that I like the name:)), and am not myself convinced that it is a necessary project on its own (I.E. that it might not be better for it to either absorb, or be absorbed into, another project). I have seen (and been a part of) too many projects driven by a need and a key personality (I.E. not driven by a team), that started out with a bang, but then flamed out just when they had a chance, because they did not have enough of a foundation in the community they existed to operate within and support, so I am cautious. However the need is real, and since this does seem, at least as I understand the situation, to be a reasonable way of going about things for a quick launch of a good idea (which, unlike many other good ideas, has a substantive product behind it), I say why not? Yeah it has bugs. Yeah there are things I think could and should be changed about the way it operates. Yeah remastersys is probably not the best way to roll a distribution. Who cares? It works, it is out there, and it is constantly being worked on--I do not believe that the self-proclaimed deluded megalomaniac has claimed that it is complete and perfect yet. Anthony may eventually decide to merge Vibuntu with something else. We may even discover that it does not appeal to the intended target audience for what ever reason. Ubuntu may even recognize the value in adding at least a beeping bootloader, and a less tricky installation process for disabled users. That would go a long way to eliminating the need for this project, I think, and is probably the way I would rather see things go. But so what? Are we not all about offering alternatives and choices? Too many choices can be a bad thing. Are we even close to having too many choices yet? I have seen many people confused by which distribution to get into; but I have seen more of them struggling through the trials of getting their chosen distribution up and talking fully in a productive way, to think that there is no value in what Anthony is doing. "Put this CD in, boot it up, and follow the spoken or brailled or magnified instructions", is not usually the response given to such questions. Maybe soon it can be. That is probably simplistic--one must still understand partitioning and multi booting and such, but that is well documented in simple ways. To me, the holy grail of Linux deployment is "it just works". Am I likely to use VIBuntu for anything other than a lark, or to aid with development? No. I've been using Linux for twelve or more years, and unixes longer than that. I'm used to the hardships and hitches, and know where to find help, and what questions to ask. but then, it wasn't meant for me, was it? Regards, Luke On Sun, 14 Dec 2008, Anthony Sales wrote: > Hi Tom, its the self-deluded megalomaniac who thinks he has solved all of the > world's problems with a simple remix of Ubuntu. I think the key here is to > remember that this distro is not really aimed at Linux users at all - but > visually impaired users who maybe haven't even heard of linux before. I am > trying to 'sell it' (for free remember) to teachers, trainers, colleges and > institutions in the UK who probably have never heard of or used Linux before. > When promoting something it is usually to emphasise its strengths rather than > weaknesses. No one is going to sell many cars if they use the slogan, 'its > OK, its pretty much like other models really'. In the same spirit that > Carlsberg claim to brew 'probably the best larger in the world', I have > claimed to have produced 'the first fully accessible version of Linux for > visually impaired users who have never used Linux before'. It has certainly > got peoples attention and a bit of a debate going! You know that I don't take > myself that seriously, but I think you would have to agree that Vibuntu, even > though it still needs lots of work, is probably the only Linux distro that > you or I know of that could be booted and experimented with by someone with > no experience of Linux, who would have no chance of being able to configure > it themselves without support and/or sighted help. I think a lot of people in > the Linux VI community forget just how difficult it is to get into Linux, and > the fact they they are so technically competant themselves etc makes them > lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of VI users are not hackers and > have no ambitions to be so. They just want to browse the web, send a few > e-mails or write a letter etc. If Vibuntu helps just a few people kick their > dependancy on microsoft than I will consider it a time well spent. (What > would you rather be doing - translating T3 scripts into Welsh or tinkering > with Ubuntu?) Yours in humble modesty, drbongo. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com on behalf of Thomas Lloyd > Sent: Sun 14/12/2008 22:02 > To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Subject: Re: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually > Impaired EVA III > > I also agree that the claim of the first accessible Linux is a tad far > fetched and maybe the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for the > Visually Impaired. Is more accurate? We all fall victim to claims of > self grandeur at times, especially when it our baby. > > I think that the proof is in the pudding as Tony has said himself the > community will decide. I have no issues with slightly misleading > marketing if it saves any disabled people money and opens up more > opportunity for them. > > This is not to undermine what has been done in the past by other groups > and if there are better products for those people they will find them. > But we all need a starting point and if you are forced to spend a small > fortune to start on a computer many people who can, either can not or > don't. > > So all in all keep up the good work make sure you add in a feature that > forces the user to change their password at least and maybe their > username after an install and I will stop worrying about security. > > NL > > > > From samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org Mon Dec 15 09:35:59 2008 From: samuel.thibault at ens-lyon.org (Samuel Thibault) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:35:59 +0100 Subject: Vibuntu the most accessible Ubuntu Linux live cd for theVisually Impaired EVA III In-Reply-To: References: <1229292136.6025.44.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Message-ID: <20081215093559.GA5183@const.bordeaux.inria.fr> luke Davis, le Mon 15 Dec 2008 01:44:35 -0500, a écrit : > Ubuntu may even recognize the value in adding at least a beeping > bootloader, and a less tricky installation process for disabled users. Again, please do not take things wrong. Ubuntu does _not_ have any opinion of what accessibility features should be enabled. The problem is not of willness, but of manpower. See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gfxboot-theme-ubuntu/+bug/180561 for instance, which I filed some time ago about the precise feature you are asking for. Luke didn't say he doesn't recognize the value. He says he depends on somebody fixing sound support in gfxboot. > That would go a long way to eliminating the need for this project, I > think, and is probably the way I would rather see things go. I definitely see it this way, yes. Instead of duplicating the work of mastering a CD, it'd be better to just fix Ubuntu itself. Yes, that means talking with developers to get things included, but once it's there, it's for good (if you provide a way to test it). > But so what? Are we not all about offering alternatives and choices? Too > many choices can be a bad thing. The problem is sustainability of the alternative. > "Put this CD in, boot it up, and follow the spoken or brailled or > magnified instructions", is not usually the response given to such > questions. When you have a USB braille device, it is now in Debian. Because I took the time to have things for it integrated upstream. Samuel From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Mon Dec 15 22:13:37 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:13:37 -0000 Subject: Roll your own Vibuntu in 10 easy steps! Message-ID: I have now posted a rough guide to how I made Vibuntu 1.2 from a default install of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on the Vibuntu Development Blog for anyone who is interested - http://vibuntu.blogspot.com/ I expect all of your own personalised versions of Vibuntu to be on my desk before Double History on Friday afternoon otherwise I will give you all detention, and you won't be allowed to go on the school trip! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From aeclist at candt.waitrose.com Tue Dec 16 15:03:11 2008 From: aeclist at candt.waitrose.com (alan c) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:03:11 +0000 Subject: Roll your own Vibuntu in 10 easy steps! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4947C32F.8000307@candt.waitrose.com> Anthony Sales wrote: > I have now posted a rough guide to how I made Vibuntu 1.2 from a default > install of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on the Vibuntu Development Blog for > anyone who is interested - http://vibuntu.blogspot.com/ > > I expect all of your own personalised versions of Vibuntu to be on my desk > before Double History on Friday afternoon otherwise I will give you all > detention, and you won't be allowed to go on the school trip! trusty bamboo cane firmly onto a dusty pile of maths textbooks and tries to > look fierce!> > > drbongo Well done Anthony! -- alan cocks Ubuntu user #10391 Linux user #360648 From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Tue Dec 16 20:28:01 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:28:01 -0000 Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! Message-ID: Exciting news! I have worked out how to trick the default Ubuntu USB installer (which is accessible with Orca) into copying the Vibuntu iso onto a USB memory stick with persistent storage! The process is quite straight forward: There is a hidden folder on the Ubuntu 8.10 live CD called .disk and this is the file the Ubuntu USB Installer looks for to verify it is the official version. All you need to do is to mount the Vibuntu iso image, copy this folder into the top layer and unmount the iso. I used isomaster to do this which is accessible but there must be a simple way to do this from the terminal, I will try to work it out but if anyone already knows how to do this please post the commands for everyone to use. I do not think it is worth releasing a new version of Vibuntu just to include this but I will add the .disk file to the next release so users can create a bootable USB memory stick with persistance easily! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From thomaslloyd at yahoo.com Tue Dec 16 20:52:14 2008 From: thomaslloyd at yahoo.com (Thomas Lloyd) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:52:14 +0000 Subject: Microsofts speech engines in Ubuntu In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1229460734.22834.9.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Hi All Just checking in again to give a small progress report and let you know what is going on or not as the case might be. I have managed to get the whole system working, identify the bugs in wine and have workable solutions. At the moment the command line interface is about 50% done the server is about 25% finished. The text to speech engines can now be installed without user interaction. I have not started on speech dispatcher driver yet and any people that can lend a hand would be great. I want to get the server client working first them integrate it into SD. Anyone interested in testing the first few releases of the system would be very welcome. If you are interested in doing some testing then get in contact and i will put together an installer and test programs. Hope you all have a nice Christmas and New Years Tom From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Tue Dec 16 21:19:30 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:19:30 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Sorry, I inadvertently sent the attachment to everyone on the mailing list - at least it was small! Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible... drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From themuso at ubuntu.com Tue Dec 16 22:29:28 2008 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:29:28 +1100 Subject: Microsofts speech engines in Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <1229460734.22834.9.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> References: <1229460734.22834.9.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Message-ID: <20081216222928.GA10325@barbiton> On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 07:52:14AM EST, Thomas Lloyd wrote: > Anyone interested in testing the first few releases of the system would be very > welcome. If you are interested in doing some testing then get in contact > and i will put together an installer and test programs. I would love to help with testing, as this is something that would be very useful for users switching from Windows, especially if they have invested in Windows speech synthesizers. Luke -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 197 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Wed Dec 17 00:03:58 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:03:58 -0000 Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! References: Message-ID: I have now written a bash script which will automatically modify the Vibuntu 1.2 iso image so that it can be used by the default Ubuntu USB Installer application. In order for it to work you must make sure that the Vibuntu 1.2 Custom_Live_CD.iso and the hidden .disk folder from the original Ubuntu 8.10 CD are in the /home/orca assuming you are working from a Vibuntu 1.2 install. If not you need to change the /home/orca path in the script to whatever your home directory is called. To run it copy the script into your home folder, make it executable and then open a terminal and type sudo ./vibuntu-usb-install. When the script has finished you will have a new iso called Custom_Live_USB.iso in your home directory. You can then point the Ubuntu USB installer to this image to create a bootable USB version of Vibuntu with persistent storage. If you'd rather you can open the script and type each line into a terminal manually, this might be a useful learning exercise if you are new to the terminal and bash scripting. Or is you are very lazy you can just wait for the next version of Vibuntu to come out and you won't have to do any of this... drbongo -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com on behalf of Anthony Sales Sent: Tue 16/12/2008 20:28 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com; gnome-accessibility-list at gnome.org; orca-list at gnome.org Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! Exciting news! I have worked out how to trick the default Ubuntu USB installer (which is accessible with Orca) into copying the Vibuntu iso onto a USB memory stick with persistent storage! The process is quite straight forward: There is a hidden folder on the Ubuntu 8.10 live CD called .disk and this is the file the Ubuntu USB Installer looks for to verify it is the official version. All you need to do is to mount the Vibuntu iso image, copy this folder into the top layer and unmount the iso. I used isomaster to do this which is accessible but there must be a simple way to do this from the terminal, I will try to work it out but if anyone already knows how to do this please post the commands for everyone to use. I do not think it is worth releasing a new version of Vibuntu just to include this but I will add the .disk file to the next release so users can create a bootable USB memory stick with persistance