Blind vs. mainstream distros

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Did people actually complain about the beep? If so, I'm starting to
think the sighted end-users aren't willing to make any compromise at
all for the benefit of their blind peers.

Though, while we're on the subject, is there any technical reason the
beep couldn't be replaced with a prerecorded message that says "press
s and enter for talking installer" or something similar?

Ideally, any instructions beyond put the disc in and boot the computer
should be provided by the disc itself, and to be quite frank,
requiring the majority to make an extra key press the disc can
instruct them to make strikes me as more reasonable than to make a
minority make an extra key press when the disc has no way of telling
them they need to.

I'm not really bothered by the need to press s at the beep since I
already know what to do, but if I handed a copy of Debian CD1 to
another blind user and forgot to mention that bit, they wouldn't be
able to get anywhere and might not even realize the beep means
anything. If I handed a sighted user an altered version of Debian CD1
that had the talking installer as the default and the silent installer
as option 2, I think it would be reasonable to think they could get to
the silent installer without assistence or any information bootting
the disc and seeing what's on screen couldn't give them.

Though, if there's a way to change which boot option is default on a
Debian install disc, I'd like to hear it.

Though, at present, my biggest complaints regarding doing a blind
install of Debian are:
1. From what I remember from the last time I could installDebian as a
sighted user, all the menus that could be scrolled through in the
silent installer using arrow keys have been reduced to listening to a
numbered list and entering the number of the option you want. On
average, I find this slows things down and it almost makes me wish for
a reference I could use to memorize the numbers of my choices prior to
launching the installer. In particular, it makes operating the
partitioner quite a bit more cumbersome.
2. Best I can tell, there's no way of rereading all or part of a
specific screen within the installer, and any accidental key press
during the reading of a new screen cuts off the reading.

-- 
Sincerely,

Jeffery Wright
President Emeritus, Nu Nu Chapter, Phi Theta Kappa.
Former Secretary, Student Government Association, College of the Albemarle.