From garrys.lists at gmail.com Mon Jun 1 00:30:01 2009 From: garrys.lists at gmail.com (Garry Turkington) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 20:30:01 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation In-Reply-To: <006a01c9e23d$cc8720a0$659561e0$@net> References: <003001c9e230$b4d22bb0$1e768310$@net> <872FDDC4-08B4-4777-86A4-F10CF14B3C17@gmail.com> <005c01c9e238$09cbb1c0$1d631540$@net> <4A22FB30.2060807@thewordnerd.info> <006a01c9e23d$cc8720a0$659561e0$@net> Message-ID: Hi, I've had 9.04 desktop successfully installed under VMware Workstation. 2 things of note: 1. The prior startup sound of a few drumbeats is gone. 2. On first boot and subsequent boots the system volume is set to a low level and also muted. I've managed to get Orca working but no matter what I do the sound is always muted and reset on each boot. I hadn't considered if maybe it was a peculiarity of the virtualized sound device but I guess anything is possible... Garry -- Garry Turkington garry.turkington at gmail.com On Sun, 31 May 2009, Chris Meredith wrote: > It's been a while or three since I've played with Linux. I'm at a > "Username:" prompt, but more than that's impossible to tell. I should still > be getting the Ubuntu startup sound, even without Orca, should I not? > > > > From: Nolan Darilek [mailto:nolan at thewordnerd.info] > Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 2:49 PM > To: Chris Meredith > Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Subject: Re: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation > > > > On 05/31/2009 04:37 PM, Chris Meredith wrote: > > Wow. I'm getting . actually no audio whatsoever, regardless of what I do, > with this edition of Ubuntu. I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't maybe > download the server edition in error. > > > > Can you at least tell if GNOME has launched? If so then you've definitely > got the desktop edition. > > From tallin32 at comcast.net Mon Jun 1 00:42:16 2009 From: tallin32 at comcast.net (Chris Meredith) Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 17:42:16 -0700 Subject: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation In-Reply-To: References: <003001c9e230$b4d22bb0$1e768310$@net> <872FDDC4-08B4-4777-86A4-F10CF14B3C17@gmail.com> <005c01c9e238$09cbb1c0$1d631540$@net> <4A22FB30.2060807@thewordnerd.info> <006a01c9e23d$cc8720a0$659561e0$@net> Message-ID: <008c01c9e251$d046a990$70d3fcb0$@net> Were these oddities particular to 9.04? As I mentioned, I'm not running into these issues with the live CD of Vinux, and the live CD of 9.04 has sound but at a very low level (not muted, however). -----Original Message----- From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Garry Turkington Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 5:30 PM To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Subject: RE: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation Hi, I've had 9.04 desktop successfully installed under VMware Workstation. 2 things of note: 1. The prior startup sound of a few drumbeats is gone. 2. On first boot and subsequent boots the system volume is set to a low level and also muted. I've managed to get Orca working but no matter what I do the sound is always muted and reset on each boot. I hadn't considered if maybe it was a peculiarity of the virtualized sound device but I guess anything is possible... Garry -- Garry Turkington garry.turkington at gmail.com On Sun, 31 May 2009, Chris Meredith wrote: > It's been a while or three since I've played with Linux. I'm at a > "Username:" prompt, but more than that's impossible to tell. I should still > be getting the Ubuntu startup sound, even without Orca, should I not? > > > > From: Nolan Darilek [mailto:nolan at thewordnerd.info] > Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 2:49 PM > To: Chris Meredith > Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Subject: Re: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation > > > > On 05/31/2009 04:37 PM, Chris Meredith wrote: > > Wow. I'm getting . actually no audio whatsoever, regardless of what I do, > with this edition of Ubuntu. I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't maybe > download the server edition in error. > > > > Can you at least tell if GNOME has launched? If so then you've definitely > got the desktop edition. > > -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From garrys.lists at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 03:59:33 2009 From: garrys.lists at gmail.com (Garry Turkington) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 23:59:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation In-Reply-To: <008c01c9e251$d046a990$70d3fcb0$@net> References: <003001c9e230$b4d22bb0$1e768310$@net> <872FDDC4-08B4-4777-86A4-F10CF14B3C17@gmail.com> <005c01c9e238$09cbb1c0$1d631540$@net> <4A22FB30.2060807@thewordnerd.info> <006a01c9e23d$cc8720a0$659561e0$@net> <008c01c9e251$d046a990$70d3fcb0$@net> Message-ID: Hi, When I've had previous Ubuntu versions (8.10, 8.04 and earlier) installed under VMware I didn't have any of the particular quirks I've got with 9.04. Two additional points though: 1. I discovered that though the drumbeat start-up sound no longer plays automatically at the login screen hitting escape does trigger it. 2. From others on this list if you use the live CD or install with Orca support then your 9.04 experience seems to be much less painful. I did a VMware smart install on 9.04 however which meant I needed to get sound working the hard way. Cheers, Garry -- Garry Turkington garry.turkington at gmail.com On Sun, 31 May 2009, Chris Meredith wrote: > > Were these oddities particular to 9.04? As I mentioned, I'm not running > into these issues with the live CD of Vinux, and the live CD of 9.04 has > sound but at a very low level (not muted, however). > -----Original Message----- > From: ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com > [mailto:ubuntu-accessibility-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Garry > Turkington > Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 5:30 PM > To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Subject: RE: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation > > Hi, > > I've had 9.04 desktop successfully installed under VMware Workstation. 2 > things of note: > > 1. The prior startup sound of a few drumbeats is gone. > 2. On first boot and subsequent boots the system volume is set to a low > level and also muted. > > I've managed to get Orca working but no matter what I do the sound is > always muted and reset on each boot. I hadn't considered if maybe it was > a peculiarity of the virtualized sound device but I guess anything is > possible... > > Garry > > -- > Garry Turkington > garry.turkington at gmail.com > > On Sun, 31 May 2009, Chris Meredith wrote: > >> It's been a while or three since I've played with Linux. I'm at a >> "Username:" prompt, but more than that's impossible to tell. I should > still >> be getting the Ubuntu startup sound, even without Orca, should I not? >> >> >> >> From: Nolan Darilek [mailto:nolan at thewordnerd.info] >> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 2:49 PM >> To: Chris Meredith >> Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com >> Subject: Re: Issues with installing Ubuntu 9.04 under VMWare Workstation >> >> >> >> On 05/31/2009 04:37 PM, Chris Meredith wrote: >> >> Wow. I'm getting . actually no audio whatsoever, regardless of what I do, >> with this edition of Ubuntu. I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't maybe >> download the server edition in error. >> >> >> >> Can you at least tell if GNOME has launched? If so then you've definitely >> got the desktop edition. >> >> > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > From garrys.lists at gmail.com Wed Jun 3 04:01:27 2009 From: garrys.lists at gmail.com (Garry Turkington) Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 00:01:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Speech-dispatcher and the -generic modules for Dectalk and Swift voices Message-ID: Hi, After living with an old speakup 2.x install for an age I finally got around to building an up-to-date Ubuntu install. I've got Orca working with gnome-speech but also want speakup for terminal access. Since I want to use either Dectalk or Cepstral voices I've configured speech-dispatcher/speechd-up and can get it to work fine with espeak. But when I try to use the dtk-generic module I get no speech via spd-say. At first it appeared to be an Alsa/OSS thing as I think speech-dispatcher was locking /dev/dsp and the Dectalk libraries seem to want to talk to it directly via OSS. So I switched speech-dispatcher to use OSS and the conflict is gone in that while speech-dispatcher is configured with espeak I can successfully use the Dectalk command line say utility. But when I try and move to the dtk-generic module I get nothing. Plainly there's some incantation I'm missing here -- does anyone know it? I'll move onto Cepstral Swift after hopefully resolving this -- currently just loading the Swift module kills speech-dispatcher... Thanks, Garry -- Garry Turkington garry.turkington at gmail.com From kb8aey at verizon.net Fri Jun 5 05:45:36 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:45:36 -0500 (CDT) Subject: a question about the ubuntu desktop Message-ID: <0KKR00CV23ZZZ6O6@vms173019.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I have the karmic development build of ubuntu working good except for one thing. When I uninstall pulseaudio, it also uninstalls the ubuntu desktop. It must not have uninstalled anything other than graphics because everything still seems to be the same in the menus. But after that every time I log in I get a error sound and loading stops. Pressing enter causes it to finish loading and Orca starts talking fine. I installed pulse again and still got the error. But when I installed the ubuntu desktop it went away. The problem is, when I install the ubuntu desktop, it installs pulseaudio. Does anyone know what programs are part of the desktop. Obviously it isn't much because it only took a few seconds to install. If I know the programs maybe I can find the one needed to stop the error. Mike. From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 03:15:54 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:15:54 -0400 Subject: Reading Messages in Thunderbird Message-ID: <000f01c9e655$1acc1200$50643600$@rr.com> Okay, thanks to several suggestions on this list, I installed the latest Thunderbird beta rather than using Orca. Although I can open and read messages in Thunderbird with Orca, I don't see how to easily do it. When I hit enter on a message, I'm put in some kind of shredder app window and arrow keys don't do anything. Similarly when hitting F6 or F8. I've managed to get into the message body and read it by hitting tab about a million times. What is the easy way to read the contents of a message. Oh yes, I've selected HTML format. Was that bad? Thanks. --Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 03:20:27 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:20:27 -0400 Subject: Orca Flat Review Mode Message-ID: <001401c9e655$bd41e230$37c5a690$@rr.com> Using the desktop keyboard layout in Orca, the documentation says that hitting the NumPad - should toggle into and out of Flat Review mode. First of all, Orca never announces whether I am in flat review mode or not, so I never know whether or not I'm actually in this mode. Also, when I use the NumPad keys to navigate, it doesn't seem to matter whether or not I pressed the NumPad minus to toggle flat review mode. I move around the screen the same way in either case. Thanks. --Pete Am I missing something here about this flat review mode? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 03:23:10 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:23:10 -0400 Subject: Are There ORCA settings for Thunderbird? Message-ID: <001901c9e656$1ebabbe0$5c3033a0$@rr.com> One more Thunderbird question. When running Thunderbird, I got into the ORCA preferences to see if there were any special ORCA hotkeys for use with Thunderbird. I didn't see any. It got me to thinking if there was something else I was supposed to install besides just the beta version of Thunderbird in order to run Thunderbird with ORCA. Are there special ORCA configuration files for Thunderbird? If so, where can I obtain them? Thanks. --Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From daxlinux at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 04:20:20 2009 From: daxlinux at gmail.com (Lorenzo Taylor) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:20:20 -0400 Subject: Orca Flat Review Mode In-Reply-To: <001401c9e655$bd41e230$37c5a690$@rr.com> References: <001401c9e655$bd41e230$37c5a690$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A29EE84.609@gmail.com> The actual behavior of flat review appears to differ somewhat from the docs. First off, pressing any keypad key will move the flat review focus, no matter what you do with the keypad dash key. Secondly, the keypad dash key appears to only sync the flat review to the actual focus. So as I am writing this I can move to a different line, word or character within my message or onto the menu bar at the top of the window just by pressing the flat review keys on the keypad. Whenever I want to come back to the cursor, I simply press the keypad dash and it syncs back with the cursor and I can start the process over. Otherwise, I also have the option to left or right click on the place where my flat review focus is using the keypad star and slash keys. Maybe a bug should be filed against the documentation to explain this more clearly or a feature request should be filed to better tailor the flat review to your liking, but the behavior you describe has been the norm since I started using Orca on a regular basis about 4 years ago. Feel free to file such a bug or feature request if you still have trouble with this or any other aspect of Orca or its functionality. Instructions for doing this can be found at http://live.gnome.org/Orca HTH and good luck, Lorenzo -- Nia diligenta kolegaro En laboro paca ne laciĝos, Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos. --La Espero, himno de Esperanto From daxlinux at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 04:27:27 2009 From: daxlinux at gmail.com (Lorenzo Taylor) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:27:27 -0400 Subject: Are There ORCA settings for Thunderbird? In-Reply-To: <001901c9e656$1ebabbe0$5c3033a0$@rr.com> References: <001901c9e656$1ebabbe0$5c3033a0$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A29F02F.60002@gmail.com> The navigation keys used in Thunderbird are pretty much the same as those in Firefox. You can use the P and p keys to move by paragraph, the o and O keys to move by "large object", etc. These bindings should be in the Orca application preferences. On my system, I press Orca+control+space and go to key bindings. From there, the keys you want should be listed under "Shredder". HTH, Lorenzo -- Nia diligenta kolegaro En laboro paca ne laciĝos, Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos. --La Espero, himno de Esperanto From kb8aey at verizon.net Sat Jun 6 05:04:51 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:04:51 -0500 (CDT) Subject: a question about thunderbird Message-ID: <0KKS008MOWS31LWG@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I have seen some messages on thunderbird lately. Is it now usable with orca? The last time I tried it wasn't. I know the beta of thunderbird 3 is pretty axcessable in windows. I didn't see a linux version of that beta on portable apps. Mike. From daxlinux at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 05:31:35 2009 From: daxlinux at gmail.com (Lorenzo Taylor) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:31:35 -0400 Subject: a question about thunderbird In-Reply-To: <0KKS008MOWS31LWG@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KKS008MOWS31LWG@vms173003.