Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 69, Issue 3

Fri Aug 5 17:50:36 UTC 2011

Personally, for a rock-steady, reliable installation of Ubuntu with
all the accessibility bells and whistles, the very best results I've
had in the last year or so were with Vinux 3.0 which is based on
Ubuntu Lucid 10.04.  You get Speakup working in the console, Orca in
the GUI and Yasr in the xterm environments.  Add Emacspeak to the mix
and you have a very powerful, accessible distribution enabling you to
do just about anything.  10.10 has problems with Yasr for some reason.
 If it's not important to have accessibility in all these
Environments, I'd also suggest 10.10.  Vinux 3.1 is based on it and
works quite well.  11.04 is ok especially with vinux 3.2 which is
based on it but there are bugs and things that a new user will run
into with accessibility and the whole Unity thing is a factor too.  If
you want utterly painless installation, Vinux 3.0 or 3.1 is the way to
go.  Again, my personal preference even now is for 3.0 since I've had
best stable results with it but that's just me and I know many will
disagree on the grounds of getting the most recent most cutting edge
thing out there.  Me, I like Old Faithful, if you will.  Any and all
of the Vinux installations will allow a blind user to do their own
installation completely without sighted assistance too.  Braille
should work just fine in all of them.

Regards,
Alex M

On 8/4/11, ubuntu-accessibility-request at lists.ubuntu.com
<ubuntu-accessibility-request at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Trying to get started (Antony Stone)
>    2. Re: Trying to get started (Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza)
>    3. Re: Trying to get started (Antony Stone)
>    4. Re: Trying to get started (Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza)
>    5. Re: Trying to get started (Antony Stone)
>    6. Re: Trying to get started (Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 15:10:37 +0100
> From: Antony Stone <Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <201108031510.37626.Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi.
>
> I'm trying to get a machine set up with a recent version of Orca for a blind
> friend.  We've been advised that Ubuntu is currently the best distribution
> to
> choose for getting an up-to-date version (ie: with as many features, and
> working as well as possible).
>
> 1. First question - is this correct, or should we be doing something else to
> get the most functional version of Orca possible?
>
> We're using a Braille display (ie: we prefer not to use speech), which is
> supported by BRLTTY (it's a Papenmeier Compact 40-cell display).
>
> Things seem to be difficult to get going in a reliable way, though:
>
> I have installed Ubuntu 11.04 as standard (ie: I did not select a Braille
> display or any other accessible features to do the actual installation - I
> am
> sighted).
>
> After installing, I logged in under my friend's username, and selected
> Accessibility Features on Login, made sure Orca was selected, and told Orca
> we
> wanted Braille.
>
> I also selected "password confirmations as normal dialogue boxes", so that
> these should work on the Braille display.
>
>
> The first problem we encounter is how to log in.  We start the machine, I
> can
> see the GRUB menu (my friend can't, so blind dual-boot still appears to be
> not
> an option), the machine starts up X, and a login dialogue box appears.
>
> The Braille display says "Screen not in text mode" - the login prompt is not
> shown.
>
> 2. Second question - how do we get the login prompt shown on the Braille
> display so that my friend can log in quietly?
>
> As a workaround I recorded an audio clip of "Please enter username, return;
> password, return" and set this as the "System ready" sound (I spent some
> time
> setting it up as the "login" sound, only to find that this is played *after*
> the user logs in, not at the prompt telling them to log in...).
>
> So, my friend now knows when to enter her username and password, and can log
> in.
>
> Orca starts up, with speech, and announces that it is running and the
> Preferences button is active.
>
> Nothing appears on the Braille display (except "Screen not in text mode"
> from
> when X started while BRLTTY was already running).
>
> I have to restart BRLTTY, and then also restart Orca, for the Braille
> display
> to become functional.
>
> 3. Third question - what have we misconfigured here, which stops Orca from
> showing Braille as soon as it starts up?  (We can hear the standard BRLTTY
> startup bleep, and we see "Screen not in text mode", so we know BRLTTY is
> running and driving the Braille display correctly).
>
> Having restarted things for my friend, she can now start navigating the
> menus,
> and I've been helping her by reading the Orca / Gnome documentation at
> http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/2.32/gnome-access-guide.html
>
> This tells us we can use Alt-F1 to get to the Applications menu; this works.
>
> It doesn't appear to tell us how to get to the "Status bar" menu which I can
> see in the top right corner of the screen - the one with icons for wireless
> networking, volume control, and particularly important, the shutdown /
> logout
> / restart menu button (the one which to a sighted user looks like a power
> switch icon).
