Debian Stretch: how to get spoken login prompt and retrieve tty1

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Hello Al, Didier Spaier here.

Le 17/12/2017 à 18:26, Linux for blind general discussion a écrit :
> Greetings!
> 
> I ran into some problems when I upgraded from jessie to stretch this fall.  I'd like to fix these two especially without having to reinstall.
> 
> First, when I used jessie, Orca spoke at login time.  Now, it doesn't. I guess when to do it, and then I get a message from Orca like "screen reader on, 17 pushbutton."  (I guess this last thing is supposed to be a "feature," since I also got it on the stretch live CD, but I don't know what it's good for.) For this problem, what can I change to get back my spoken login prompt?
> 
> Second, after I've hit ENTER on this "pushbutton," I can do my usual press of the Windows key and run firefox or whatever.  However, if I go to another terminal to use speakup, for example, tty1 no longer works--or, at least, I have to log in there again.  Typically, tty2 or sometimes another one becomes my graphical terminal.  I end up minus a terminal.  Does anyone know if this is fixable?
> 
> I've tried using Google and the Debian site itself for direction, but so far have found nothing.
> 
> Also, this is an Intel x86-64 machine, in case it matters.
> 
> Thanks for any help, or for pointers to information.
> 
> Al

I cant' help much =, as I am not a Debian user.

However, my guess is that the "pushbutton" message comes from the lightdm graphical login manager using orca, so it is launched at started.
Still guessing, in the previous version instead at startup you logged in a tty and had speech with speakup.

When you hit ENTER on "pushbutton" lightdm opens a graphical session and in this environment there is no ttys but terminals for X instead.

Try then to press Alt+F1. Hopefully this will bring up the menu of the graphical environment. Navigating in this menu with the arrow keys you should find a terminal. Just start it, it should speak using Orca.

I could give more hints if I knew in which graphical environment lightdm (if it is indeed lightdm) drops you.

Greetings,

Didier