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <4A29FF37.9020104@gmail.com> The Thunderbird 3.0 beta is quite usable with Orca. I have been using it for over 6 months now with little trouble. I got it from the Mozilla ppa on launchpad. Just paste the lines below into a file and copy it into /etc/apt/sources.list.d. Be sure to replace jaunty with the version of Ubuntu you are using. # Mozilla prerelease packages for Ubuntu Jaunty deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe This will give you the latest Thunderbird as well as the latest Firefox prereleases. HTH, Lorenzo -- Nia diligenta kolegaro En laboro paca ne laciĝos, Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos. --La Espero, himno de Esperanto From garrys.lists at gmail.com Sat Jun 6 14:57:53 2009 From: garrys.lists at gmail.com (Garry Turkington) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 10:57:53 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Speech-dispatcher and the -generic modules for Dectalk and Swift voices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi, Following up on my own post as I solved my problems and wanted to share in case it's helpful to others. Firstly, never underestimate the power of user error. I'd screwed up a symlink to the Dectalk say executable so speech-dispatcher couldn't find it. The log files in /var/log/speech-dispatcher (one per module) are really really helpful. I also found that reducing the number of speech-dispatcher modules added to the absolute minimum needed helped. I was getting a broken pipe error when trying to use Cepstral but it seems to have been caused by a different module that I wasn't using. Uncommenting only the espeak, dectalk and cepstral modules meant I could get all working. The ALSA/OSS problem did arise so installing the aoss tool from the alsa-oss package was the answer. I changed the relevant module conf file to use that when calling the executable and again that worked out. I tried various sound output and for Dectalk at least I was getting minor clicks at the end of each utterance when using PulseAudio. For this synth I found the ALSA output with the aoss as described above worked best. Because the Swift module actually generates a wav file and then sends that to the sound system I find the swift module has too much lag for my tastes. Which is a shame as the Cepstral voices are superb. Hope that's useful to someone, Garry -- Garry Turkington garry.turkington at gmail.com On Wed, 3 Jun 2009, Garry Turkington wrote: > Hi, > > After living with an old speakup 2.x install for an age I finally got > around to building an up-to-date Ubuntu install. I've > got Orca working with gnome-speech but also want speakup for terminal > access. > > Since I want to use either Dectalk or Cepstral voices I've configured > speech-dispatcher/speechd-up and can get it to work > fine with espeak. But when I try to use the dtk-generic module I get no > speech via spd-say. > > At first it appeared to be an Alsa/OSS thing as I think speech-dispatcher > was locking /dev/dsp and the Dectalk libraries > seem to want to talk to it directly via OSS. So I switched > speech-dispatcher to use OSS and the conflict is gone in that > while speech-dispatcher is configured with espeak I can successfully use > the Dectalk command line say utility. But when I > try and move to the dtk-generic module I get nothing. > > Plainly there's some incantation I'm missing here -- does anyone know it? > > I'll move onto Cepstral Swift after hopefully resolving this -- currently > just loading the Swift module kills > speech-dispatcher... > > Thanks, > Garry > > > -- > Garry Turkington > garry.turkington at gmail.com > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 14:59:30 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 10:59:30 -0400 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird Message-ID: <007301c9e6b7$651f17f0$2f5d47d0$@rr.com> Thanks for the suggestions on Thunderbirdf, flat review mode, etc. I'll get on the Orca bug list and follow up with some of these issues. Anyway, I have a few more questions about Thunderbird: 1. 1. What is the best way to open and read a message in Thunderbird? I haven't been able to do this without performing a lot of tabbing. I'm used to just hitting enter on messages to read them, but that doesn't seem to work in Thunderbird with Orca. 2. I installed the Thunderbird beta manually into the /opt/thunderbird folder and created a shortcut on the start menu. Someone on the list suggested that I could add the line: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d file. I assume that this will add the beta packages to my list of available packages. The question is, if I now use this aptitude packager installer, where does the installed version of Thunderbird go and will it conflict with what I have installed in the /opt/thunderbird directory (or will it overwrite it)? Should I remove the version which I manually installed and configure Thunderbird again? Thanks for any clarifications. --Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From huntp at ukonline.co.uk Sat Jun 6 15:33:17 2009 From: huntp at ukonline.co.uk (Paul Hunt) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:33:17 +0100 Subject: Speech-dispatcher and the -generic modules for Dectalk and Swift voices In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2A8C3D.4080200@ukonline.co.uk> Hi, Thanks for the tip of commenting out all modules you're not actually using. I was having trouble getting speech-dispatcher to work at all with the swift module uncommented. In my case I also had to add the name of my voice to the swift-generic config file before it would work. I now have sd working through pulse with espeak, viavoice and swift. I have the output mode in sd set to oss then run speech-dispatcher with the padsp command. Thanks. Paul On 06/06/09 15:57, Garry Turkington wrote: > Hi, > > Following up on my own post as I solved my problems and wanted to share in > case it's helpful to others. > > Firstly, never underestimate the power of user error. I'd screwed up a > symlink to the Dectalk say executable so speech-dispatcher couldn't find > it. The log files in /var/log/speech-dispatcher (one per module) are > really really helpful. > > I also found that reducing the number of speech-dispatcher modules added > to the absolute minimum needed helped. I was getting a broken pipe error > when trying to use Cepstral but it seems to have been caused by a > different module that I wasn't using. Uncommenting only the espeak, > dectalk and cepstral modules meant I could get all working. > > The ALSA/OSS problem did arise so installing the aoss tool from the > alsa-oss package was the answer. I changed the relevant module conf file > to use that when calling the executable and again that worked out. > > I tried various sound output and for Dectalk at least I was getting minor > clicks at the end of each utterance when using PulseAudio. For this synth > I found the ALSA output with the aoss as described above worked best. > > Because the Swift module actually generates a wav file and then sends that > to the sound system I find the swift module has too much lag for my > tastes. Which is a shame as the Cepstral voices are superb. > > Hope that's useful to someone, > Garry > > From huntp at ukonline.co.uk Sat Jun 6 15:39:27 2009 From: huntp at ukonline.co.uk (Paul Hunt) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 16:39:27 +0100 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird In-Reply-To: <007301c9e6b7$651f17f0$2f5d47d0$@rr.com> References: <007301c9e6b7$651f17f0$2f5d47d0$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A2A8DAF.5060508@ukonline.co.uk> Hi, That's a bit odd, you should be able to just hit enter on a message then read it with the arrow keys. Are you sure you have the latest version - the third beta? I'm not sure where thunderbird would install to if you use the package manager but I would guess it would install into /usr Paul On 06/06/09 15:59, Peter Torpey wrote: > > Thanks for the suggestions on Thunderbirdf, flat review mode, etc. > I'll get on the Orca bug list and follow up with some of these issues. > > Anyway, I have a few more questions about Thunderbird: > > 1. 1. What is the best way to open and read a message in > Thunderbird? I haven't been able to do this without performing a lot > of tabbing. I'm used to just hitting enter on messages to read them, > but that doesn't seem to work in Thunderbird with Orca. > > 2. I installed the Thunderbird beta manually into the /opt/thunderbird > folder and created a shortcut on the start menu. > > Someone on the list suggested that I could add the line: > deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe > in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d file. > I assume that this will add the beta packages to my list of available > packages. The question is, if I now use this aptitude packager > installer, where does the installed version of Thunderbird go and will > it conflict with what I have installed in the /opt/thunderbird > directory (or will it overwrite it)? Should I remove the version > which I manually installed and configure Thunderbird again? > > Thanks for any clarifications. > > --Pete > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From schneider_jann at yahoo.de Sat Jun 6 16:34:37 2009 From: schneider_jann at yahoo.de (Jann Schneider) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:34:37 +0200 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird In-Reply-To: <4A2A8DAF.5060508@ukonline.co.uk> References: <007301c9e6b7$651f17f0$2f5d47d0$@rr.com> <4A2A8DAF.5060508@ukonline.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2A9A9D.6030006@yahoo.de> Hi, > On 06/06/09 15:59, Peter Torpey wrote: >> >> >> 1. 1. What is the best way to open and read a message in >> Thunderbird? I haven't been able to do this without performing a lot >> of tabbing. I'm used to just hitting enter on messages to read them, >> but that doesn't seem to work in Thunderbird with Orca. >> Perhaps this happens because you are reading the mails in original html? Take a look into the view menu -> Message Body as.. Here "plain text" should be activated. >> 2. I installed the Thunderbird beta manually into the >> /opt/thunderbird folder and created a shortcut on the start menu. >> >> Someone on the list suggested that I could add the line: >> deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe >> in the /etc/apt/sources.list.d file. >> I assume that this will add the beta packages to my list of available >> packages. The question is, if I now use this aptitude packager >> installer, where does the installed version of Thunderbird go and >> will it conflict with what I have installed in the /opt/thunderbird >> directory (or will it overwrite it)? Should I remove the version >> which I manually installed and configure Thunderbird again? >> I had to add this line directly into my /etc/apt/sources.list to get this work.. After doing an apt-get update i had some more thunderbird packages available called for example "thunderbird-3.0" or "thunderbird-3.0-gnome-support". If one installs the tb3 package via aptitude it will overwrite his links for example /usr/bin/thunderbird .. but I think it woun't replace your /opt/thunderbird folder. This is also a problem as fahr as update manager is concerned: this app will also replace your linkss if updattes for tb are installed via it. I would suggest to use the tb and ff from the repo instead of installing manually to /opt/thunderbird. But this is just my opinion, because I repeadedly had to restore the links .. Regards Jann ___________________________________________________________ Der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm. Hier gelangen Sie zum neuen Yahoo! Mail: http://mail.yahoo.de From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 17:57:25 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 13:57:25 -0400 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird Message-ID: <00cb01c9e6d0$40588960$c1099c20$@rr.com> Jan, Yes, I had the view set to read the mail in HTML format. Doesn't this work with tb? I thought that would make navigation easier and format more accurate. I'll try setting the view to plain text. If Tb doesn't work with HTML view, should that be noted on the Orca bug list? As I indicated, I could navigate to the message body and read it in the HTML view, but it certainly wasn't easy to get there. T Hanks. -- Pete From: Jann Schneider Subject: Re: A few more questions on Thunderbird To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com Message-ID: <4A2A9A9D.6030006 at yahoo.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Hi, > On 06/06/09 15:59, Peter Torpey wrote: >> >> >> 1. 