Blind vs. mainstream distros

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Samuel writes:

> for instance, because I documented how to test the speech-enabled
> installer on https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Accessibility ,
> some debian-installer people do test it before releasing.

Yay!

>> What I am saying is that if a distro is going to make releases
>> with builtin accessibility, they better have someone on their release
>> team who knows how it works and tests it on each release to make sure
>> that it doesn't bitrot.
>
> Completely agreed. I'm on the other hand saying that it doesn't have to
> be someone with much accessibility knowledge.  As long as the test is
> properly integrated in the process of releasing, i.e. documented and
> written down on the checklist, anybody can do it, and no regression
> should be happening.

Right.  And it is honestly pretty simple to test in the software speech
case.  Boot this.  Either it comes up yammering or it doesn't.  The
braille case is a little more difficult.  For a couple years when I was
developing Talking Arch, I didn't have access to a braille display.  The
one I have now is basically busted, with several broken cells, but at
least I can do simple tests of braille support.  So when I added brltty
to Talking Arch, I didn't have any way to test it, and I had to rely on
the braille users to tell me if it was broken.
I don't see any good solution to this problem, because it requires
expensive specialized hardware and some knowledge of braille.

Just out of curiosity, does the Debian installer have a self-voicing way
to pick the default sound card, like Talking Arch does?  If not, it
should.

-- Chris