easily! drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: vibuntu-usb-script Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1351 bytes Desc: vibuntu-usb-script URL: From cerha at brailcom.org Wed Dec 17 07:40:09 2008 From: cerha at brailcom.org (Tomas Cerha) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:40:09 +0100 Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4948ACD9.7080809@brailcom.org> Stephen Shaw wrote: > I'm glad you are excited about this, but not sure that turning all of > these lists into the vibuntu mailing list is appropriate. Yes, I wish Anthony a good luck with Vibuntu, but reading about it in three different mailing lists is definitely annoying. Best regards, Tomas From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Wed Dec 17 15:18:26 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:18:26 -0000 Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! In-Reply-To: <4948F1A5.8080608@brailcom.org> References: <4948ACD9.7080809@brailcom.org> <4948F1A5.8080608@brailcom.org> Message-ID: I have been cross-posting because I presumed there would be some people who are only subscribed to one list, like I was at first (Ubuntu)until someone advised me to post on the Orca list, and then someone else asked me to post on Gnome, and since then someone has asked me to post on the Ally list as well. Which list do people think it would be best to focus on: Ubuntu, Orca or Gnome. I suppose Ubuntu is the most relevant but there seems to be a lot more traffic on the other two lists, the Orca one particularly. Or is it just a few grumpy old men who disapprove of young whippersnappers like me babbling enthusiastically about their geekish obsessions? Can subscribers let me know what they think. The results will be based on a democratic vote, the judges decision is final, employees and relatives of employees are not entitled to enter! Drbongo Damn I just cross-posted again! Doh! -----Original Message----- From: Tomas Cerha [mailto:cerha at brailcom.org] Sent: 17 December 2008 12:34 To: Anthony Sales Subject: Re: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! Anthony Sales napsal(a): > Sorry if I have annoyed anybody, as the project is very new I am still > trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. Of course, I understand your motivation. However this doesn't change anything. > I will try to limit any > announcements or developments to one a day from now on, excluding > answering individual queries that people may have! Cross posting is a bad practice in any case. If you could at least choose one mailing list, that would be significantly more considerate to the others. You can announce where you are moving Vibuntu discussions on the other lists so those who are interested will not miss it. Thank you and best regards, Tomas Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From ignasicambra at gmail.com Thu Dec 18 09:33:45 2008 From: ignasicambra at gmail.com (Ignasi Cambra) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:33:45 -0500 Subject: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! References: <4948ACD9.7080809@brailcom.org><4948F1A5.8080608@brailcom.org> Message-ID: <85DCCB7C5FF7473A9F4FE6E6CC4AEE82@BLRHICAMBRA> Honnestly I don't understand: if people don't want to read about Vibuntu, just delete any messages with Vibuntu on the subject line. It just seems natural that if someone is starting a project which might be of interest for some of us, he posts information about it on the mailing lists where he thinks people are going to read about it. Come on, this is not any kind of spam, and I don't see any bad intentions behind it. So as long as there aren't thousands of Vibuntu information messages every day, why do we have to argue about it? If Anthony posts this information on one of the lists only, people who are on an other list and might be interested won't get it. I know this sounds stupid and obvious, but not everyone is subscribed to three, four or five mailing lists. Even from the point of view of an extremely experienced user, I wouldn't be able to understand why we need to hate Vibuntu so much. In the end it's an unaltered version of Ubuntu which incorporates some of the changes that we all do to a new Ubuntu install before using it. And wether I am very skilled or not, I preffer to disable the authomatic login in Vibuntu than to configure Orca to read all those apps etc etc. And if Anthony finally gets Vibuntu to ship with Alsa instead of PulseAudio, and Speech-Dispatcher, why would I waste my time in configuring it if there is a distribution that ships with it? I think we can all help Vibuntu to be whatever we need it to be, and I think it can be pretty useful to anyone. Just my opinion, as always... I find this comunity is really great, but sometimes it seems like we just can't get over the fact that some of us know more about Linux than others, and have different needs than others etc. I ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony Sales" To: "Tomas Cerha" Cc: ; ; Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 10:18 AM Subject: Re: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! >I have been cross-posting because I presumed there would be some people who > are only subscribed to one list, like I was at first (Ubuntu)until someone > advised me to post on the Orca list, and then someone else asked me to > post > on Gnome, and since then someone has asked me to post on the Ally list as > well. Which list do people think it would be best to focus on: Ubuntu, > Orca > or Gnome. I suppose Ubuntu is the most relevant but there seems to be a > lot > more traffic on the other two lists, the Orca one particularly. Or is it > just > a few grumpy old men who disapprove of young whippersnappers like me > babbling > enthusiastically about their geekish obsessions? Can subscribers let me > know > what they think. The results will be based on a democratic vote, the > judges > decision is final, employees and relatives of employees are not entitled > to > enter! > > Drbongo > > Damn I just cross-posted again! Doh! > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tomas Cerha [mailto:cerha at brailcom.org] > Sent: 17 December 2008 12:34 > To: Anthony Sales > Subject: Re: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! > > Anthony Sales napsal(a): >> Sorry if I have annoyed anybody, as the project is very new I am still >> trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. > > Of course, I understand your motivation. However this doesn't change > anything. > >> I will try to limit any >> announcements or developments to one a day from now on, excluding >> answering individual queries that people may have! > > Cross posting is a bad practice in any case. If you could at least choose > one mailing list, that would be significantly more considerate to the > others. > You can announce where you are moving Vibuntu discussions on the other > lists > so those who are interested will not miss it. > > Thank you and best regards, Tomas > > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the > above > named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you > must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to > anyone: > please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the > knowledge > that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We > advise > that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and > attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good > computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus > free. > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the > above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in > error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show > them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the > sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the > knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication > medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security > when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and > attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good > computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus > free. > _______________________________________________ > Orca-list mailing list > Orca-list at gnome.org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list > Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca From cerha at brailcom.org Thu Dec 18 10:56:38 2008 From: cerha at brailcom.org (Tomas Cerha) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:56:38 +0100 Subject: [orca-list] Cross-posring (was: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage!) In-Reply-To: <85DCCB7C5FF7473A9F4FE6E6CC4AEE82@BLRHICAMBRA> References: <4948ACD9.7080809@brailcom.org><4948F1A5.8080608@brailcom.org> <85DCCB7C5FF7473A9F4FE6E6CC4AEE82@BLRHICAMBRA> Message-ID: <494A2C66.1090103@brailcom.org> Hello Ignasi, there is no question about usefulness of Vibuntu. I like the project and I wish it a good success. There simply are plenty of reasons why cross posting is a bad practice. Please, read about netiquette. Just google cross posting and you will understand. This is no hostility or grumpiness against Vibuntu or Anthony in person. We are just kindly asking people to stick to certain widely agreed rules. Please, the next one to answer this thread, send the reply to Ubuntu Accessibility mailing list only. Those, who are interested in this debate, please subscribe to this list. I already tried once to turn this into a personal discussion, but it got cross-posted again. Believe me or not, I am quite young and friendly :-) Best regards, Tomas. Ignasi Cambra wrote: > Honnestly I don't understand: if people don't want to read about > Vibuntu, just delete any messages with Vibuntu on the subject line. It > just seems natural that if someone is starting a project which might be > of interest for some of us, he posts information about it on the mailing > lists where he thinks people are going to read about it. Come on, this > is not any kind of spam, and I don't see any bad intentions behind it. > So as long as there aren't thousands of Vibuntu information messages > every day, why do we have to argue about it? If Anthony posts this > information on one of the lists only, people who are on an other list > and might be interested won't get it. I know this sounds stupid and > obvious, but not everyone is subscribed to three, four or five mailing > lists. Even from the point of view of an extremely experienced user, I > wouldn't be able to understand why we need to hate Vibuntu so much. In > the end it's an unaltered version of Ubuntu which incorporates some of > the changes that we all do to a new Ubuntu install before using it. And > wether I am very skilled or not, I preffer to disable the authomatic > login in Vibuntu than to configure Orca to read all those apps etc etc. > And if Anthony finally gets Vibuntu to ship with Alsa instead of > PulseAudio, and Speech-Dispatcher, why would I waste my time in > configuring it if there is a distribution that ships with it? I think we > can all help Vibuntu to be whatever we need it to be, and I think it can > be pretty useful to anyone. > Just my opinion, as always... I find this comunity is really great, but > sometimes it seems like we just can't get over the fact that some of us > know more about Linux than others, and have different needs than others > etc. From thomaslloyd at yahoo.com Thu Dec 18 14:18:47 2008 From: thomaslloyd at yahoo.com (Thomas Lloyd) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 14:18:47 +0000 Subject: Vibuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 37, Issue 19 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1229609927.11414.10.camel@DualCore810.vipsight.info> Hi again, I also made subtle hints toward the contents of the mailing list becoming more like the user manual for Vibuntu. Why not do the following, put links to the websites, forums and blog about Vibuntu in your signature Tony. Once a week post that there have been updates even provide a brief summary to as many lists as you like, create a mailing list for Vibuntu that people can sign up to for daily updates if they feel the need. This should keep everyone happy. So we all know what's happening, but at the same time we don't need to know everything. Tom From blindstein at gmail.com Thu Dec 18 15:36:58 2008 From: blindstein at gmail.com (Justin Harford) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:36:58 -0800 Subject: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! Message-ID: <0EF310E8-732C-48AA-8B78-B690FCDD7AD9@gmail.com> I agree with Ignasi Cambra's comment. I am only subscribed to the ubuntu accessibility list with the purpose of keeping up with linux development without getting all the extra email. Regards Justin Harford From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Thu Dec 18 19:03:57 2008 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:03:57 -0000 Subject: Vibuntu Cross-Postings! Message-ID: Obviously there are mixed feelings about cross-posting, and I did probably post too many updates in the first week or two, although there were a series of rapid developments/improvements with each release. In the near future I will be setting up a separate mailing list for those who want regular updates etc., but I will still post major release announcements and/or significant news on any mailing lists which I think are relevant. This would include the Gnome, Orca and Ubuntu lists which attract slightly different audiences and any other mailing lists or forums I see as being part of our target audience. It seems obvious that while there are some people who subscribe to multiple mailing lists there are others who only subscribe to one or two. There are unlikely to be any significant announcements until the next release in January/February next year! Have a good Christmas. drbongo Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. From felipemonteiro.carvalho at gmail.com Thu Dec 18 19:17:01 2008 From: felipemonteiro.carvalho at gmail.com (Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:17:01 -0200 Subject: Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.3.2 released Message-ID: Hello, Virtual Magnifying Glass is designed for visually-impaired and others who need to magnify a part of the screen. This is a bugfix release with many minor changes, althougth some progress on the dynamic mode was also achieved, but only for some video cards. We would like the next major release, v3.4, to have a fully working dynamic mode. You can download the magnifier here: http://magnifier.sourceforge.net/ and change what has changed here: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=897506 Also very interresting to discuss is adding the Virtual Magnifying Glass to Ubuntu. In this version someone contributed a Debian package, maybe any Ubuntu developers here would be interrested in finally making an official package for this software. I request this every year since 3 years or so, but until now no developer had interrest in this subject. thank you very much, -- Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 18 19:17:29 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:17:29 -0600 (CST) Subject: vubuntu Message-ID: <0KC300D036X4JIJ0@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, Well it wasn't so long ago several people including myself posted several times about wanting the installer and adman apps accessible from our user account. While I like experimenting and learning how to do things. Many people don't or don't have the time for that. I think we should be glad that there is someone willing to do what really should have been done after the gnopernicus screen reader was put in ubuntu. I found vubuntu by accident when looking for something on the Internet. But many people never