>
> 4. Fourth question - is this the correct documentation we should be using
> for
> the keyboard navigation keys, and how do we get to the logout / shutdown
> menu
> without the mouse working?
>
> Oh, yes, while I'm thinking about the mouse, the computer we're using has a
> touchpad, which of course does all sorts of undesirable things when randomly
> touched by a blind person typing.  Since I'm a fairly advanced Linux user, I
> set up sudoers to allow my friend's user ID to run rmmod without a password,
> and then put "sudo rmmod psmouse" into the list of applications to run at
> login time for her username - however this seems rather advanced for an
> average blind user; is there some more standard way of saying "disable the
> touchpad when Iog in"?
>
> Getting back to Orca, I've selected the laptop keyboard layout, therefore
> CapsLock is the Orca Modifier key.  CapsLock-S disables or enables speech,
> as
> expected.  It also leaves CapsLock turned on after pressing it (or off if it
> was on beforehand) - in other words, CapsLock is still acting as the
> standard
> toggle, it isn't being fully captured by Orca, even though on an older
> version
> of Orca (whatever came with Debian Lenny, I can't recall the version number)
> the CapsLock key worked correctly as an Orca Modifier, and did not leave
> CapsLock turned on after you had used some Orca function.
>
> 5. Fifth question - is this a known bug, or something we've misconfigured?
> How
> can we get the CapsLock key to act as an Orca modifier without leaving
> capitals
> turned on afterwards?
>
> I know there's more - my friend has been exploring the menus as much as she
> can given the documentation we've found so far, and she's commented that
> various things seem to be either very slow, or don't appear to respond
> properly, but I'd rather see if we can get some answers to these basics
> before
> going into detail about other things which might just be a consequence of a
> sub-optimal configuration.
>
> Sorry about the length of this email, but I wanted to give as good a
> description as possible of what we're doing and what seems to be happening;
> I
> hope someone can help shed some light on how to get things working better.
>
> By the way, if the answer is "reinstall Ubuntu following the instructions at
> http://XYZ" then that's no problem; we have nothing significant set up on
> the
> machine so far, and reinstalling to get things working as intended would be
> fine.
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
> Antony.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 11:41:05 -0300
> From: Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza 	<vilmar at informal.com.br>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <4E395E01.7090804 at informal.com.br>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Hi.
> I think that ubuntu 11.04 is not the better choice.
> First there is the problem related to the CapsLock ke. Yes, it is a bug.
> Ubuntu 11.04 uses unity as the default interface and I think that there
> are problems regarding accessibility.
>
> In myopinion you should try ubuntu 10.10 or try vinux,
> http://vinuxproject.org/.
>
>
> On 08/03/2011 11:10 AM, Antony Stone wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> I'm trying to get a machine set up with a recent version of Orca for a
>> blind
>> friend.  We've been advised that Ubuntu is currently the best distribution
>> to
>> choose for getting an up-to-date version (ie: with as many features, and
>> working as well as possible).
>>
>> 1. First question - is this correct, or should we be doing something else
>> to
>> get the most functional version of Orca possible?
>>
>> We're using a Braille display (ie: we prefer not to use speech), which is
>> supported by BRLTTY (it's a Papenmeier Compact 40-cell display).
>>
>> Things seem to be difficult to get going in a reliable way, though:
>>
>> I have installed Ubuntu 11.04 as standard (ie: I did not select a Braille
>> display or any other accessible features to do the actual installation - I
>> am
>> sighted).
>>
>> After installing, I logged in under my friend's username, and selected
>> Accessibility Features on Login, made sure Orca was selected, and told
>> Orca we
>> wanted Braille.
>>
>> I also selected "password confirmations as normal dialogue boxes", so that
>>
>> these should work on the Braille display.
>>
>>
>> The first problem we encounter is how to log in.  We start the machine, I
>> can
>> see the GRUB menu (my friend can't, so blind dual-boot still appears to be
>> not
>> an option), the machine starts up X, and a login dialogue box appears.
>>
>> The Braille display says "Screen not in text mode" - the login prompt is
>> not
>> shown.
>>
>> 2. Second question - how do we get the login prompt shown on the Braille
>> display so that my friend can log in quietly?
>>
>> As a workaround I recorded an audio clip of "Please enter username,
>> return;
>> password, return" and set this as the "System ready" sound (I spent some
>> time
>> setting it up as the "login" sound, only to find that this is played
>> *after*
>> the user logs in, not at the prompt telling them to log in...).
>>
>> So, my friend now knows when to enter her username and password, and can
>> log
>> in.
>>
>> Orca starts up, with speech, and announces that it is running and the
>> Preferences button is active.
>>
>> Nothing appears on the Braille display (except "Screen not in text mode"
>> from
>> when X started while BRLTTY was already running).
>>
>> I have to restart BRLTTY, and then also restart Orca, for the Braille
>> display
>> to become functional.
>>
>> 3. Third question - what have we misconfigured here, which stops Orca from
>>
>> showing Braille as soon as it starts up?  (We can hear the standard BRLTTY
>>
>> startup bleep, and we see "Screen not in text mode", so we know BRLTTY is
>> running and driving the Braille display correctly).
>>
>> Having restarted things for my friend, she can now start navigating the
>> menus,
>> and I've been helping her by reading the Orca / Gnome documentation at
>> http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/2.32/gnome-access-guide.html
>>
>> This tells us we can use Alt-F1 to get to the Applications menu; this
>> works.
>>
>> It doesn't appear to tell us how to get to the "Status bar" menu which I
>> can
>> see in the top right corner of the screen - the one with icons for
>> wireless
>> networking, volume control, and particularly important, the shutdown /
>> logout
>> / restart menu button (the one which to a sighted user looks like a power
>> switch icon).
>>
>> 4. Fourth question - is this the correct documentation we should be using
>> for
>> the keyboard navigation keys, and how do we get to the logout / shutdown
>> menu
>> without the mouse working?
>>
>> Oh, yes, while I'm thinking about the mouse, the computer we're using has
>> a
>> touchpad, which of course does all sorts of undesirable things when
>> randomly
>> touched by a blind person typing.  Since I'm a fairly advanced Linux user,
>> I
>> set up sudoers to allow my friend's user ID to run rmmod without a
>> password,
>> and then put "sudo rmmod psmouse" into the list of applications to run at
>> login time for her username - however this seems rather advanced for an
>> average blind user; is there some more standard way of saying "disable the
>>
>> touchpad when Iog in"?
>>
>> Getting back to Orca, I've selected the laptop keyboard layout, therefore
>> CapsLock is the Orca Modifier key.  CapsLock-S disables or enables speech,
>> as
>> expected.  It also leaves CapsLock turned on after pressing it (or off if
>> it
>> was on beforehand) - in other words, CapsLock is still acting as the
>> standard
>> toggle, it isn't being fully captured by Orca, even though on an older
>> version
>> of Orca (whatever came with Debian Lenny, I can't recall the version
>> number)
>> the CapsLock key worked correctly as an Orca Modifier, and did not leave
>> CapsLock turned on after you had used some Orca function.
>>
>> 5. Fifth question - is this a known bug, or something we've misconfigured?
>>  How
>> can we get the CapsLock key to act as an Orca modifier without leaving
>> capitals
>> turned on afterwards?
>>
>> I know there's more - my friend has been exploring the menus as much as
>> she
>> can given the documentation we've found so far, and she's commented that
>> various things seem to be either very slow, or don't appear to respond
>> properly, but I'd rather see if we can get some answers to these basics
>> before
>> going into detail about other things which might just be a consequence of
>> a
>> sub-optimal configuration.
>>
>> Sorry about the length of this email, but I wanted to give as good a
>> description as possible of what we're doing and what seems to be
>> happening; I
>> hope someone can help shed some light on how to get things working better.
>>
>> By the way, if the answer is "reinstall Ubuntu following the instructions
>> at
>> http://XYZ" then that's no problem; we have nothing significant set up on
>> the
>> machine so far, and reinstalling to get things working as intended would
>> be
>> fine.
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>>
>> Antony.
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 16:56:28 +0100
> From: Antony Stone <Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <201108031656.29891.Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> Content-Type: Text/Plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Wednesday 03 Aug 2011 15:41:05 Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>> I think that ubuntu 11.04 is not the better choice.
>> First there is the problem related to the CapsLock ke. Yes, it is a bug.
>
> Aha, good to know.
>
>> Ubuntu 11.04 uses unity as the default interface and I think that there
>> are problems regarding accessibility.
>
> Is this something which can be changed in Ubuntu?  You say it is the
> "default"
> interface, which suggests to me that we could use a different one if we
> wished?
>
>> In myopinion you should try ubuntu 10.10 or try vinux,
>> http://vinuxproject.org/.
>
> Thanks - does 10.10 have a similarly up-to-date version of Orca (which we
> have
> been told is very important for getting the best functionality - older
> versions are distinctly lacking in working features)?
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Antony.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:23:05 -0300
> From: Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza 	<vilmar at informal.com.br>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <4E3975E9.2050704 at informal.com.br>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hi.
