Linux distro and questions

Sat Jan 6 07:49:11 UTC 2018

If you're interested in using the terminal for real work:

1.)	Use Speakup. The easiest way is to install a Linux distribution
that includes Speakup with its kernel modules. My current choice is
Arch, though there are others:

https://talkingarch.tk/

2.)	Use espeak with espeakup for your tts, possibly even espeakup-git for UTF8
support.

2.)	Use screen in your text-only consoles. This may seem an
unrelated step, and it probably is, but you won't be sorry if you put
screen into your Linux terminals.

4.)	Use x-clip to copy between Speakup's clipboard and the graphical
desktop clipboard that Orca supports.

https://security.archlinux.org/package/xclip

A couple additional comments:

This isn't an either or situation, ti's a both and situation. You can
have Orca and Speakup working happily side by side on the same computer.
To achieve this you need to learn how to change from one tty to another,
specificaly by using the function keys at the top of your keyboard
together with Alt and Control, Example: Alt+Ctrl+F1 will probably bring
up your graphical desktop where Orca is. With Speakup loaded and
functioning, Alt+Ctrl+F2 through Alt+Ctrl+F6 will bring up text consoles
where you'll be relying on Speakup and screen.

Note that it's possible to avoid multiple logins. This is an advanced
topic using the openvt command. My ttys are loaded by  in a script that I launch
following my first login.

Note also that you're not limited in how many ttys you can open. This is
another advanced topic. Suffice it to say I have 24. This requires a
slight tweak to the keyboard map to preserve the old distinction between
the left Alt key and the right Alt key. Years ago this was the standard
keyboard map, but the graphical desktop made people stupid about the
value of the distinction, so you need to take care of this yourself, if
you want more than 12 ttys.

hth

Janina

Linux for blind general discussion writes:
> Thank you all for this information. 
> 
> I was able to get Orca to copy text from the terminal but it worked some times and did not work other times. I was also unable to review the entire contents of the terminal output using Orca. I have a feeling this might be due to my limited knowledge of Orca and all the review commands. 
> 
> How do you all interace with output from the terminal window? I know if you are using Linux you must primarily work in the command line, right? 
> 
> Is the new distro of Linux pretty stable? What is it? Sling or something? I really like Debian distros and would most likely go with that unless there is another distro which is better equipt for accessibility. I am using Linux for pen testing and network security so I want to make sure I have access to all the tools I will need as well as any and all console output. If speak up works well in the terminal I might just look into that since I will work primarily in the command line any ways. 
> Bryan Duarte | software engineer
> 
> ASU Computer Science Ph.D Student
> IGERT Fellow
> Alliance for Person-centered Accessible Technology (APAcT)
> Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC Lab)
> National Federation of the Blind of Arizona | Affiliate Board Member
> National Association of Blind Students | Board Member
> Arizona Association of Blind Students | President
> Phone: 480-652-3045
> 
> > On Jan 5, 2018, at 6:45 PM, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
> > 
> > fenrir is the name of that screen reader and when run it has to be run as root with pulseaudio running as --system.  I have had no luck getting fenrir running at all. Anywhere in orca cut and paste is difficult which makes setting up google drive and dropbox just about impossible along with youtube-viewer when you want to login to your youtube account since a code on a web page has to be cut then pasted back into the application.  These cut and paste operations can't be done with speakup since speakup can't run with firefox or chrome or chromium.  In terminal mode in orca, the edit menu is all that's likely to offer any cut and paste capability and it's limited to select all then cut then later paste.  I suppose one might paste to a new file then edit that file removing any extraneous output and then maybe cutting from that file and maybe pasting where you want that output to go.  A package called xclip and another called gpaste exist but I've not heard of people using either for t
>  his work with orca yet.
> > The speakup cut and paste facilities are really effective on the console level.  I'm wondering if you have both speakup and orca running on the same system with speakup turned off while running orca could you go into terminal in orca, shut orca off with insert-q then start speakup and have speakup talk you through what's going on in the terminal?  I think even if this were done and you could do a good cut operation with speakup probably once speakup were turned off and terminal were exited and orca was turned back on a paste operation couldn't be done with the cut material from speakup since speakup and whatever graphical user environment being run both use different clipboard memory real estate. If both use the same memory space more would be possible.
> > 
> > On Fri, 5 Jan 2018, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> > 
> >> Date: Fri, 5 Jan 2018 20:20:09
> >> From: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> >> To: Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> >> Subject: Re: Linux distro and questions
> >> Well Brian, I can answer 2 items in your list. Yes, Speakup has a quite good review function, similar but lots better than NVDA in windows. What really comes in handy are the cut-and-past ability which I use all the time. As for your laptop, why not try Vinux 5.1, currently based on Ubuntu, but soon switching to Fedora.
> >> O-and-there is also a Fenrar screen-reader, but I know little about it.
> >> Chime
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Blinux-list at redhat.com
> >> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> >> 
> >> 
> > 
> > -- 
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-- 

Janina Sajka

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures	http://www.w3.org/wai/apa