would have if the post had not been made on different lists. Remastersys is a program I didn't even know existed until I red about vubuntu. Mike. From isaac at porat.me.uk Thu Dec 18 19:29:44 2008 From: isaac at porat.me.uk (Isaac Porat) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:29:44 -0000 Subject: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! In-Reply-To: <0EF310E8-732C-48AA-8B78-B690FCDD7AD9@gmail.com> References: <0EF310E8-732C-48AA-8B78-B690FCDD7AD9@gmail.com> Message-ID: <8C79759B1BF84FF29688AB80D46FD7CE@temporary> I fully agree with Ignasi. I have two perspectives on this as a blind user and as a developer. As a user (newbie) all was said before - configuration out of the box will save a lot of hassle letting people learn or use the system straight out of the box rather than being involved in lots of unnecessary preparations, I have the patience and perhaps some skill to persevere others will give up - my interest in Ubuntu is for the masses of typical users. As a developer who is considering porting free software for the blind community into Ubuntu I was horrified when I discovered how much a newbie needs to do to get the system to work properly; it is all there because of effort of so many people (thank you) but not yet integrated. I don't mind giving support for my software but just don't have the time or wish to support problems of just getting the speech to work properly. In my case unless speech-dispatcher is ready to go (perhaps with a single flag) I will be just wasting my time. If the Main distribution will do that in the future well and good but my guess is that it will take (if at all) a long time (I have not seen much participation in this list from the Ubuntu team either - what a difference from the Orca mailing list). So Tony your Vibuntu project has all my support and if sometimes I get a message from you or others I don't like to read pressing the Delete key is not too much of an effort. Keep up the good work. Regards Isaac -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Justin Harford Sent: 18 December 2008 15:37 To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! I agree with Ignasi Cambra's comment. I am only subscribed to the ubuntu accessibility list with the purpose of keeping up with linux development without getting all the extra email. Regards Justin Harford -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From ignasicambra at gmail.com Thu Dec 18 21:11:51 2008 From: ignasicambra at gmail.com (Ignasi Cambra) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:11:51 -0500 Subject: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! References: <0EF310E8-732C-48AA-8B78-B690FCDD7AD9@gmail.com> <8C79759B1BF84FF29688AB80D46FD7CE@temporary> Message-ID: I agree. And Speech-Dispatcher is not the only thing. What about people wanting to compile their kernels with the Speakup modules? If we integrate that in Vibuntu, that's a few les hours waiting for your computer to sloooowly compile the kernel... I ----- Original Message ----- From: "Isaac Porat" To: Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 2:29 PM Subject: RE: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! >I fully agree with Ignasi. > I have two perspectives on this as a blind user and as a developer. > > As a user (newbie) all was said before - configuration out of the box will > save a lot of hassle letting people learn or use the system straight out > of > the box rather than being involved in lots of unnecessary preparations, I > have the patience and perhaps some skill to persevere others will give > up > - my interest in Ubuntu is for the masses of typical users. > > As a developer who is considering porting free software for the blind > community into Ubuntu I was horrified when I discovered how much a newbie > needs to do to get the system to work properly; it is all there because of > effort of so many people (thank you) but not yet integrated. > I don't mind giving support for my software but just don't have the time > or > wish to support problems of just getting the speech to work properly. > In my case unless speech-dispatcher is ready to go (perhaps with a single > flag) I will be just wasting my time. > > If the Main distribution will do that in the future well and good but my > guess is that it will take (if at all) a long time (I have not seen much > participation in this list from the Ubuntu team either - what a difference > from the Orca mailing list). > > So Tony your Vibuntu project has all my support and if sometimes I get a > message from you or others I don't like to read pressing the Delete key is > not too much of an effort. > > Keep up the good work. > Regards > Isaac > > -----Original Message----- > From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com > [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Justin > Harford > Sent: 18 December 2008 15:37 > To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Subject: Re: [orca-list] Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! > > I agree with Ignasi Cambra's comment. I am only subscribed to the ubuntu > accessibility list with the purpose of keeping up with linux development > without getting all the extra email. > > Regards > Justin Harford > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From kenny at hittsjunk.net Sat Dec 20 20:16:32 2008 From: kenny at hittsjunk.net (Kenny Hitt) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:16:32 -0600 Subject: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! In-Reply-To: References: <4948ACD9.7080809@brailcom.org> <4948F1A5.8080608@brailcom.org> Message-ID: <20081220201632.GC10167@hittsjunk.net> Hi. Create your own list and please stop constantly spamming other lists. Kenny On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 03:18:26PM -0000, Anthony Sales wrote: > I have been cross-posting because I presumed there would be some people who > are only subscribed to one list, like I was at first (Ubuntu)until someone > advised me to post on the Orca list, and then someone else asked me to post > on Gnome, and since then someone has asked me to post on the Ally list as > well. Which list do people think it would be best to focus on: Ubuntu, Orca > or Gnome. I suppose Ubuntu is the most relevant but there seems to be a lot > more traffic on the other two lists, the Orca one particularly. Or is it just > a few grumpy old men who disapprove of young whippersnappers like me babbling > enthusiastically about their geekish obsessions? Can subscribers let me know > what they think. The results will be based on a democratic vote, the judges > decision is final, employees and relatives of employees are not entitled to > enter! > > Drbongo > > Damn I just cross-posted again! Doh! > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tomas Cerha [mailto:cerha at brailcom.org] > Sent: 17 December 2008 12:34 > To: Anthony Sales > Subject: Re: Run Vibuntu on USB with persistant storage! > > Anthony Sales napsal(a): > > Sorry if I have annoyed anybody, as the project is very new I am still > > trying to reach as wide an audience as possible. > > Of course, I understand your motivation. However this doesn't change > anything. > > > I will try to limit any > > announcements or developments to one a day from now on, excluding > > answering individual queries that people may have! > > Cross posting is a bad practice in any case. If you could at least choose > one mailing list, that would be significantly more considerate to the others. > You can announce where you are moving Vibuntu discussions on the other lists > so those who are interested will not miss it. > > Thank you and best regards, Tomas > > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above > named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you > must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: > please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge > that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise > that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and > attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good > computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. > Confidentiality: This e-mail and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If they have come to you in error you must take no action based on them, nor must you copy or show them to anyone: please reply to this e-mail and highlight the error to the sender. > > Security Warning: Please note that e-mail has been created in the knowledge that the Internet e-mail is not a 100% secure communication medium. We advise that you understand and observe this lack of security when e-mailing us. > > Viruses: Although we have taken steps to ensure that this e-mail and attachments are free from any virus, we advised that in keeping with good computing practice the recipient should ensure they are actually virus free. > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Dec 25 01:49:52 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:49:52 -0600 (CST) Subject: I have a question about the live cd Message-ID: <0KCE0047UT33FI21@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I decided to try the latest live CD today to see if the sound had been fixed yet. It boots, but seems to now have a password. I get the drum sound, and pressing enter only causes it to give the sound again. Does anyone know if ubuntu is now adding a required username and password to the live CD? Or if this is just a fluke in the current live CD. I know it could very well be that something is broken. Mike. X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 081224-0, 12/24/2008), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean From herzog at frontiernet.net Fri Dec 26 00:40:56 2008 From: herzog at frontiernet.net (Herzog) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:40:56 -0500 Subject: Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 37, Issue 22 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49542818.9090100@frontiernet.net> I need a name and password; and do not know a way out of that. previous orca's about a year ago did offer a way out, but if it's there I haven't found it in new versions, Ubuntu 8.04 and it's updates. Wil (not the real Will) =========== ubuntu-accessibility-request at lists.ubuntu.com wrote: > Send Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list submissions to > ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > ubuntu-accessibility-request at lists.ubuntu.com > > You can reach the person managing the list at > ubuntu-accessibility-owner at lists.ubuntu.com > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Ubuntu-accessibility digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. I have a question about the live cd (mike) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:49:52 -0600 (CST) > From: "mike" > Subject: I have a question about the live cd > To: "ubuntu" > Message-ID: <0KCE0047UT33FI21 at vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> > > Hi, I decided to try the latest live CD today to see if the sound had been fixed yet. > It boots, but seems to now have a password. I get the drum sound, and pressing enter only causes it to give the sound again. > Does anyone know if ubuntu is now adding a required username and password to the live CD? Or if this is just a fluke in the current live CD. > I know it could very well be that something is broken. > Mike. > X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 081224-0, 12/24/2008), Outbound message > X-Antivirus-Status: Clean > > > > > ------------------------------ > From nuno at serra-ti.com Fri Dec 26 10:36:06 2008 From: nuno at serra-ti.com (Nuno Donato) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:36:06 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? Message-ID: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Hello everyone I sent this email for a specific person, but would also like to get your opinions. I'm currently working in a computer company, and I would like to start helping in the development of accessible solutions for free software users. I am a new comer in this area, so I would like to make you a simple question: What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? To better understand the goods and bads of orca, I tried to simulate its use by closing my eyes and trying to do tasks in my desktop. Of course it takes time for anybody to get used to it... but still, I don't get it very well. The graphical interface is interesting and can speed the use of the computer. But in case of blind people I feel it slows down even more as we have to create a mental image of the interface. I know linux has good accessiblity support since years in its text mode form. Wondering if you ever tried it, or what you think about it. take care Nuno -- Nuno Donato Serra - Tecnologias de Informação http://www.serra-ti.com geral at serra-ti.com 912456704 / 241631188 From david at miradoiro.com Fri Dec 26 10:55:29 2008 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_Pic=F3n_=C1lvarez?=) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:55:29 +0100 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: <2B229A92C9A241B695A3FC5C07EF135E@Nautilus> From: "Nuno Donato" > What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical > user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? To better > understand the goods and bads of orca, I tried to simulate its use by > closing my eyes and trying to do tasks in my desktop. Of course it takes > time for anybody to get used to it... but still, I don't get it very well. This topic is somewhat controversial, I think, but just speaking for myself: 1) There are many applications that do not exist, or exist poorly, for the console. Say I needed to edit an OpenDocument file. In the console I'd be in trouble. I'm aware there are ways around (I could write it in latex, export to rtf, or some other convoluted thing) but that's not really a solution worth considering. So it's more or less an imperative to at least have access to the GUI. 2) Things like file navigation and so on can be done reasonably efficiently from the console, but most people find it easier to use a more menu-driven interface. Most console apps require more cognitive load in terms of recall and learning than their X counterparts. Whether this cognitive load has returns on efficiency is besides the point, most people don't seem to feel it's worth it. 3) The "social" issue. If I have a doubt about OpenOffice or the like, I can look around on the net, ask a friend to help, etc. If I have a doubt about some specific piece of software designed for blind or visually impaired users in particular, which runs on the console, my resources for finding info will be much smaller. The other way it works too: when a non-blind &c friend asks me something about their setup I have at least half a chance to be able to help them out. 4) Multitasking. The console can be used for multitasking, but it's quite clear that it is a secondary use for it, and in my view it is not as well suited as X. Background tasks can communicate to the user on X in what seems to me are better ways, and it is easier to have any number of apps running than on consoles, and switching around them. Those are the main reasons I see. Maybe some other people see others. I think it's worth using other interfaces like console and emacspeak, but there are also reasons for trying to use the same software other people use. Also, speaking for myself, I don't think using orca requires imagining how the interface actually looks like. Things like menus and so on are abstractions in my mind, I don't really care how they are presented. --David. From bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com Fri Dec 26 10:57:56 2008 From: bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com (Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 10:57:56 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: <4954B8B4.3000406@googlemail.com> On 26/12/08 10:36, Nuno Donato wrote: > What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical > user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? I'd suggest the number one advantage, leaving aside any more theoretical differences, is the ability for blind people to use the same software as other users. Most popular programs are GUI programs. The pool of developers happy to work on software for everyone is much larger than the pool of developers interested in developing text-only software or developing software for people who are blind, and it's less effort to add in accessibility information for GUI programs than rebuild every program as text-only. Equally important is the social angle. Using the same programs as friends and colleagues means being able to share knowledge or play together more easily. Being able to use a GUI program can also make the difference between employability and non-employability. If Linux wants to be a genuine business alternative, then it needs a GUI office suite and that suite needs to be accessible. Also, as software services increasingly move online and as the line between content-driven webpages and web applications is ever more blurred, the ability to use a JS-capable, ARIA-supporting browser like Firefox is paramount. There's nothing like this among the various text browsers. > The graphical interface is interesting and can speed the use of the > computer. But in case of blind people I feel it slows down even more as > we have to create a mental image of the interface. I think the distinction can be exaggerated. Plenty of text-only programs have interfaces and rely on visual positioning, colors, and symbols to communicate rather than using simple input and output models. Most browsers and editors fall into that category for instance. -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis From kenny at hittsjunk.net Fri Dec 26 14:15:14 2008 From: kenny at hittsjunk.net (Kenny Hitt) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 08:15:14 -0600 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: <20081226141514.GD10167@hittsjunk.net> Hi. The short answer is "the world uses it". There are more and more apps in Linux that only exist in the GUI. Web browzing is probably the best example. True, there are text browzers, but none of them provide the access to web sites available with Firefox. Kenny On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 10:36:06AM +0000, Nuno Donato wrote: > Hello everyone > > I sent this email for a specific person, but would also like to get your opinions. > > I'm currently working in a computer company, and I would like to start > helping in the development of accessible solutions for free software users. > > I am a new comer in this area, so I would like to make you a simple > question: > What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical > user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? To better > understand the goods and bads of orca, I tried to simulate its use by > closing my eyes and trying to do tasks in my desktop. Of course it takes > time for anybody to get used to it... but still, I don't get it very well. > > The graphical interface is interesting and can speed the use of the > computer. But in case of blind people I feel it slows down even more as > we have to create a mental image of the interface. > > I know linux has good accessiblity support since years in its text mode > form. > Wondering if you ever tried it, or what you think about it. > > take care > Nuno > > -- > Nuno Donato > > Serra - Tecnologias de Informação > http://www.serra-ti.com > geral at serra-ti.com > 912456704 / 241631188 > > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From jonathon.blake at gmail.com Fri Dec 26 15:30:43 2008 From: jonathon.blake at gmail.com (jonathon) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:30:43 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 10:36, Nuno Donato wrote: > What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? In as much as GUIs are both functionally, and intrinisically, user hostile, and self-limiting, there is no virtue to using them. GUis are popular because of the herd mentality. jonathon From david at miradoiro.com Fri Dec 26 15:44:47 2008 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_Pic=F3n_=C1lvarez?=) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:44:47 +0100 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: <9F92C24055D04355896D6BD92D3D1316@Nautilus> From: "jonathon" > In as much as GUIs are both functionally, and intrinisically, user > hostile, and self-limiting, there is no virtue to using them. > > GUis are popular because of the herd mentality. I like this game! Let me play. Inasmuch as not fully isomorphic orthographies are functionally and intrinsically user-hostile and self-limiting there is no virtue to using them. All alphabetic writing systems to date are popular because of the herd mentality. Hmm, let's play another one. Inasmuch as alternate current transport is wasteful, there is no virtue to using it. AC is popular because of the herd mentality. I could play this game all evening. But I have more productive things to do. --David. PS The herd mentality is often also known as economies of scale. From ans at meo.pt Sun Dec 28 17:11:30 2008 From: ans at meo.pt (Andre Nuno Soares) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:11:30 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> Message-ID: <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> Hello Nuno, I agree with the reasons given so far (broader base of developers / users, some kinds of apps you can only find in X, employability, etc). The most important reason, however (IMHO), is that I don't want a browser for the blind, I want all browsers to be accessible to everyone, including, for instance, people with motor disabilities who can't use a normal keyboard, but who see perfectly ok. André On Fri, 2008-12-26 at 10:36 +0000, Nuno Donato wrote: > Hello everyone > > I sent this email for a specific person, but would also like to get your opinions. > > I'm currently working in a computer company, and I would like to start > helping in the development of accessible solutions for free software users. > > I am a new comer in this area, so I would like to make you a simple > question: > What is the advantage of using something so complicated as a graphical > user interface, instead of using a text-only alternative? To better > understand the goods and bads of orca, I tried to simulate its use by > closing my eyes and trying to do tasks in my desktop. Of course it takes > time for anybody to get used to it... but still, I don't get it very well. > > The graphical interface is interesting and can speed the use of the > computer. But in case of blind people I feel it slows down even more as > we have to create a mental image of the interface. > > I know linux has good accessiblity support since years in its text mode > form. > Wondering if you ever tried it, or what you think about it. > > take care > Nuno > > -- > Nuno Donato > > Serra - Tecnologias de Informação > http://www.serra-ti.com > geral at serra-ti.com > 912456704 / 241631188 > > From jonathon.blake at gmail.com Sun Dec 28 21:11:18 2008 From: jonathon.blake at gmail.com (jonathon) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:11:18 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> Message-ID: On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 17:11, Andre Nuno Soares wrote: > browser for the blind, I want all browsers to be accessible to everyone, The practical reality is that a11y requirements can be mutually exclusive. What works for one set of a11y issues, need not, and often actively hinders, a different set of a11y issues. I'm aware of the research that, if it works, promises to meet any/all a11y requirements, without hampering any. However, the current projected cost of the hardware that solution requires, is in the high three, low four digit range. (If that hardware is more popular than projected, with the primary audience, it might drop to the low three digit range. However, that is a might big _if_.) How much the software for that hardware will cost, is anybody's guess. jonathon From kb8aey at verizon.net Sun Dec 28 21:22:38 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:22:38 -0600 (CST) Subject: I'm having trouble playing a dvd in intrepid Message-ID: <0KCL006XMVDPMEK1@vms046.