> If you install ubuntu 11.04 with the accessibility profile enabled, the
> classic gnome interface will be configured as the default. To enable the
> accessibility profile you need to press the f5 key in some part of the
> boot. I don't remember exactly in which part, but I think that is after
> choose the language.
>
> Actually  I am using ubuntu 10.10 with orca from git repository. One
> reason to not use 11.04 is the problem of the CapsLock key.
> It is very simple to install orca from the git repository.
>
> On 08/03/2011 12:56 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
>> On Wednesday 03 Aug 2011 15:41:05 Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza wrote:
>>
>>> Hi.
>>> I think that ubuntu 11.04 is not the better choice.
>>> First there is the problem related to the CapsLock ke. Yes, it is a bug.
>>
>> Aha, good to know.
>>
>>> Ubuntu 11.04 uses unity as the default interface and I think that there
>>> are problems regarding accessibility.
>>
>> Is this something which can be changed in Ubuntu?  You say it is the
>> "default"
>> interface, which suggests to me that we could use a different one if we
>> wished?
>>
>>> In myopinion you should try ubuntu 10.10 or try vinux,
>>> http://vinuxproject.org/.
>>
>> Thanks - does 10.10 have a similarly up-to-date version of Orca (which we
>> have
>> been told is very important for getting the best functionality - older
>> versions are distinctly lacking in working features)?
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>> Antony.
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2011 17:37:35 +0100
> From: Antony Stone <Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <201108031737.36063.Antony.Stone at ubuntu.open.source.it>
> Content-Type: Text/Plain;  charset="utf-8"
>
> On Wednesday 03 Aug 2011 17:23:05 Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza wrote:
>
>> Hi.
>> If you install ubuntu 11.04 with the accessibility profile enabled, the
>> classic gnome interface will be configured as the default. To enable the
>> accessibility profile you need to press the f5 key in some part of the
>> boot. I don't remember exactly in which part, but I think that is after
>> choose the language.
>
> Okay, that's very good to know, however I think I prefer to avoid the
> CapsLock
> bug :)
>
>> Actually  I am using ubuntu 10.10 with orca from git repository. One
>> reason to not use 11.04 is the problem of the CapsLock key.
>> It is very simple to install orca from the git repository.
>
> Thanks - presumably you install with accessibility options selected, and
> then
> build/install Orca from the Git source to bring it up to date?
>
> One final question - have I got the best-available documentation for
> keyboard
> commands, to be able to navigate around the Gnome desktop, control
> applications etc?  I'm using
> http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/2.32/gnome-access-guide.html
>
>
> Thanks for the help :)
>
>
> Antony.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:14:20 -0300
> From: Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza 	<vilmar at informal.com.br>
> To: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: Trying to get started
> Message-ID: <4E398FFC.90403 at informal.com.br>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hi.
> One thing that you can do to avoid the CapsLock bug is to use an
> external usb keypad. It is not very expensive and works quite well.
>
> You're correct. I installed using orca presente in the CD and after the
> installation I built orca from source downloaded directly from the
> repository.
>
> Regarding the documentation, I think that you weren't in the  ideal
> place because the interface configured was the unity.
> Since you will install ubuntu 10.10 or a similar, I think the link that
> you have is a good place.
> Forgive my bad english!
>
>
> On 08/03/2011 01:37 PM, Antony Stone wrote:
>> On Wednesday 03 Aug 2011 17:23:05 Jos? Vilmar Est?cio de Souza wrote:
>>
>>> Hi.
>>> If you install ubuntu 11.04 with the accessibility profile enabled, the
>>> classic gnome interface will be configured as the default. To enable the
>>> accessibility profile you need to press the f5 key in some part of the
>>> boot. I don't remember exactly in which part, but I think that is after
>>> choose the language.
>>
>> Okay, that's very good to know, however I think I prefer to avoid the
>> CapsLock
>> bug :)
>>
>>> Actually  I am using ubuntu 10.10 with orca from git repository. One
>>> reason to not use 11.04 is the problem of the CapsLock key.
>>> It is very simple to install orca from the git repository.
>>
>> Thanks - presumably you install with accessibility options selected, and
>> then
>> build/install Orca from the Git source to bring it up to date?
>>
>> One final question - have I got the best-available documentation for
>> keyboard
>> commands, to be able to navigate around the Gnome desktop, control
>> applications etc?  I'm using
>> http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/2.32/gnome-access-guide.html
>>
>>
>> Thanks for the help :)
>>
>>
>> Antony.
>>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> --
> Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
> Ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
>
>
> End of Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 69, Issue 3
> ***************************************************
>