1. What is the best way to open and read a message in >> Thunderbird? I haven't been able to do this without performing a lot >> of tabbing. I'm used to just hitting enter on messages to read them, >> but that doesn't seem to work in Thunderbird with Orca. >> Perhaps this happens because you are reading the mails in original html? Take a look into the view menu -> Message Body as.. Here "plain text" should be activated. From huntp at ukonline.co.uk Sat Jun 6 18:08:56 2009 From: huntp at ukonline.co.uk (Paul Hunt) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:08:56 +0100 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird In-Reply-To: <00cb01c9e6d0$40588960$c1099c20$@rr.com> References: <00cb01c9e6d0$40588960$c1099c20$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A2AB0B8.8010901@ukonline.co.uk> Hi, I have the view set to html and it works fine for me. Paul On 06/06/09 18:57, Peter Torpey wrote: > Jan, > > Yes, I had the view set to read the mail in HTML format. Doesn't this work > with tb? I thought that would make navigation easier and format more > accurate. > > I'll try setting the view to plain text. > If > Tb doesn't work with HTML view, should that be noted on the Orca bug list? > As I indicated, I could navigate to the message body and read it in the HTML > view, but it certainly wasn't easy to get there. > T > Hanks. > -- > Pete > > From: Jann Schneider > Subject: Re: A few more questions on Thunderbird > To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > Message-ID:<4A2A9A9D.6030006 at yahoo.de> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi, > > >> On 06/06/09 15:59, Peter Torpey wrote: >> >>> >>> 1. 1. What is the best way to open and read a message in >>> Thunderbird? I haven't been able to do this without performing a lot >>> of tabbing. I'm used to just hitting enter on messages to read them, >>> but that doesn't seem to work in Thunderbird with Orca. >>> >>> > Perhaps this happens because you are reading the mails in original html? > Take a look into the view menu -> Message Body as.. > Here "plain text" should be activated. > > > From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sat Jun 6 18:58:54 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 14:58:54 -0400 Subject: Thunderbird Problem Solved In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A2ABC6E.20907@rochester.rr.com> I reported not being able to get into the message of a message by hitting enter or F6. I was going to try and change from HTML view to text view as suggested, but then I restarted Ubuntu. After restarting Ubuntu and loggin in agin, all seems to work this time. Thus, maybe this was a startup problem with the first install of tb. My first tests were after setting up and configuring tb, but I had never rebooted. Thanks everyone for their help. Everything is working nicely now. The only thing that I think is missing is the ability to use first-letter navigation in the tree view of folders. Currently one has to arrow down through the list to find the folder one wants to access. --Pete From daxlinux at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 01:47:14 2009 From: daxlinux at gmail.com (Lorenzo Taylor) Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:47:14 -0400 Subject: A few more questions on Thunderbird In-Reply-To: <4A2AB0B8.8010901@ukonline.co.uk> References: <00cb01c9e6d0$40588960$c1099c20$@rr.com> <4A2AB0B8.8010901@ukonline.co.uk> Message-ID: <4A2B1C22.2000901@gmail.com> Try pressing f7. This should turn on the browsing mode where you can arrow around in a message. You can also check it from the view menu. HTH, Lorenzo -- Nia diligenta kolegaro En laboro paca ne laciĝos, Ĝis la bela sonĝo de l' homaro Por eterna ben' efektiviĝos. --La Espero, himno de Esperanto From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sun Jun 7 15:31:02 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:31:02 -0400 Subject: Problm linking to Mozilla nightly builds Message-ID: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> I tried linking to the Mozilla nightly builds of Firefox and Thunderbird by adding the following line: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe in the file /etc/apt/source.list As root, I did the command apt-get update in order to update the list of available packes. This complained that there wasn't a public key available for this link. How do I fix this and properly link to the nightly builds so that I can take advantage of the improving accewssibility? Also, as a side note, should I be updating Orca more regularly in a similar fashion? Thanks. --Pete From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sun Jun 7 15:34:05 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:34:05 -0400 Subject: Login sounds not being directed to proper sound device Message-ID: <4A2BDDED.1090007@rochester.rr.com> I have two USB audio devices. I have ORCA set to speak out of one of these devices. Unfortunantely, when I reboot, the usual bongo sound which indicates it's safe to log in is coming out of the second audio device (whose speakers I usually ahve turned off since this is for my music playback). After loggin in, all other sounds (like the login sound) come out of the first audio device as they should. What should I change to have the pre-login sound of the bongos come out of the proper sound card? I've tried various sound settings but to no avail. Thanks. --Pete From huntp at ukonline.co.uk Sun Jun 7 15:38:04 2009 From: huntp at ukonline.co.uk (Paul Hunt) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:38:04 +0100 Subject: Problm linking to Mozilla nightly builds In-Reply-To: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> References: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> Message-ID: <4A2BDEDC.70106@ukonline.co.uk> Hi, I wouldn't bother with the sources list file. Just use Help menu > Check for updates... option in Thunderbird regularly to keep it up to date. Paul On 07/06/09 16:31, Peter Torpey wrote: > I tried linking to the Mozilla nightly builds of Firefox and Thunderbird > by adding the following line: > deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe > in the file /etc/apt/source.list > > As root, I did the command > apt-get update > in order to update the list of available packes. > This complained that there wasn't a public key available for this link. > > How do I fix this and properly link to the nightly builds so that I can > take advantage of the improving accewssibility? > > Also, as a side note, should I be updating Orca more regularly in a > similar fashion? > > Thanks. > > --Pete > > > From steve at fullmeasure.co.uk Sun Jun 7 19:23:47 2009 From: steve at fullmeasure.co.uk (Steve Lee) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 20:23:47 +0100 Subject: Problm linking to Mozilla nightly builds In-Reply-To: <4A2BDEDC.70106@ukonline.co.uk> References: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> <4A2BDEDC.70106@ukonline.co.uk> Message-ID: 2009/6/7 Paul Hunt : > I wouldn't bother with the sources list file. > > Just use Help menu > Check for updates... option in Thunderbird > regularly to keep it up to date. +1, at least with FFx you can just copy the nightly into a directory in your home and run it there with no problems. Just check for updates every day as Paul Says. You might want to use ther profile manager to keep your main profile isolated (-profilemanager) Steve Lee Open Accessibility - fullmeasure.co.uk From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sun Jun 7 20:26:45 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:26:45 -0400 Subject: Problem Configuring Grade 2 braille Message-ID: <4A2C2285.5010009@rochester.rr.com> From the instructions page on the Orca web site, I tried to configure Grade 2 braille. I've restarted the computer, but still, Orca has no choice for enabling Grade 2 as it should. Perhaps there is some other configuration setting not mentioned in the instructions? Here are the commands I ran: ./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-ucs4 ./configure --enable-liblouis=yes make make install The output made it look like everything went okay, but obviously it didn't since I don't have any option in Orca for using Grade 2. Any ideas are welcome. -- Pete From vilmar at informal.com.br Sun Jun 7 23:43:51 2009 From: vilmar at informal.com.br (jose vilmar estacio de souza) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:43:51 -0300 Subject: Problm linking to Mozilla nightly builds In-Reply-To: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> References: <4A2BDD36.1060107@rochester.rr.com> Message-ID: <4A2C50B7.6010408@informal.com.br> HI, Take a look at https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mozilla-daily/+archive/ppa On 06/07/2009 12:31 PM, Peter Torpey wrote: > I tried linking to the Mozilla nightly builds of Firefox and Thunderbird > by adding the following line: > deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/fta/ubuntu jaunty main universe > in the file /etc/apt/source.list > > As root, I did the command > apt-get update > in order to update the list of available packes. > This complained that there wasn't a public key available for this link. > > How do I fix this and properly link to the nightly builds so that I can > take advantage of the improving accewssibility? > > Also, as a side note, should I be updating Orca more regularly in a > similar fashion? > > Thanks. > > --Pete > > > -- José Vilmar Estácio de Souza Informal Informatica msn: vilmar at informal.com.br aim: zevilmar gmail: jvilmar at gmail.com fone: +55 21-2555-2650 cel: +55 21-8868-0859 From flatstone42sp at yahoo.fr Thu Jun 11 13:57:53 2009 From: flatstone42sp at yahoo.fr (sebastien naudet) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:57:53 +0200 Subject: orca stops speaking Message-ID: <7B723A1F55854928B4D10F6810B65274@boolo> Hi list, i've installed ubuntu 8.10 with wubi. i'm a complet beginner with linux. the system works fine but orca often stops speaking. i can stop it with insert+q and restart with alt+f2: orca but it's quite anoying. i've red several messages about that problem, but don't know where to start to resolve it. i have updated the distribution with: "sudo apt-get update" "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" but i don't understand how to use git to update orca. my orca version is 2.24.1 and gnome version is also 2.24.1 i have the same problem on two different computers. do i have to make a complet installation instead of wubi? thanks for your help. best regards seb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kb8aey at verizon.net Sat Jun 13 14:23:23 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:23:23 -0500 (CDT) Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech Message-ID: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I am in need of a small rescue live CD that would have software speech. Grml is perfect, but they don't include the option for software speech on their median or small CD. There is a Ubuntu rescue CD, but it has no software speech on it. Do any of you know of any distro experimental or normal that has software speech using speakup or yasr on it? Thanks Mike. From chmiel at phil.muni.cz Sat Jun 13 15:31:02 2009 From: chmiel at phil.muni.cz (Mgr. Janusz Chmiel) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:31:02 +0200 Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech References: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <2D38C9A369AF430B846EE31BFC70DDA7@janusza8113814> Dear syr, You can try The Linuxspeaks live CD, this .iso image will have less than400 MB, The Speakup is included. Thank's to The Joe Kamphaus. http://www.joekamphaus.net/live.html This distribution is onlyone, which I Am knowing about, it can be even installed like a standalone distro, no complex algorithms for installing multiple operating systems are included. Give this distro a chance. And tell me, if Your sound cart has been detected. From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Sat Jun 13 17:31:53 2009 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:31:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech In-Reply-To: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70@vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 13 Jun 2009, mike wrote: > Hi, I am in need of a small rescue live CD that would have software speech. Grml is perfect, but they don't include the option for software speech on their median or small CD. > There is a Ubuntu rescue CD, but it has no software speech on it. > Do any of you know of any distro experimental or normal that has software speech using speakup or yasr on it? I've not explored this, but Knoppix is supposed to have speech. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html It links here, which claims the screen reader is enabled by default http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/knoppix-adriane.html But, OTOH, ISTR that Knoppix ceased to fit on a CD after 5.x, though I could be wrong. > Thanks Mike. > HTH Hugh From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sun Jun 14 13:32:45 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 09:32:45 -0400 Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech Message-ID: <017b01c9ecf4$9a7f9e40$cf7edac0$@rr.com> Mike, H How about the Vinux CD? This should have all the accessibility stuff on it you need. It is build from Ubuntu specifically for people using screen readers and/or magnifiers. -- Pete 13 Jun 2009 09:23:23 -0500 (CDT) From: "mike" Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech To: "ubuntu" Message-ID: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70 at vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I am in need of a small rescue live CD that would have software speech. Grml is perfect, but they don't include the option for software speech on their median or small CD. There is a Ubuntu rescue CD, but it has no software speech on it. Do any of you know of any distro experimental or normal that has software speech using speakup or yasr on it? Thanks Mike. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Sun Jun 14 14:00:55 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:00:55 -0400 Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech Message-ID: <000901c9ecf8$89bba370$9d32ea50$@rr.com> Mike, You might also want to try LinuxSpeaks at: http://www.joekamphaus.net/live.html n Pete From: Peter Torpey [mailto:ptorpey at rochester.rr.com] Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 9:33 AM To: 'ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com' Cc: 'kb8aey at verizon.net' Subject: Re: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech Mike, H How about the Vinux CD? This should have all the accessibility stuff on it you need. It is build from Ubuntu specifically for people using screen readers and/or magnifiers. -- Pete 13 Jun 2009 09:23:23 -0500 (CDT) From: "mike" Subject: does anyone know of a small live cd with software speech To: "ubuntu" Message-ID: <0KL600ESLLAYKY70 at vms173005.