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I am using intrepid and have had no luck getting a DVD to play. Has anyone had luck with this? If so, how did you get your DVD to play. I followed the instructions and installed the program suggested, but no luck. Mike. From bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com Sun Dec 28 21:54:21 2008 From: bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com (Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:54:21 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> Message-ID: <4957F58D.3090500@googlemail.com> On 28/12/08 21:11, jonathon wrote: > The practical reality is that a11y requirements can be mutually > exclusive. What works for one set of a11y issues, need not, and often > actively hinders, a different set of a11y issues. Do you have a knockout example of accessibility requirements where the different needs could not be met by reconfiguration in a single browser? Opera is a good example of browser that attempts to cater towards the needs of a wide variety of different disabilities: * It has zoom and fit-to-width capabilities. * You can set a minimum font size. * It comes bundled with a range of built-in alternate stylesheets, including high contrast layouts. * You can apply a user stylesheet. * It has the best built-in keyboard navigation of any popular browser, including spatial navigation with the arrow keys, skipping from form control to form control with the tab key, skipping from link to link, skipping from heading to heading. * On Windows, the Voice plugin allows Opera both to read webpages and be controlled by voice. * It includes screen reader support on Windows and Mac. (This is currently in a somewhat rudimentary state having recently been reintroduced, but it is there.) I wouldn't say it has absolutely everything - for example, it doesn't include a provision for turning words into pictures like WebWide can - and it's not my browser of choice, but I don't see any fundamental technical barriers to adding new things to Opera's toolkit. The value of keeping these things in one browser is a lot of the complicated work that browsers do needs doing for a wide range of disabilities, including: * HTTP and FTP protocol communciation * Parsing the various languages and codes (HTML, CSS, image formats). * Scripting engine (JavaScript). * Visual rendering of webpages. This work would have to duplicated if there were to be browsers dedicated to every disability group under the sun. Catering to different disabilities is purely a matter of adding the ideal content transformations and user interface to match. -- Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis From ans at meo.pt Mon Dec 29 01:00:49 2008 From: ans at meo.pt (Andre Nuno Soares) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:00:49 +0000 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? In-Reply-To: References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> Message-ID: <1230512449.25800.91.camel@shogun> Hi jonathon, On Sun, 2008-12-28 at 21:11 +0000, jonathon wrote: > The practical reality is that a11y requirements can be mutually > exclusive. What works for one set of a11y issues, need not, and often > actively hinders, a different set of a11y issues. I regularly use a long distance train that has an entrance and bathroom accessible for wheel chairs, but where the seats are only numbered in ink )no braille). On the other hand, all ATM machines in Portugal have a spoken menu for VI people, but they are only now thinking of adding an interface using pictures (a deaf from birth has a great dificulty learning to read). These aren't cases of "mutually exclusive", but rather of not thinking broadly. How expensive would it be to have special trains only for VI people? André PS: I cross-posted to gnome-accessibility because I think the topic is broader than one Linux distro. From kb8aey at verizon.net Mon Dec 29 01:03:21 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:03:21 -0600 (CST) Subject: 9.04 live cd Message-ID: <0KCM000T55LL2RD1@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I tried downloading the 9.04 again today and it still apears to need a username and password. Does anyone know what is going on? Ubuntu as a user namd leaving the password blank doesn't work. Mike X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 081228-0, 12/28/2008), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean From ignasicambra at gmail.com Mon Dec 29 03:50:03 2008 From: ignasicambra at gmail.com (Ignasi Cambra) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:50:03 -0500 Subject: why using graphics mode for a11y? References: <4954B396.1090600@serra-ti.com> <1230484290.5628.55.camel@shogun> <1230512449.25800.91.camel@shogun> Message-ID: <1AFD4F11C4354595BE4D31483F34C77C@BLRHICAMBRA> Oh well, and what about all those vending machines on which you need to press a letter and a number to get the product that you want, and which have nice braille keypads but no braille instructions for the blind to know which number is assigned to each product? That's probably the stupidest thing ever... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andre Nuno Soares" To: Cc: Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2008 8:00 PM Subject: Re: why using graphics mode for a11y? > Hi jonathon, > On Sun, 2008-12-28 at 21:11 +0000, jonathon wrote: >> The practical reality is that a11y requirements can be mutually >> exclusive. What works for one set of a11y issues, need not, and often >> actively hinders, a different set of a11y issues. > > I regularly use a long distance train that has an entrance and bathroom > accessible for wheel chairs, but where the seats are only numbered in > ink )no braille). > > On the other hand, all ATM machines in Portugal have a spoken menu for > VI people, but they are only now thinking of adding an interface using > pictures (a deaf from birth has a great dificulty learning to read). > > These aren't cases of "mutually exclusive", but rather of not thinking > broadly. > > How expensive would it be to have special trains only for VI people? > > > André > PS: I cross-posted to gnome-accessibility because I think the topic is > broader than one Linux distro. > > > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > From kb8aey at verizon.net Tue Dec 30 23:21:36 2008 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:21:36 -0600 (CST) Subject: ubuntu and dell computers Message-ID: <0KCP00JHLQ80NHS5@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, does anyone know why ubuntu will not work on several dell computers? Dell seems to be the only brand of computer that I have problems running ubuntu on. On some of the computers Ubuntu will load, but if you try to run Orca it will not work. Yet I get the lobin sound after the cd finishes booting. Mike. From finlac at mail.com Tue Dec 30 23:30:26 2008 From: finlac at mail.com (Chuck Finlayson) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:30:26 -0500 Subject: No subject Message-ID: <20081230233026.BD7E51059C@ws1-3.us4.outblaze.com> Please remove me from your email list. Thanks,Charles Finlayson -- Be Yourself @ mail.com! Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at www.mail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: