new technology for me

[Linux for blind general discussion]

For setting up a basic command-line system with speech, all you really
need aside from the board itself is a microSD, power supply,
earphones/speaker to plug into the 3.5 mm audio jack, and a USB
keyboard for input. Granted, you might want to put the board in a case
and install some heat sinks, and a wired internet connection might be
useful if you don't have a wpasupplicant.conf you can just drop into
/etc/wpasupplicant. Even if you're doing a sighted setup, a HDMI
display for the Pi is optional as initial setup can be done from a
desktop machine via ssh(you'll need to put a blank text file named ssh
in the root of the SD card's boot partition to enable this).

As for the actual setup, there's a few choices of both distro and what
to use for accessibility. My current Pi setup uses Raspbian with
piespeakup, but I hear the broken alsa driver that made espeakup
stutter to the point of uselessness has been fixed, I've heard of
people having success with the Fenrir screen reader, the Arch and
Slackware distros, and F123 produces images based on Arch that have
Fenrir running as the default. There's also been reports of getting
Orca running, though most reports I've read say Orca and a full
graphical desktop environment slow the Pi down too much, though most
tests have used Gnome or Mate, so the jury is out on lighter options.

That said, you might want to cheack out raspberryvi.org and its
associated mailing list as their focus is on blind accessibility on
the Pi specifically.

On 3/25/19, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
> I am interested in buying two raspberry kits and installing linux on both
> of them so the linux will talk.  I have access to Walmart and the walmart
> app too.  My problem is I've never had firsthand contact with raspberry pi
> technology.  One of these raspberry pi kits will be a gift for a good
> friend and he definitely needs his raspberry pi to talk since all he can
> do with his vision is to see light.  I got interested in doing this since
> while trying to help him install slint he shut his computer down at the
> wrong time and now all that shows up is grub-rescue when the computer
> boots and the other drives only light up temporarily.  I did not tell him
> to shut the system down, this was something he did on his own.  I figure
> if he has a Pi he can use to connect to his wi-fi he can at least get out
> onto the internet with it.
> So, what I need to know is what to buy so all of this will work
> sceamlessly once all of the installation and configuration is finished.
> Both of us have peripherals which may or may not work with the kit.
>
>
>
> --
>
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