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I am in need of a small rescue live CD that would have software speech. Grml is perfect, but they don't include the option for software speech on their median or small CD. There is a Ubuntu rescue CD, but it has no software speech on it. Do any of you know of any distro experimental or normal that has software speech using speakup or yasr on it? Thanks Mike. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hammera at pickup.hu Sun Jun 14 17:02:11 2009 From: hammera at pickup.hu (Hammer Attila) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 19:02:11 +0200 Subject: Does anyone know what the name of the window list applet? In-Reply-To: <000901c9ecf8$89bba370$9d32ea50$@rr.com> References: <000901c9ecf8$89bba370$9d32ea50$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A352D13.3000300@pickup.hu> Dear list! If I add the Window Selector Applet with gnome panel, simple choose the opened windows with menu. Does know anybody what name this applet? Possible have any command to run this applet? If yes, I would like add the command with keybinding my orca-customizations.py. Attila From kb8aey at verizon.net Mon Jun 15 02:05:54 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:05:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: I'm having a problem with karmic Message-ID: <0KL9006FVCHTAX11@vms173009.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, Ok, I got home and had someone look at my screen. My problem since I did the accessible install with the live CD of karmic has been that when I log in to my account I get a error sound. Pressing enter causes the desktop to load and Orca works fine. The screen says there is a problem with the configuration server when that error message sounds and the system stops loading until you press enter. Does anyone know what I can do to correct this. The root account works fine. All I did was remove pulseaudio, but this install had this problem even before I removed it. I assume it has something to do with the accessible install. But I don't know that for sure. Mike. From kb8aey at verizon.net Tue Jun 16 03:07:49 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:07:49 -0500 (CDT) Subject: karmic problem is fixed but here is another one Message-ID: <0KLB000XBA1105G0@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, After getting updates today I found my problem with getting a error sound at login has been fixed. But I also noticed something else. Control alt backspace no longer allows you to force quit gnome. I do have dontzap installed and configured, but it no longer works. Has the force quit feature been completely eliminated from gnome? I do see a keyboard shortcut for logging out, but not to force quit gnome. Mike. From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Tue Jun 16 13:23:53 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:23:53 -0400 Subject: karmic problem is fixed but here is another one In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <021a01c9ee85$b3d45d30$1b7d1790$@rr.com> Same problem here with Ubuntu 9.04. Also, Control+Alt+Delete doesn't seem to perform a reboot (when I get into trouble) as I thought it should. --Pete From: "mike" Subject: karmic problem is fixed but here is another one To: "ubuntu" Message-ID: <0KLB000XBA1105G0 at vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, After getting updates today I found my problem with getting a error sound at login has been fixed. But I also noticed something else. Control alt backspace no longer allows you to force quit gnome. I do have dontzap installed and configured, but it no longer works. Has the force quit feature been completely eliminated from gnome? I do see a keyboard shortcut for logging out, but not to force quit gnome. Mike. From chmiel at phil.muni.cz Tue Jun 16 14:20:06 2009 From: chmiel at phil.muni.cz (Mgr. Janusz Chmiel) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:20:06 +0200 Subject: karmic problem is fixed but here is another one References: <021a01c9ee85$b3d45d30$1b7d1790$@rr.com> Message-ID: <9A8BC7AA1F24449BA526BCE10DA11CB5@janusza8113814> Dear users, Yes, The restart keyboard short cut for restarting Gnome has been removed also from Ubuntu Jaunty. But please, keep in mynd, that You are allowed to use CTRL+ALT+F1 to activate console while Gnome is being used, You can type Your user name and password, then You will be able to use special command for manipulating with Gnome, including exit of this desktop environment. Please, try to study documentation for command gnome-session. You are even able to install yasr while You will be used console for those commands for exitting Gnome, You will have a Feetback. I occurred software problems while restart of Xserver has been presented in Ubuntu intrepid and in older releases of Ubuntu. The less dangerous effect has, that every next restart of Gnome caused higher temperature of my motherboard and that sped of CPU fan has increased. There were even problems with Orca. For now, i do not know about better Linux distro, which is being so good supported by The core developers to be usable by visually impaired community. Kernel has been specially optimized to reduce The CPU fan speed while running Ubuntu Jaunty, even special complex programmers modiffications has been made to whole Ubuntu architecture. Pulse Audio audio server is not more used while installing from A boot menu with accessibility features enabled. The sound preferences function is really switching correctly between various audio servers, such as between Alsa and OSS. Espeak is now reallay using The correspondent Audio server according to The server, which has been chosen from The preferences menu. Debian leny Gnome-live CD from january of this year can not offer You installation of this CD to A hard drive, user must install Orca manually, The problems with root applications are also presented. The update manager and Gnome menu in general is being very simple in Ubuntu Jaunty and in other Ubuntu distro. Do not forget, that core developers of Ubuntu are constantly monitoring, if A new version of At-spi is awailable and if The significant changes has been made to At-spi infrastructure, users can use automatic updates feature. Core developers of Ubuntu are doing their bbest to bring users The latest changes related to various audio servers, including alsa, OSS, Pulse audio. Ubuntu Jaunty is even able to automatically install support for A corresponding language for braille devices, this has never been possible in The previous versions, and other LInux distros are not using this technique. The random crashes of Espeak are reallly gone forever, even while using live CD, so You can safely use Gnome partition editor for manipulating with The disk partitions. Many device drivers are included, including various models of scanners and multifunctioning devices, this is even possible in A .iso image of Gnome-live CD. Ubuntu can be safely and stably installed, without random crashes of Espeak while installing. Ubuntu can be installed while using braille support even in The live mode, if sound cart has not been correctly autodetected during booting up. Ubuntu is including safety warnings related to The most modern Lion batteries in laptop, system will be turned of if a minimum safe stored power in The battery is awailable. Safety warnings are also included in The power manager, if YOur Lion battery is too excharget, this can prevent from The fire on YOur flet. So, really, everybody upgrade to Ubuntu Jaunty. Next future updates of included packages can be installed automatically. Scim devices can be configured. So, I Am wisching You much positive experiences while using Ubuntu Jaunty, and advanced users are welcomed during testing of Ubuntu Kalmic. But please be aware, that even complex changes can be made to vmlinus and other kernel related modules, so do not store important data to The experimental installation of this distro, which is being developed. From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Jun 17 04:44:14 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:44:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: has anyone noticed this in karmic? Message-ID: <0KLD00A0D95PYL04@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, It use to be if you access another drive in ubuntu you were not only asked for a password, you were also asked if you wanted to remember it for this session only. I notice in karmic you are asked for your password, but other than the network manager, you are not asked if you want the computer to remember it. So each time you log in and access another drive you have to enter your password. Is this a known change or a bug? Mike. From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Jun 17 22:23:23 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:23:23 -0500 (CDT) Subject: I'm having trouble getting a USB sound card to work Message-ID: <0KLE009G3M6Z8Q51@vms173011.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I got a USB soundcard today and ubuntu shows it in the list. But when I switch to it the sound still comes out of my other soundcard. Have any of you had this problem in karmic? Mike. X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 090617-0, 06/17/2009), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Thu Jun 18 12:41:11 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:41:11 -0400 Subject: Problem Getting Sounds and speech Out of Second Sound Device Message-ID: <00e901c9f012$0f9c5130$2ed4f390$@rr.com> I have two USB sound devices: - EMU 0202 USB o - SB-Live 24-bit External USB When I first installed Ubuntu 9.04 all sounds and speech came out of the EMU 0202. In the Preferences / Default Sound Device menu I then selected the SB-Live device as the default sound device so that all sounds would come out of this sound device. That worked fine, except for the bongo sound prior to login still came out of the EMU 0202 device (even though all speech and sounds now came out of the SB-Live device as I wanted them to). Anyway, I followed the directions for installing the latest update of PulseAudio and then couldn't get any sounds coming out of the Sb-Live device. I uninstalled PulseAudio and used all of the Alsa settings for default as my Playback device. How do I re-hook up the SB-Live USB device and get sound out of that again? I've tried re-installing PulseAudio and tried using PulseAudio as all of the defaults, but to no avail. Somehow the SB-Live driver or device seems to be gone (even though I can check it as default in many of the Sound and Default Sound Device menus). Thanks for any suggestions. Do I have to re-install Ubuntu? --Pete No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.339 / Virus Database: 270.12.77/2184 - Release Date: 06/17/09 17:55:00 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Thu Jun 18 12:48:47 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:48:47 -0400 Subject: I'm having trouble getting a USB sound card to work In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00f101c9f013$1fafce70$5f0f6b50$@rr.com> Yes. Just after posting my last note, I noticed this post of yours. This was working when I first installed Jaunty, then I must have changed some settings. There are many choices in the various Sounds settings with which I am not familiar. For example, I have many entries for halxxx, along with alsscr, osscr, etc and pulseaudio (even after I removed pulseaudio). I am very confused and don't know where all these drivers get initialized so can't even edit things by hand. I'm thinking of re-installing Ubuntu from scratch since I can't seem to figure out how to get things back to normal. Is Karmic stable enough to play with if you require a screen reader? Is it worth trying that with Orca and braille support? --Pete From: "mike" Subject: I'm having trouble getting a USB sound card to work To: "ubuntu" Message-ID: <0KLE009G3M6Z8Q51 at vms173011.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I got a USB soundcard today and ubuntu shows it in the list. But when I switch to it the sound still comes out of my other soundcard. Have any of you had this problem in karmic? Mike. From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Thu Jun 18 16:14:25 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:14:25 -0400 Subject: Changing Volume Message-ID: <003801c9f02f$d9538b70$8bfaa250$@rr.com> This may be a dumb question, but how do you change the volume of a sound device using the keyboard or terminal or something? I can't get sound to come out of one of my sound devices - Maybe it's the volume setting (which I can't find). Thanks. --Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From huntp at ukonline.co.uk Thu Jun 18 16:33:10 2009 From: huntp at ukonline.co.uk (Paul Hunt) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:33:10 +0100 Subject: Changing Volume In-Reply-To: <003801c9f02f$d9538b70$8bfaa250$@rr.com> References: <003801c9f02f$d9538b70$8bfaa250$@rr.com> Message-ID: <4A3A6C46.3040508@ukonline.co.uk> Hi, Well if you go into a terminal and type sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer this adds a volume control dialogue to the Sound and video menu. This looks like it might let you adjust the volume of each audio device (I can't verify this because I only have one) that is installed. It also has mute buttons. Give that a try. Paul On 18/06/09 17:14, Peter Torpey wrote: > > This may be a dumb question, but how do you change the volume of a > sound device using the keyboard or terminal or something? > > I can't get sound to come out of one of my sound devices -- Maybe it's > the volume setting (which I can't find). > > Thanks. > > --Pete > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ptorpey at rochester.rr.com Fri Jun 19 02:59:48 2009 From: ptorpey at rochester.rr.com (Peter Torpey) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:59:48 -0400 Subject: Solution to No Sound from Second Sound Card Message-ID: <001b01c9f08a$0260a110$0721e330$@rr.com> Whew - I finally figured out why I wasn't getting any sound out of my second sound card. Somehow the volume must have gotten muted (or put down to 1%). Trying to fix the volume using Orca was certainly a challenge. Unless I missed something and there is an easier way of changing the sound, I finally found the asoundconf command. I ran this from the terminal, but a strange graphical interface popped up that was totally unusable with Orca. Even the flat review mode was not able to give useful information. Next, I tried the command amixer. This is a command line utility for changing the settings of various sound devices. If it's helpful to anyone else, some of the commands which seemed to help were: # a command to list the controls of sound device 1 amixer -c 1 controls # a command to show the settings for each control of device 1 amixer -c 1 contents # finally, a command to change the volume to 100% on device 1 Amixer -c 1 set PCM 100% I would have thought that something as ubiquitous as changing volume should be easier to do. Also, in the process of working this out, I removed pulseaudio. Should Orca be running with pulseaudio or not for best results? The pulseaudio volume settings are also difficult (if not impossible) to use with Orca. Well, at least I can hear Orca out of the correct sound device now. Maybe this will be useful to someone else. --Pete -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david at miradoiro.com Fri Jun 19 06:25:12 2009 From: david at miradoiro.com (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_Pic=F3n_=C1lvarez?=) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:25:12 +0200 Subject: Solution to No Sound from Second Sound Card References: <001b01c9f08a$0260a110$0721e330$@rr.com> Message-ID: <2231E3EE8D1E457990D29DB8D2E0D7DB@Nautilus> > Trying to fix the volume using Orca was certainly a challenge. There is a fairly accessible program to do this, it's called gnome-alsamixer. Some of the controls are not exactly well labelled, but it works fine. HTH, --David. From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Jun 24 05:51:37 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:51:37 -0500 (CDT) Subject: trouble with latest karmic update Message-ID: <0KLQ000FBAY1UTO4@vms173015.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, has anyone updated Karmic today. I did and my system would no longer boot. I reinstalled with todays CD and updated again to find the same problem. After rebooting, the system wouldn't boot. Is this a known Problem? Mike. From rakesh_ambati at yahoo.com Wed Jun 24 07:50:31 2009 From: rakesh_ambati at yahoo.com (Rakesh arky Ambati) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:20:31 +0530 (IST) Subject: trouble with latest karmic update Message-ID: <218977.54928.qm@web94907.mail.in2.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 24/6/09, mike wrote: > Hi, has anyone updated Karmic today. > I did and my system would no longer boot. I reinstalled with > todays CD and updated again to find the same problem. After > rebooting, the system wouldn't boot. Is this a known > Problem? Hi Mike, Yes, I have few desktops and a laptop running latest karmic there isn't any trouble. I faced a problem in on of the desktop which reported filesystem inconsistency and refused to boot. After running fsck few times it started booting normally. Cheers --arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati | IT Catalyst | www.braillewithoutborders.org | blog: http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com ICC World Twenty20 England '09 exclusively on YAHOO! CRICKET http://cricket.yahoo.com From kb8aey at verizon.net Wed Jun 24 23:14:14 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:14:14 -0500 (CDT) Subject: warning to anyone upgrading karmic Message-ID: <0KLR007VRN7P2RX9@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I updated Karmic again today and had the same problem I had yesterday. After upgrading, the system wouldn't boot, but this time I found out why. At the end of the update process there was a package that had to be configured. I never ran into this before, but apparently grub no longer finds your boot drive. You are told to pick a drive or install it to all drives if you don't know which one is your boot drive. Ok, that would be fine, but Orca doesn't read the choices using the tab or arrow keys. I finely did get it to list two drives with the arrow keys after playing for some time, but never did see the choice to install to all drives. This is something that will have to be corrected or people who are use to ubuntu choosing the correct drive will be in for a big surprise. I do realize Karmic is early in development, but I have never had this kind of thing happen in all the years I have used ubuntu. So be careful if you are updating Karmic today. Mike. From christian08 at runbox.com Wed Jun 24 23:27:17 2009 From: christian08 at runbox.com (Christian) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:27:17 +0200 Subject: warning to anyone upgrading karmic In-Reply-To: <0KLR007VRN7P2RX9@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KLR007VRN7P2RX9@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <200906250127170250.006CF659@127.0.0.1> Hi Mike, I am about to download it now. Except for htis, what do you htink about it so far? Many thanks, Christian On 2009-06-24 at 18:14 mike wrote: >Hi, I updated Karmic again today and had the same problem I had >yesterday. After upgrading, the system wouldn't boot, but this time I >found out why. At the end of the update process there was a package that >had to be configured. I never ran into this before, but apparently grub no >longer finds your boot drive. You are told to pick a drive or install it >to all drives if you don't know which one is your boot drive. >Ok, that would be fine, but Orca doesn't read the choices using the tab or >arrow keys. I finely did get it to list two drives with the arrow keys >after playing for some time, but never did see the choice to install to >all drives. > This is something that will have to be corrected or people who are use >to ubuntu choosing the correct drive will be in for a big surprise. I do >realize Karmic is early in development, but I have never had this kind of >thing happen in all the years I have used ubuntu. So be careful if you are >updating Karmic today. > Mike. > >-- >Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list >Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com >https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility From kb8aey at verizon.net Thu Jun 25 18:12:19 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:12:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: I have a question about the live cd images Message-ID: <0KLT00HQ23WJ61B3@vms173015.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, does anyone know when the new image for a day is actually put up. I am in the US. So are the new images put up at midnight my time, or later in the day? Thanks Mike. From themuso at ubuntu.com Thu Jun 25 22:49:44 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:49:44 +1000 Subject: I have a question about the live cd images In-Reply-To: <0KLT00HQ23WJ61B3@vms173015.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KLT00HQ23WJ61B3@vms173015.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20090625224944.GA5787@strigy.yelavich.home> On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 04:12:19AM EST, mike wrote: > Hi, does anyone know when the new image for a day is actually put up. I am in the US. So are the new images put up at midnight my time, or later in the day? The images are put up about 2AM or so your time. Luke From guenni.post at gmx.de Fri Jun 26 20:27:15 2009 From: guenni.post at gmx.de (=?ISO-8859-15?Q?Anne_G=FCnther?=) Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:27:15 +0200 Subject: speech-dispatcher crashes after five minutes Message-ID: <4A452F23.3030502@gmx.de> Hi I'm using Jaunty with orca and gnome. I installed speech-dispatcher and got it started just fine. But after five minutes it stops talking. Restarting orca doesn't help. You have to restart the computer to get speech back. What could be the problem? Guenni From kb8aey at verizon.net Sat Jun 27 19:25:41 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:25:41 -0500 (CDT) Subject: current live cd Message-ID: <0KLW008YRWMT91I5@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, I notice there is no current live cd up today. Does anyone know why? Thanks Mike. X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 090626-0, 06/26/2009), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean From kb8aey at verizon.net Sat Jun 27 22:18:30 2009 From: kb8aey at verizon.net (mike) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:18:30 -0500 (CDT) Subject: are there any plans to add software speech to the alternitive cd? Message-ID: <0KLX00FUA4MTL026@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> Hi, are there any plans to make the alternative CD accessible with software speech so we can install it with out sighted assistance? I would think this could be done with speakup. Mike. From mj at mjw.se Sat Jun 27 23:23:20 2009 From: mj at mjw.se (mattias) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:23:20 +0200 Subject: ubuntu 9 Message-ID: <000001c9f77e$428d0d50$7b16e255@jonsson2> how to install ubuntu 9 server with help of brltty? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alpuzz at gmail.com Sun Jun 28 00:49:42 2009 From: alpuzz at gmail.com (Al Puzzuoli) Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:49:42 -0400 Subject: Wubi accessibility option labels are broken. Message-ID: <87642A0D7BD24D3889327C534D324368@thinkpad> Hello, I tried to use wubi today to install Jaunty; but quickly ran into some confusion. I selected the accessibility button, but then was unable to decipher the list of options that appeared. JFW read the radio buttons as "visibility 1, visibility2, " etc. I was unable to determine which of those buttons would select the screen reader option. Any help on this? Thanks, Al -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From themuso at ubuntu.com Sun Jun 28 23:20:10 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:20:10 +1000 Subject: speech-dispatcher crashes after five minutes In-Reply-To: <4A452F23.3030502@gmx.de> References: <4A452F23.3030502@gmx.de> Message-ID: <20090628232010.GA5780@strigy.yelavich.home> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 06:27:15AM EST, Anne Günther wrote: > Hi > I'm using Jaunty with orca and gnome. I installed speech-dispatcher and > got it started just fine. But after five minutes it stops talking. > Restarting orca doesn't help. You have to restart the computer to get > speech back. > What could be the problem? This is likely a known crash in speech-dispatcher's audio output code. Its not just Ubuntu that experiencesa this proble, as this crash bug is in the upstream code, and would do the same on other distros. You just need to kill and restart speech-dispatcher to get things working again. I hope to fix the bug in the coming months. Luke From themuso at ubuntu.com Sun Jun 28 23:20:59 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:20:59 +1000 Subject: current live cd In-Reply-To: <0KLW008YRWMT91I5@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KLW008YRWMT91I5@vms173001.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20090628232059.GB5780@strigy.yelavich.home> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 05:25:41AM EST, mike wrote: > Hi, I notice there is no current live cd up today. Does anyone know why? Likely because somethign is broken badly enough to cause the live CD build to fail. What that is I wouldn't know without looking at build logs. Luke From themuso at ubuntu.com Sun Jun 28 23:22:23 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:22:23 +1000 Subject: are there any plans to add software speech to the alternitive cd? In-Reply-To: <0KLX00FUA4MTL026@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> References: <0KLX00FUA4MTL026@vms173007.mailsrvcs.net> Message-ID: <20090628232223.GC5780@strigy.yelavich.home> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 08:18:30AM EST, mike wrote: > Hi, are there any plans to make the alternative CD accessible with software speech so we can install it with out sighted assistance? > I would think this could be done with speakup. This will only be considered once BrlTTY has full support for behaving like speakup. This is planned, but not implemented yet. Speakup will never be included in any Ubuntu release by default, unless it gets included in the main Linux kernel. Luke From themuso at ubuntu.com Sun Jun 28 23:24:02 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:24:02 +1000 Subject: ubuntu 9 In-Reply-To: <000001c9f77e$428d0d50$7b16e255@jonsson2> References: <000001c9f77e$428d0d50$7b16e255@jonsson2> Message-ID: <20090628232402.GD5780@strigy.yelavich.home> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 09:23:20AM EST, mattias wrote: > how to install ubuntu 9 server with help of brltty? BrlTTY as far as I know is not on the server CD. My suggestion is to use the alternate CD to install Ubuntu in command-line only mode, and install the server packages you want. Luke From themuso at ubuntu.com Sun Jun 28 23:25:02 2009 From: themuso at ubuntu.com (Luke Yelavich) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:25:02 +1000 Subject: Wubi accessibility option labels are broken. In-Reply-To: <87642A0D7BD24D3889327C534D324368@thinkpad> References: <87642A0D7BD24D3889327C534D324368@thinkpad> Message-ID: <20090628232502.GE5780@strigy.yelavich.home> On Sun, Jun 28, 2009 at 10:49:42AM EST, Al Puzzuoli wrote: > Hello, > > I tried to use wubi today to install Jaunty; but quickly ran into some confusion. I selected the accessibility button, but then was unable to decipher the list of options that appeared. JFW read the radio buttons as "visibility 1, visibility2, " etc. I was unable to determine which of those buttons would select the screen reader option. Any help on this? You will have to talk to the Wubi developer, and the easiest way to do so is to file a bug in the wubi project on launchpad, http://launchpad.net/wubi. Luke From waywardgeek at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 15:56:03 2009 From: waywardgeek at gmail.com (Bill Cox) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:56:03 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu Message-ID: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive criticism, rather than pointless ranting. I would like to raise a red-flag at Canonical with this post. Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the visually impaired. Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced to switch future development to Debian branches. Until now, Ubuntu has had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other distros, but 9.04 has trashed that. If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero testing of Orca for 9.04. At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance for the visually impaired would be a good step. If Ubuntu wants to own the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the taking. Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it. Otherwise, I suspect that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian. There's some sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited by Ubuntu and several other great distros. However, making Linux easy to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on Ubuntu. Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu. I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend anyone. Bill From nolan at thewordnerd.info Mon Jun 29 18:03:04 2009 From: nolan at thewordnerd.info (Nolan Darilek) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:03:04 -0000 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> Message-ID: <4A4901D8.2040303@thewordnerd.info> I have a few issues with the language here. Specifically: On 06/29/2009 10:56 AM, Bill Cox wrote: > Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced > to switch future development to Debian branches. No one "forced" anyone to do anything. That was a choice made by the Vinux developer. A choice could have easily been made to build a more accessible live CD, or to join the Ubuntu accessibility effort and contribute fixes. If there are clear instructions on how to resolve the Ubuntu Orca issues, as there are on the Orca wiki AFAIK, then it's possible to build a new live CD. That said, I acknowledge that anyone downloading Ubuntu is likely to grab the official ISOs first, and I hope that 9.10 has something that works out of the box. Luke is working on SD to hopefully both help that happen and to help resolve the Bonobo deprecation issues that will eliminate gnome-speech. But no one forced Vinux' developer(s) to make the choice they did. > There are at least a dozen major problems, > and not all of them have work-arounds yet. A dozen? That many? Wow, can you link me to the bug reports which the developers are resolving? Or, at the very least, enumerate them? I'll start. 1. Speech-dispatcher crashes. I've reported this on the SD list, as a) it isn't specific to Ubuntu and b) I'm running a non-standard setup. Not desirable, sure, but as a mid-term solution I have a hotkey to restart SD. 2. Spotty access to GUI apps running as root. Again, a known issue, and one that I hope will go away when the dbus at-spi changes hit. The rest are Orca issues that I've filed, but have nothing to do with Ubuntu. What are the at least ten other issues you're having, and have they been recorded anywhere other than on blogs? Speaking as a developer myself, I have enough to do fixing the issues I *am* aware of that I don't have time to search the blogosphere for more, so unless someone reports something in channels I specifically watch for reports, it just doesn't exist for me. :) > Clearly there was zero > testing of Orca for 9.04. > Zero? Really? That's pretty extreme. I'll grant that it has some fairly large issues, and I wish these weren't, but that isn't quite as clear to me. > I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend > anyone. > > And just to be clear, I'm not offended. I, for one, am not thrilled at how 9.04 turned out. And, FTR, 8.10 was less accessible in some respects. I hope that 9.10 isn't a repeat of that, and I don't know if Canonical has any additional paid developers working on accessibility, but it might be a worthwhile area to expand upon. But I'm not sure that emails like these are the best step in that direction. When I saw all the stirrings about Vinux earlier this year, part of me thought "hmm, why isn't this guy helping make Ubuntu more accessible?" And now it's splitting the community in that people are claiming that it was "forced" not to contribute back. *shrug* I'm not offended, but I think that we can be a bit more constructive in resolving this. And, by all means, if Ubuntu doesn't meet your needs then use something else. I don't claim that it's the only or even best solution. But no one forces us to make many of the choices we do, so choose another distribution if Ubuntu doesn't meet your needs now. From esj at harvee.org Mon Jun 29 19:13:40 2009 From: esj at harvee.org (Eric S. Johansson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:13:40 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> Message-ID: <4A491264.5060005@harvee.org> Bill Cox wrote: > If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may > be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every > blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users > switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, > and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing > pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still > not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, > and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero > testing of Orca for 9.04. I hope you do not consider me root for pointing out the accessibility doesn't stop with the blind. As much as you may be dependent on text-to-speech, I am extremely dependent on speech to text (i.e. speech recognition). Naturally speaking kind of works under wine and it really needs some dedicated effort/money/something to get it to the point where we can dictate into any of the next application. I have some ideas on how to bridge that gap but first we need a stable NaturallySpeaking. current open source speech recognition systems are a waste of time and money. They are the wrong tool for the application, says the man with 15 years experience using speech recognition. From tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk Mon Jun 29 19:27:07 2009 From: tony.sales at rncb.ac.uk (Anthony Sales) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:27:07 +0100 Subject: Ubuntu, Debian and Vinux! Message-ID: Hi everyone, First of all I hope this isn't going to end up in a mini flame war in the same vein as when I announced the start of the Vinux project. let's be clear from the start we are all on the same side i.e. we all want an accessible linux distro that just works out of the box. Whether that distro is Ubuntu, Debian or any other isn't really important. I for one would happily abandon the Vinux project if I really thought there was a suitable distro for the kind of VI learners I work with everyday. But there isn't! So what can we do about it. Yes I could throw my efforts in with Ubuntu, but I am not an experienced or qualified Linux developer, I am just very determined and happy to experiment. I wouldn't know were to begin contributing to a project like Ubuntu. But aside from my own inadequacies, Luke and others are doing their best to make Ubuntu accessible. But some of the difficulties they face have been cause by the direction Canonical have taken. They have for example refused to include an orbitrc file for root on security grounds, and although I am sure Luke will eventually come up with a solution, he also has to deal with pulseAudio etc. I think given the nature of the changes needed to make a robust, stable and responsive accessible distro Canonical should acknowledge that the requirements are demanding enough to have a special version of Ubuntu aimed at VI users. In fact I did suggest this to canonical in the beginning and they did not want to go down this route. I suppose in an ideal world there should be a distro that is accessible to all no matter what your disability, but in practise this rarely happens. Firstly the VI are a small minority of people without much economic clout, and secondly the difficluties a VI user faces in using a primary graphical interface are enourmous. So we can either compromise and accept something that is just about accessible, or we can produce something specially for the VI. I am a realist, I am fed up of waiting for an easy to use accessible linux distro, so I decided to get off my ass and make one. And I got quite a lot of harsh criticism for doing so, and had it not been for the encouragement and support I received from Osvaldo I would probably have abandoned it shortly afterwards. However, the beauty of linux in in choice. There are different ways to solve these problems and neither is correct. They are just different. I think a multiplicity of solutions is a good thing anyway. And if nothing else starting the Vinux project has really forced me to try to understand how Linux works under the hood. I would not claim to be a linux expert, but I am very experienced teacher with years of experience teaching visually impaired students and adults and I know what sort of system they need. It has to be very simple to use and require no initial understanding of Linux or the command line etc. So back to Ubuntu. As a sighted individual I think Ubuntu is great, it has made the Linux desktop accessible to people with no interest in computers per se, it is easy to use and configure and most hardware just works out of the box. This made it an obvious base for Vinux. However 9.04 caused a lot of problems and given the rapid and cutting edge nature of the realeases I decided reluctantly that I would have to fall back on Debian, which provides a much better accessibility experience once configured, although I would have to do a lot more work on the hardware side etc. What VI users need is a stable, responsive system, not a cutting edge distro with flashy 3D effects etc. So I was not forced to change, but taking everything into account I chose Debian, but it was not an easy decision. However as I said earlier I would abandon the project in a flash if Ubuntu (or any other distro) was accessible to VI users out of the box as it was to sighted users, I just don't think this is going to happen any time soon. Your pessimistically, drbongo From waywardgeek at gmail.com Mon Jun 29 19:40:35 2009 From: waywardgeek at gmail.com (Bill Cox) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:40:35 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <4A491264.5060005@harvee.org> References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> <4A491264.5060005@harvee.org> Message-ID: <1246304435.6123.8.camel@zorch> On Mon, 2009-06-29 at 15:13 -0400, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > Bill Cox wrote: > > > If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may > > be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire. On every > > blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users > > switch away from Ubuntu. I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, > > and I have to offer that same advice. It's more than just removing > > pulseaudio. I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still > > not functioning properly. There are at least a dozen major problems, > > and not all of them have work-arounds yet. Clearly there was zero > > testing of Orca for 9.04. > > I hope you do not consider me root for pointing out the accessibility doesn't > stop with the blind. As much as you may be dependent on text-to-speech, I am > extremely dependent on speech to text (i.e. speech recognition). Naturally > speaking kind of works under wine and it really needs some dedicated > effort/money/something to get it to the point where we can dictate into any of > the next application. I have some ideas on how to bridge that gap but first we > need a stable NaturallySpeaking. I agree completely. In fact, for three years, from 1996 to 1999, I had to use Dragon Dictate and Naturally Speaking to control Emacs in order to keep my job as a programmer. Porting Naturally Speaking would be my #1 enhancement request if I could get it. I'm not much of a Wine hacker, though. > current open source speech recognition systems are a waste of time and money. > They are the wrong tool for the application, says the man with 15 years > experience using speech recognition. As a man with three years experience, and being familiar with Sphinx and such, I have to agree, though some of the open-source efforts are commendable. Bill From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Mon Jun 29 22:06:35 2009 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:06:35 +0100 (BST) Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Bill Cox wrote: > I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive > criticism, rather than pointless ranting. I would like to raise a [important points about important problems, strongly put, trimmed] > I hope this is taken as a call to action. I don't mean to offend > anyone. One of the themes of open source is that it is up to people to dive in and fix things, BUT at the same time we know programmers don't like maintenance work. That's because it's easier to write code than read someone else's code. [A topic of importance that should be left aside for now.] My question is this: given the need to get people to work on problems, and the inherent difficulties, what resources exist to help people who are interested to get started? I'm thinking that one thing that might help would be a FAQ for this list telling developers where to find info about accessibility bugs in particular, and pointers on how to get familiar with the territory, open problems that need exploration, even graduate research topics. There would need to be info for users as well. It would be good to know about tools which can collect accessibility bug info in one place automatically, trawling bugzillas, or at least have a wiki that holds this kind of thing. The wiki might be this one: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Accessibility What testing tools exist to help developers to avoid breaking accessibility? What can be done to make accessibility work more accessible? :-) HTH Hugh From sakrecoer at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 00:14:03 2009 From: sakrecoer at gmail.com (reSet Sakrecoer) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:14:03 +0200 Subject: Ubuntu, Debian and Vinux! