As Glenn correctly points out, speakup only works in a console and ORCA only works in the graphical user interface (GUI) and opening up a text terminal inside the GUI.
New comers often mix up running a text terminal in Orca compared with directly opening one of the virtual consoles. A console refers to the system's low-level text interface, such as virtual consoles (TTYs accessed via Ctrl+Alt+F1-F6), which provide direct, full-screen access to the OS kernel and shell without a graphical environment. A terminal (or terminal emulator like GNOME Terminal which uses Orca) is a graphical windowed application within a desktop environment (e.g., opened via Ctrl+Alt+T) that emulates a console, passing input to a shell and displaying output. I'm confused if everyone understands the difference because it's easy to confuse them but they are two different things. If everyone already knows this, I apologize, but years ago I thought orca running GNOME terminal was what people were talking about when they mentioned the "console". It isn't, it is more basic than the Graphical User Interface (GUI), it's running underneath the GUI, underneath Orca. Open it up as I described in the first paragraph. The Graphical environment GUI runs in a console, but the other consoles are available for use. Often F1 is the GUI so I proposed opening the F3 console. Remember you can only run console apps and direct commands in a console but you will notice how much faster it is than the GUI and Orca. David Ring On Mon, Mar 23, 2026, 02:05 K0LNY ?? <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't think you would want speakup in a terminal. > I am guessing that most people who want Speakup rather than Orca, call up > a > console and run Speakup there. > Speakup won't really work in a GUI session, which is where the terminal is > running from. > Glenn > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "john doe" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, March 23, 2026 12:44 AM > Subject: Re: Forky installer speakup does not work after installation but > orca does > > > On 3/22/26 20:00, Nick Gawronski wrote: > > Hi, I just installed Forky and noticed that orca comes up as normal > > after the installation in mate but if I try to access just the consoles > > I have no speech from speakup what so ever. This should be fixed as > > that could really be a mess for some users and orca is not the best in > > terminal applications. > > > > Why according to you, Orca is not working in the terminal? > > I use Orca in the terminal on a daily bases without problem. > > -- > John Doe > >
