Sonar GNU/Linux merges with Vinux

[Linux for blind general discussion]

That's what I've thought.  Also, it seems to me as a matter of equal 
access that we should have speech and Braille access as close to the 
time as possible when sighted folks can see action on their monitors. 
If that requires that our speech/Braille output software be in kernel 
space, then it should be a given in kernel revision.

In this vein, I'm grateful for Samuel and Okash for their current work 
on Speakup.  I'll be a happy camper if I can use my TripleTalk LT with 
Speakup again--and presumably won't *have* to worry too much about 
hassles between Speakup and Pulseaudio.

Best!
Al

On 04/24/2017 10:59 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> The reason it is important for the screen reader to not be in user space
> is that you might need it to gett boot messages.
>
>
> -- John Heim
>
>
>
>
>
> On 04/24/2017 07:40 AM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
>> Tony,
>> I said absolutely nothing of Red Hat hosting Orca. I said they ship it
>> with the distribution, which they are not at all obligated to do, as
>> proven by the fact that Linux Mint didn't come with Orca in the live
>> environment for a very long time. As for Speakup, it has never been
>> fully ready for prime time up to now, and there are very good reasons
>> why it is still stuck in the staging tree. If you want to talk about
>> too little too late, then I would talk of Speakup, which is only
>> recently getting its act together enough to hopefully make it out of
>> staging and into the stable kernel tree, maybe in the next couple of
>> years if we're lucky. Meanwhile, we have a very nice package called
>> Fenrir, which has taken the screen reader completely out of the
>> kernel, putting it fully in userspace where it belongs. Perhaps this
>> will address the issue of speech from a text only environment much
>> better than Speakup ever could, as it can not only work on kernels
>> without staging enabled, but it will also eventually be far more
>> portable to things like FreeBSD, which has never had even a proof of
>> concept kernel-based screen reader, and has up to now required ssh in
>> order to get it to do anything for those of us who need speech output.
>>
>> Regarding installer accessibility, I have used quite a few installers,
>> and Red Hat was one of the first major vendors to ship an installer
>> that while not accessible by direct methods e.g. via speech on the
>> machine where the OS was to be installed, did come with a method of
>> gaining access to the installation terminal via telnet, and also had
>> kickstart files that could be used in place of the on-screen system.
>> Of course Speakup had to be used via Speakup Modified, and before
>> that, the kernel had to be patched, but I wouldn't call that not
>> caring by any stretch. Once the graphical environment started becoming
>> usable, Red Hat, now called Fedora, was already shipping Orca in its
>> repositories, and they were one of the first to include the quite new
>> at the time Espeak, which was far more responsive than Festival, and
>> all the other distros soon followed. I'm not sure where in the world
>> you have come to the conclusion that Red Hat simply doesn't care about
>> accessibility. Is it because your beloved Speakup, which is stuck in
>> the staging tree for more than 3 years now still isn't enabled in the
>> Fedora kernel? Sorry, but it's way past time to look elsewhere for
>> text mode screen reading to something that isn't locked into a kernel.
>> No other screen reader is bound to a kernel, and there are excellent
>> reasons that go far deeper than accessibility for disabling staging in
>> a vendor kernel. Rather than complaining that a distro vendor doesn't
>> enable a potentially insecure and/or unstable part of its kernel so
>> that we can have a screen reader in text mode, those who use text mode
>> on a regular basis and need a screen reader for it need to either
>> learn how to muck about in the Linux kernel itself so that the screen
>> reader can get out of staging and into the kernel proper, or better
>> yet, contribute to Fenrir development, where everything goes on in
>> userspace and the screen reader only relies on interfaces to stable
>> and well-tested parts of the kernel that are never disabled in any
>> distro or vendor kernel. If Red Hat decides not to accept a Fenrir
>> package, then and only then can we begin to arrive at the conclusion
>> that maybe perhaps they don't give a care for accessibility.
>> ~Kyle
>>
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