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <500f6b9a0906291714i7df31d39l8e437f3a341d6e36@mail.gmail.com> I don't feel you pessimistic at all. except maybe the last sentence. I really enjoyed the reading. Respectful and open-minded. I believe in your words when they reach the understanding level. The one level where the solution is not a correct answer, but the best choice in a certain situations which eventually lead to balance: a suit of equally strong ups and downs or lefts and rights. Not a flat line. Now my only linux experience is poor. It is short (although I'm attracted since 2001) and it is Ubuntu, because they made the only "out of the box" sollution to my hardware (Macintaube) and because they made ubuntu studio. I'm not a VI, and i have understood recently that there seems to be a big audience for linux in that world. And see, (the mind version of that verb) i look forward to what they will bring to it. (it as in linux and open source) Because i believe what forces the frame to burst is it's limitations. Go for what you dreams tell you! They can guide you thru the acid rain drops of the fearfullest critics. Yours encouraging, Sakrecoer On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Anthony Sales wrote: > > Hi everyone, > > First of all I hope this isn't going to end up in a mini flame war in the > same vein as when I announced the start of the Vinux project. let's be > clear > from the start we are all on the same side i.e. we all want an accessible > linux distro that just works out of the box. Whether that distro is Ubuntu, > Debian or any other isn't really important. I for one would happily abandon > the Vinux project if I really thought there was a suitable distro for the > kind of VI learners I work with everyday. But there isn't! > > So what can we do about it. Yes I could throw my efforts in with Ubuntu, > but > I am not an experienced or qualified Linux developer, I am just very > determined and happy to experiment. I wouldn't know were to begin > contributing to a project like Ubuntu. But aside from my own inadequacies, > Luke and others are doing their best to make Ubuntu accessible. But some of > the difficulties they face have been cause by the direction Canonical have > taken. They have for example refused to include an orbitrc file for root on > security grounds, and although I am sure Luke will eventually come up with > a > solution, he also has to deal with pulseAudio etc. I think given the nature > of the changes needed to make a robust, stable and responsive accessible > distro Canonical should acknowledge that the requirements are demanding > enough to have a special version of Ubuntu aimed at VI users. In fact I did > suggest this to canonical in the beginning and they did not want to go down > this route. > > I suppose in an ideal world there should be a distro that is accessible to > all no matter what your disability, but in practise this rarely happens. > Firstly the VI are a small minority of people without much economic clout, > and secondly the difficluties a VI user faces in using a primary graphical > interface are enourmous. So we can either compromise and accept something > that is just about accessible, or we can produce something specially for > the > VI. I am a realist, I am fed up of waiting for an easy to use accessible > linux distro, so I decided to get off my ass and make one. And I got quite > a > lot of harsh criticism for doing so, and had it not been for the > encouragement and support I received from Osvaldo I would probably have > abandoned it shortly afterwards. > > However, the beauty of linux in in choice. There are different ways to > solve > these problems and neither is correct. They are just different. I think a > multiplicity of solutions is a good thing anyway. And if nothing else > starting the Vinux project has really forced me to try to understand how > Linux works under the hood. I would not claim to be a linux expert, but I > am > very experienced teacher with years of experience teaching visually > impaired > students and adults and I know what sort of system they need. It has to be > very simple to use and require no initial understanding of Linux or the > command line etc. > > So back to Ubuntu. As a sighted individual I think Ubuntu is great, it has > made the Linux desktop accessible to people with no interest in computers > per > se, it is easy to use and configure and most hardware just works out of the > box. This made it an obvious base for Vinux. However 9.04 caused a lot of > problems and given the rapid and cutting edge nature of the realeases I > decided reluctantly that I would have to fall back on Debian, which > provides > a much better accessibility experience once configured, although I would > have > to do a lot more work on the hardware side etc. What VI users need is a > stable, responsive system, not a cutting edge distro with flashy 3D effects > etc. So I was not forced to change, but taking everything into account I > chose Debian, but it was not an easy decision. > > However as I said earlier I would abandon the project in a flash if Ubuntu > (or any other distro) was accessible to VI users out of the box as it was > to > sighted users, I just don't think this is going to happen any time soon. > > Your pessimistically, > > drbongo > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > -- Set Hallström AKA reSet Sakrecoer http://sakrecoer.com +34 697 903 606 > Did you read this? Realy? i mean like you? did you print this e-mail without really needing to? to..... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From esj at harvee.org Tue Jun 30 01:25:36 2009 From: esj at harvee.org (Eric S. Johansson) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:25:36 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> Message-ID: <4A496990.5040004@harvee.org> > > What can be done to make accessibility work more accessible? :-) well, it would really really help if you, or someone just like you could make NaturallySpeaking completely reliable under wine. Then we could examine usability issues around transferring the dictation results into Linux applications. I've become a fan of a dictation box variation for this purpose. Another thing, accessibility projects could do because language developers won't is building a smart framework for programming by voice. It's not pretty what we have out there today (a collection of circus tricks) and it would be nice to change things. From hgs at dmu.ac.uk Tue Jun 30 03:21:58 2009 From: hgs at dmu.ac.uk (Hugh Sasse) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:21:58 +0100 (BST) Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <4A496990.5040004@harvee.org> References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> <4A496990.5040004@harvee.org> Message-ID: On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > > > > > What can be done to make accessibility work more accessible? :-) > > well, it would really really help if you, or someone just like you could make > NaturallySpeaking completely reliable under wine. Then we could examine A good goal, but not quite what I meant! I meant: how do we make the software development process which underpins that kind of work, more accessible? It looks pretty frightening from the outside: lots of subtleties about the interactions of different disabilities. Lots of subtleties about special devices. Interfaces and protocols not encountered elsewhere, I'd bet. So there's a lot to learn. > usability issues around transferring the dictation results into Linux > applications. I've become a fan of a dictation box variation for this purpose. > > Another thing, accessibility projects could do because language developers won't > is building a smart framework for programming by voice. It's not pretty what we > have out there today (a collection of circus tricks) and it would be nice to > change things. Yes, I've not even tried to dictate any significant amounts of code. It's all rather tedious with the punctuation. It might need a new language that avoids punctuation, but even COBOL has it's share of that! > Hugh From esj at harvee.org Tue Jun 30 04:00:17 2009 From: esj at harvee.org (Eric S. Johansson) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:00:17 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> <4A496990.5040004@harvee.org> Message-ID: <4A498DD1.30908@harvee.org> Hugh Sasse wrote: > > On Mon, 29 Jun 2009, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > >>> What can be done to make accessibility work more accessible? :-) >> well, it would really really help if you, or someone just like you could make >> NaturallySpeaking completely reliable under wine. Then we could examine > > A good goal, but not quite what I meant! I meant: how do we make > the software development process which underpins that kind of work, > more accessible? It looks pretty frightening from the outside: lots > of subtleties about the interactions of different disabilities. Lots > of subtleties about special devices. Interfaces and protocols not > encountered elsewhere, I'd bet. So there's a lot to learn. Okay, whenever I income for this kind of complexity, my hair goes up on the back of my neck and I involuntarily scream "wrong complexity". I'm willing to bet that if we look at usability not from a series of warts apply to applications but instead, a complete and distinct user interface model on a per application basis, then we might be getting somewhere for simplifying the effort. Yes, creating user interfaces are expensive There isn't any way around that because it takes smart people like you and me time to figure out what the customer needs in order to get their job done. just a thought that's come out of looking at physical devices and wondering how people with a variety of disabilities would ever use them. For example, I had a blind boss. How would he ever use an ATM? He should have a little box (like a net book with a touchscreen) that presents an aral user interface with all the appropriate tactile inputs necessary for him to operate the ATM. With accelerometers in the pad, he might even be able to locate various features on the ATM easily and quickly just by "pointing". With simple speech recognition (IVR class) he could tell it what he wants and in theory, completely operate the ATM without once touching the machine except remove the cash Now, say Stephen Hawkins rolls up to the ATM. Oh, this example is so filled with failures but, I continue. Using a scanning keyboard and displayed on his chair, he should be able to pick out the dollar amount, which transactions etc. with relative ease. The only major UI failure I can think of is trying to get the chair close enough to use a robot arm to pull the cash out and stuff it in his pocket. Same physical device, same core system but different presentations based on the user. Now, I believe the same model could directly translate to modern-day software applications. If I have that book running speech recognition, I should be able to hook it up via Bluetooth or WiFi or fricken sharks with laser beams in their heads. I dictate that one machine, I get all the control necessary from that external machine and I watched the results on the desktop. Blind person, same thing. They connect, they listen, they operate via their own user interface box. You know, I really need to find a way of getting a job doing this thing. It is such a passion for me because I am so tired of seeing tabs screw it up. > Yes, I've not even tried to dictate any significant amounts of code. > It's all rather tedious with the punctuation. It might need a new > language that avoids punctuation, but even COBOL has it's share of > that! with a few macros, Python doesn't suck too bad unless you're dealing with people insisting on using Studley caps. I've written something on the order of light tan or 15,000 lines of Python for either my own startup or open source work. What's biting me in the ass now is that I really want NaturallySpeaking on wine What I've seen so far is significantly better than NaturallySpeaking on Windows. Unfortunately, because of running NaturallySpeaking in virtual machines about bunch of crap that comes about when you try to edit on the windows and develop on linux. Trust me, it makes programming using speech recognition but positively benign. It would help me somewhat if I could find anyone who knew gconf enough to solve some of the displaying host applications on a guest XP running X11. I'll explain if you really want to know but trust me, it's nowhere near as interesting as it seems) From petra at access-for-all.ch Tue Jun 30 06:19:25 2009 From: petra at access-for-all.ch (Petra Ritter) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:19:25 +0200 Subject: Accessibility suggestion Message-ID: <1653289736.20090630081925@access-for-all.ch> Hello, Totaly blind pible have offten problems to start the accessibility option in the live CD because they don't know when the screem with the accessibility option is displayed and the system is ready to start the accessibility option. For totaly blind linux beginners it is a bed expirence not to bee sure how to start the accessibility option on a operating system tat there don't know at all. My suggestion is to send a beep to the speaker of the PC as soon as the system is ready to start the accessibility option. As far I know Debiam send a beep to the PC Speaker as soon as the system is ready to start Brllty. And care more about the accessibility, please. In Ubuntu 9.04 it could be happen tat your endet with a newly installed system with out working speach and braille support. so that you must be able to sort out the problems yourself or to ask someone to help you. Themks Mit freundlichen Grüssen/ Best regards Petra Ritter ____________________________________________________________________ Zugang für alle Schweizerische Stiftung zur behindertengerechten Technologienutzung Grubenstrasse 12 8045 Zürich Tel. +41 (0)44 383 44 16 Fax +41 (0)44 383 44 92 E-Mail: petra at access-for-all.ch Internet: http://www.access-for-all.ch _____________________________________________________________________ NEU: Zertifikat für barrierefreie Websites www.label4all.ch From kenny at hittsjunk.net Tue Jun 30 07:42:36 2009 From: kenny at hittsjunk.net (Kenny Hitt) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:42:36 -0500 Subject: Accessibility suggestion In-Reply-To: <1653289736.20090630081925@access-for-all.ch> References: <1653289736.20090630081925@access-for-all.ch> Message-ID: <20090630074235.GB3579@hittsjunk.net> i. Your solution makes an asumption that isn't always true. You assume all computers still have an internal speaker. I have had several desktops now that don't have an internal speaker. The speaker seems to be one of those pieces of hardware that isn't getting included in newer systems. Kenny From thomaslloyd at yahoo.com Tue Jun 30 12:32:42 2009 From: thomaslloyd at yahoo.com (Thomas Lloyd) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:32:42 +0100 Subject: Cygwin / Dragon / SAPI / Linux Message-ID: <1246365162.7340.25.camel@DualCore904.lan> Hi, Not sure if you have tried Cygwin but that does allow you to open both a full gnome desktop and individual applications within windows and in theory should allow you to control the system remotely over ssh via Dragon. You can run the system full screen and you would not know that you were even using a windows system. If you would like further information let me know as i have worked quite extensively on such setups. As a side note i have been integrating the Microsoft SAPI interface into Linux and have been mainly concentrating on text to speech but there is the speech to text interface that I have tested but not yet done any work on. I see that Dragon also has the potential to have such an interface