Okay since no one here seems to be coming on to the proper way to run
the ubiquity installer, the way that allows you to actually have
speech, I will outline it here for future interest.
After you have booted up ubuntu from the disk, it is, of course
running from the disk as a demo operating system. This is the
weirdest thing I have ever heard of but that is how it is and maybe
someone else can say why. It takes it about 5 or so minutes to boot
up completely when you will hear the start up jingle. Wait another
minute or so and then press alt (option) with f2 to bring up the
application run dialog. Wait another second, type orca, and press
return. Now you get the orca start up dialog in the terminal
window. It will ask you a series of questions to which you will be
either required to give n/y answers or you will have to give it a
number answer. The first question, it wants you to select the
language, it will give you a huge numbered list of choices. I think
the first three or 4 ar english the others are something else.
Anyway, that whole process is pretty straight forward. When you have
finished setting up orca, it will ask you if you want to log out
because apparently you must log out for new settings to take effect.
If you should find yourself wanting to do this, you press y (yes)
when it asks. It will then say that it is logging out. This is not
entirely true. It is just bringing up the dialog to choose whether
you will log out, restart, shut down, hybronate etc. Press tab once
and press return. Orca does not, from my experience, speak at this
point.
When you actually decide that you want to install the system using
the ubiquity installer do the following. Press alt f2 to bring up
the app run dialog. type gnome-terminal and press return.
In the terminal window, type "sudo su". Then press insert (fn+m) q
to quit orca. It will give you a dialog asking if you want to quit.
Say yes.
Then, without speech, type
orca --no-setup &
Press return. Now orca is running as root. From what I gather of
this, some applications run from the root account, rather than the
account that you are typically using. Ubiquity is one of these.
Orca won't go across accounts yet so the solution is to run it as
root. Press alt tab to get back into the terminal window and type
"ubiquity". Now it should open up the installer and it will have
speech. Follow the directions with the usual tab, enter, spacebar
navigations. The only unusual thing you will find is when you select
your city. To move past this pop-up-box after you have selected your
city, or the city nearest you, press ctrl tab.
I have done this twice and it seemed that on both occasions, I had to
do a bit of prodding to make the ubiquity installer open after I was
running orca as root. There were a couple times I typed it and it
didn't open. It worked after a couple tries though. I wonder if you
might be able to run it from the application run dialog.
If anyone wants to read more on this go to http://live.gnome.org/Orca/
UbuntuEdgyEft
Justin Harford
"A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance
with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is
likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become."
Fawn M. Brodie