developed in the same fashion that I have created for SAPI. I have quite a large amount of experience and as along as we can get the bare minimum components of Dragon running under Wine your away. I could do with a sneak peak at the details on the Dragon scripting interface to see if it supports COM automation under windows. If so it will be more straight forward for me. I have a little bit of experience of the SAPI speech recognition system and never rated it really, that is why i have left it alone till now. Anyone who has experience of it can let me know otherwise. I would love someone with experience of the Vista SDK to come on board and help me suck out the SAPI 5.3 components to see if we can get them running under wine. Any volunteers? Tom From esj at harvee.org Tue Jun 30 14:50:15 2009 From: esj at harvee.org (Eric S. Johansson) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:50:15 -0400 Subject: Cygwin / Dragon / SAPI / Linux In-Reply-To: <1246365162.7340.25.camel@DualCore904.lan> References: <1246365162.7340.25.camel@DualCore904.lan> Message-ID: <4A4A2627.3090104@harvee.org> Thomas Lloyd wrote: > Hi, > > Not sure if you have tried Cygwin but that does allow you to open both a > full gnome desktop and individual applications within windows and in > theory should allow you to control the system remotely over ssh via > Dragon. > > You can run the system full screen and you would not know that you were > even using a windows system. > > If you would like further information let me know as i have worked quite > extensively on such setups. gack. have I ever told you just how badly cygwin and I get along? The past three times I installed it, if those my XP environment so badly I had to reinstall... everything I guess another option would be to use the Ubuntu Windows Linux merge. I think I'm reluctant to use these to because Windows always degrades for me. I might be able to keep her from degrading if I don't run any applications on Windows except the bare minimum but, it always degrades. I liked the purity of running limits as my host. It always feels like home and like its the system I should be using at a deep and fundamental emotional level. I cannot emphasize enough how much it feels like my computer spiritual philosophical home. but, as I often say, functionality trumps politics so I should drag out a 250 GB laptop drive and start hacking away. Two guiding questions. I want to keep all of my data on a separate filesystem/partition. If I'm not using Windows applications for anything, is it possible to do this? can I run Thunderbird under cygwin? can I have a separate partition running ext4 or nilfs? I suspect these two are true with ubuntu windows merge Can I run a virtual machine in addition to cygwin/uwm? Kennedy was all on Windows 7 because of lost a Windows XP disc with sata drivers as well as my video drivers and my WebCam drivers etc. etc. (God, I thought linux aged poorly with regards to drivers. You have no idea how good it is in comparison to Windows) .> > As a side note i have been integrating the Microsoft SAPI interface into > Linux and have been mainly concentrating on text to speech but there is > the speech to text interface that I have tested but not yet done any > work on. I see that Dragon also has the potential to have such an > interface developed in the same fashion that I have created for SAPI. I > have quite a large amount of experience and as along as we can get the > bare minimum components of Dragon running under Wine your away. > > I could do with a sneak peak at the details on the Dragon scripting > interface to see if it supports COM automation under windows. If so it > will be more straight forward for me. don't bother listing interface. (I think) take a look at natlink and dragonfly. natlink is a low-level exporting of some Dragon interfaces into Python. Dragonfly places a higher Lowell wrapper around these interfaces and makes it easier to work with the terms of grammar and action code. For what it's worth, people using these easy interfaces to speech recognition are almost universally Python driven in part because you can write Python code using speech recognition with relatively small modifications to your environment. It's not very efficient but, it is possible http://code.google.com/p/dragonfly/ will get you started in the right direction with all components > > I have a little bit of experience of the SAPI speech recognition system > and never rated it really, that is why i have left it alone till now. > Anyone who has experience of it can let me know otherwise. We can help you find people with experience. Whether they will talk to me is quite another story. :-) but we will do a weekend. > > I would love someone with experience of the Vista SDK to come on board > and help me suck out the SAPI 5.3 components to see if we can get them > running under wine. Any volunteers? This is going to be a problem. Microsoft just cut back on their speech recognition group if rumor a thing). We might feel the find some of the people on the street and they might be a let help so, again we'll take a look. From waywardgeek at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 15:29:25 2009 From: waywardgeek at gmail.com (Bill Cox) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:29:25 -0400 Subject: Cygwin / Dragon / SAPI / Linux In-Reply-To: <4A4A2627.3090104@harvee.org> References: <1246365162.7340.25.camel@DualCore904.lan> <4A4A2627.3090104@harvee.org> Message-ID: <499d69a00906300829w1c4bd832ge9252a90cfd60eaf@mail.gmail.com> The thought of getting Naturally speaking working with Linux is very exciting, and I may be able to put in some hours on the Linux side. >From what I've read, it's possible to get NS Professional working with the built-in text editor, but you can't get text to focus on any Linux app. Getting that working would be huge. As for cygwin, I don't know how I would have remained a programmer in the late 90's without cygwin, Dragon Dictate, and emacs. Back then, I created 1,600 custom Emacs macros to do specific tasks by voice control. It worked well, but was very specific to my job function, and not easily transferable. There are others who prefer the lighter MinGW (Minimalist Gnu Windows), and that seems to also work well. Bill On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:50 AM, Eric S. Johansson wrote: > Thomas Lloyd wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Not sure if you have tried Cygwin but that does allow you to open both a >> full gnome desktop and individual applications within windows and in >> theory should allow you to control the system remotely over ssh via >> Dragon. >> >> You can run the system full screen and you would not know that you were >> even using a windows system. >> >> If you would like further information let me know as i have worked quite >> extensively on such setups. > > gack.  have I ever told you just how badly cygwin and I get along? The past > three times I installed it, if those my XP environment so badly I had to > reinstall... everything  I guess another option would be to use the Ubuntu > Windows Linux merge. > > I think I'm reluctant to use these to because Windows always degrades for me. I > might be able to keep her from degrading if I don't run any applications on > Windows except the bare minimum but, it always degrades. > > I liked the purity of running limits as my host. It always feels like home and > like its the system I should be using at a deep and fundamental emotional level. > I cannot emphasize enough how much it feels like my computer spiritual > philosophical home. > > but, as I often say, functionality trumps politics so I should drag out a 250 GB > laptop drive and start hacking away. Two guiding questions. I want to keep all > of my data on a separate filesystem/partition. If I'm not using Windows > applications for anything, is it possible to do this? can I run Thunderbird > under cygwin?  can I have a separate partition running ext4 or nilfs? I suspect > these two are true with ubuntu windows merge > > Can I run a virtual machine in addition to cygwin/uwm? > Kennedy was all on Windows 7 because of lost a Windows XP disc with sata drivers > as well as my video drivers and my WebCam drivers etc. etc. (God, I thought > linux aged poorly with regards to drivers. You have no idea how good it is in > comparison to Windows) > .> >> As a side note i have been integrating the Microsoft SAPI interface into >> Linux and have been mainly concentrating on text to speech but there is >> the speech to text interface that I have tested but not yet done any >> work on. I see that Dragon also has the potential to have such an >> interface developed in the same fashion that I have created for SAPI. I >> have quite a large amount of experience and as along as we can get the >> bare minimum components of Dragon running under Wine your away. >> >> I could do with a sneak peak at the details on the Dragon scripting >> interface to see if it supports COM automation under windows. If so it >> will be more straight forward for me. > > don't bother listing interface. (I think) take a look at natlink and dragonfly. >  natlink is a low-level exporting of some Dragon interfaces into Python. > Dragonfly places a higher Lowell wrapper around these interfaces and makes it > easier to work with the terms of grammar and action code. For what it's worth, > people using these easy interfaces to speech recognition are almost universally > Python driven in part because you can write Python code using speech recognition > with relatively small modifications to your environment. It's not very efficient > but, it is possible > > http://code.google.com/p/dragonfly/  will get you started in the right direction > with all components > >> >> I have a little bit of experience of the SAPI speech recognition system >> and never rated it really, that is why i have left it alone till now. >> Anyone who has experience of it can let me know otherwise. > > We can help you find people with experience. Whether they will talk to me is > quite another story. :-) but we will do a weekend. > >> >> I would love someone with experience of the Vista SDK to come on board >> and help me suck out the SAPI 5.3 components to see if we can get them >> running under wine. Any volunteers? > > This is going to be a problem. Microsoft just cut back on their speech > recognition group if rumor  a thing). We might feel the find some of the people > on the street and they might be a let help so, again we'll take a look. > > -- > Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list > Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility > From esj at harvee.org Tue Jun 30 15:42:04 2009 From: esj at harvee.org (Eric S. Johansson) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:42:04 -0400 Subject: Cygwin / Dragon / SAPI / Linux In-Reply-To: <499d69a00906300829w1c4bd832ge9252a90cfd60eaf@mail.gmail.com> References: <1246365162.7340.25.camel@DualCore904.lan> <4A4A2627.3090104@harvee.org> <499d69a00906300829w1c4bd832ge9252a90cfd60eaf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4A324C.3070704@harvee.org> Bill Cox wrote: > The thought of getting Naturally speaking working with Linux is very > exciting, and I may be able to put in some hours on the Linux side. >>From what I've read, it's possible to get NS Professional working with > the built-in text editor, but you can't get text to focus on any Linux > app. Getting that working would be huge. well, we have a bunch of work in wine and audio that needs help I've possibly solved the problem with the cross environment boundary. when i get back from a client site i'll try to write it up From waywardgeek at gmail.com Tue Jun 30 21:01:46 2009 From: waywardgeek at gmail.com (Bill Cox) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:01:46 -0400 Subject: Future of accessibility under Ubuntu In-Reply-To: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> References: <1246286760.7243.42.camel@zorch> Message-ID: <499d69a00906301401q50be9a1bn580ca82ae2c8e203@mail.gmail.com> I have to eat a little crow now. I installed Ubuntu 8.10 x64, and had most of the same stability problems I found in Ubuntu 9.04 x64. So, the problems I've seen are probably somewhat related to the x64 distros, and going back in time to older distros will probably just make things worse, as 64-bit distros have been improving rapidly. While I an still see OK, I'm going to try and use recent versions of x64 Debian and Ubuntu, and I'll try and help track down the bugs. Bill On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Bill Cox wrote: > I hope my criticism in this e-mail is taken as intended - constructive > criticism, rather than pointless ranting.  I would like to raise a > red-flag at Canonical with this post.  Ubuntu 9.04 is a disaster for the > visually impaired.  Vinux, previously based on Ubuntu, has been forced > to switch future development to Debian branches.  Until now, Ubuntu has > had a great reputation for supporting accessibility relative to other > distros, but 9.04 has trashed that. > > If Canonical cares about support for the visually impaired, then it may > be time to mount a significant effort to put out this fire.  On every > blog I'm reading, the visually impaired are recommending that users > switch away from Ubuntu.  I am currently running Orca and Ubuntu 9.04, > and I have to offer that same advice.  It's more than just removing > pulseaudio.  I've hacked problems for a week straight, and Orca is still > not functioning properly.  There are at least a dozen major problems, > and not all of them have work-arounds yet.  Clearly there was zero > testing of Orca for 9.04. > > At a minimum, if Ubuntu plans on having some releases that are > accessible (like 8.10), and others that aren't (like 9.04), then > removing Orca from the unaccessible versions, and posting clear guidance > for the visually impaired would be a good step.  If Ubuntu wants to own > the accessibility space for the visually impaired, it's Ubuntu's for the > taking.  Putting one skilled developer on the issue full time to work > with vinux (previously Vibuntu), should do it.  Otherwise, I suspect > that Vinux will wind up owning this space based on Debian.  There's some > sense to this, as any good work done in Debian eventually gets inherited > by Ubuntu and several other great distros.  However, making Linux easy > to use is Ubuntu's primary focus, so it makes sense to base Vinux on > Ubuntu.  Given the state of 9.04, I intend to help the Vinux guys build > on Debian, but I will sorely miss Ubuntu. > > I hope this is taken as a call to action.  I don't mean to offend > anyone. > > Bill > >