Re: Which softwares to install ?

[Didier Spaier]

Le 18/07/2022 à 12:48, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> There is no need to unsubscribe, you just need to refrain from
> gratuitous advertisement.
> 
> Samuel

So informing about external projects, even if free as in free speech (also as in
free beer in case of Slint) and open source is considered as a frowned upon
gratuitous advertisement here... I prefer to unsubscribe than to abide to such
a rule or be rebuffed.

Best regards,
Didier

Re: Which softwares to install ?

[Didier Spaier]

> I concur with Samuel, using your e-mail address to promote yourself is
> more than enough.

No worries, I will just unsubscribe now.

Didier

Re: Which softwares to install ?

[Didier Spaier]

Le 18/07/2022 à 00:47, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> I guess he means the lightdm login page?  Normally if the system was
> installed with speech/braille enabled, orca is enabled on the login page
> as well. Otherwise IIRC lightdm has a shortcut to start orca.

Correct, but probably it depends on the greeter in use.
For the GTK greeter it's F4
I just uploaded an ISO with it, for who has some time to kill:
https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-15.0/iso/

OpenPGP_0xD50202EF60C03EEA.asc
Description: OpenPGP public key


OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [orca-list] Do you have a solution?? [john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org: Problem with lightdm]

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John,

I agree it's complicated. maybe more than strictly necessary.

I know that you use Braille only, but as in case of Lightdm as of Mate the
Braille output is conveyed by Orca using brlapi, no Orca, no Braille.

While you are at it, you could also check that Lightdm be a member of the
braille or brltty group, whichever be associated with brltty in Debian Bullseye.

You can check that comparing the group to which you are a member with the ones
to which lightdm is a member. Assuming that your username is john just type
these commands and compare their output:
grep john /etc/group
grep lightdm /etc/group

Anyway as I wrote, I usually end up not using a graphical login manager, I find
typing startx from the text console to start Mate (well, now LXQt instead as I
prefer it) more straightforward.

Cheers,
Didier


Le 05/07/2022 à 05:32, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> Hello Didier,
> 
> Thanks. I use Braille, not speech. This all seems quite complicated. I wonder 
> why the change was made. It has meant that I can't use a graphical interface 
> on Linux. I'll have to try the suggestions and see what hapens.
> 
> John
> 
> On Mon, Jul 04, 2022 at 07:36:48PM +0200, Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hello John,
>>
>> I second the suggestion from Jason to start in console mode the type startx
>> wheneve needed to start Mate, at least as a workaround.
>>
>> Now to have lightdm start in tty7 as previously, you could edit the file:
>> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
>> and remove the leading # in this line:
>> #minimum-vt=7
>> Also check if this variable is set otherwise in this file.
>>
>> About speech in the lightdm greeter and assuming you are running the gtk one,
>> edit the file:
>> /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and include these settings:
>>
>> indicators = ~a11y;~session;~power
>> a11y-states = +reader
>> reader = orca
>>
>> As I am not using Debian but maybe some Debian specific settings come into 
>> play,
>> I CC the Debian accessibility mailing list so that Debian users can tell if
>> something works differently in Debian Bookworm.
>>
>> Friendly regards,
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 04/07/2022 à 10:43, John J. Boyer a écrit :
>>> I sent this message to the blinux list and did not receive a reply. perhaps 
>>> someone on this list knows what is hapening. I am cuyrrently using Windows 
>>> for my Web acces.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>> - Forwarded message from "John J. Boyer"  
>>> -
>>>
>>> Subject: Problem with lightdm
>>> From: "John J. Boyer" 
>>> Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:03:36 -0500
>>> To: Linux for blind general discussion 
>>>
>>> Until about six months ago, when I booted up  lightdm would ask what user 
>>> to log into and the password. It would then set up console 7, set the 
>>> screen for this console to graphics mode and start  Orca. It would not 
>>> affect the other consoles, so i could continue to use them in command mode, 
>>> with brltrty. Now lightdm just sets the screen to graphics mode without 
>>> asking anything. I have to use systemctl to disable it, so I can use the 
>>> machine. 
>>> How can I get the former behavior back? As it is, I can't use Mate at all.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>>
>>
> 

Fwd: [orca-list] Do you have a solution?? [john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org: Problem with lightdm]

[Didier Spaier]

[I previously re-sent another message by mistake, sorry again]

Hello John,

I agree it's complicated. maybe more than strictly necessary.

I know that you use Braille only, but as in case of Lightdm as of Mate the
Braille output is conveyed by Orca using brlapi, no Orca, no Braille.

While you are at it, you could also check that Lightdm be a member of the
braille or brltty group, whichever be associated with brltty in Debian Bullseye.

You can check that comparing the group to which you are a member with the ones
to which lightdm is a member. Assuming that your username is john just type
these commands and compare their output:
grep john /etc/group
grep lightdm /etc/group

Anyway as I wrote, I usually end up not using a graphical login manager, I find
typing startx from the text console to start Mate (well, now LXQt instead as I
prefer it) more straightforward.

Cheers,
Didier


Le 05/07/2022 à 05:32, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> Hello Didier,
> 
> Thanks. I use Braille, not speech. This all seems quite complicated. I wonder 
> why the change was made. It has meant that I can't use a graphical interface 
> on Linux. I'll have to try the suggestions and see what hapens.
> 
> John
> 
> On Mon, Jul 04, 2022 at 07:36:48PM +0200, Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hello John,
>>
>> I second the suggestion from Jason to start in console mode the type startx
>> wheneve needed to start Mate, at least as a workaround.
>>
>> Now to have lightdm start in tty7 as previously, you could edit the file:
>> /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
>> and remove the leading # in this line:
>> #minimum-vt=7
>> Also check if this variable is set otherwise in this file.
>>
>> About speech in the lightdm greeter and assuming you are running the gtk one,
>> edit the file:
>> /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and include these settings:
>>
>> indicators = ~a11y;~session;~power
>> a11y-states = +reader
>> reader = orca
>>
>> As I am not using Debian but maybe some Debian specific settings come into 
>> play,
>> I CC the Debian accessibility mailing list so that Debian users can tell if
>> something works differently in Debian Bookworm.
>>
>> Friendly regards,
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 04/07/2022 à 10:43, John J. Boyer a écrit :
>>> I sent this message to the blinux list and did not receive a reply. perhaps 
>>> someone on this list knows what is hapening. I am cuyrrently using Windows 
>>> for my Web acces.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>> - Forwarded message from "John J. Boyer"  
>>> -
>>>
>>> Subject: Problem with lightdm
>>> From: "John J. Boyer" 
>>> Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:03:36 -0500
>>> To: Linux for blind general discussion 
>>>
>>> Until about six months ago, when I booted up  lightdm would ask what user 
>>> to log into and the password. It would then set up console 7, set the 
>>> screen for this console to graphics mode and start  Orca. It would not 
>>> affect the other consoles, so i could continue to use them in command mode, 
>>> with brltrty. Now lightdm just sets the screen to graphics mode without 
>>> asking anything. I have to use systemctl to disable it, so I can use the 
>>> machine. 
>>> How can I get the former behavior back? As it is, I can't use Mate at all.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>>
>>
> 

Fwd: [orca-list] Do you have a solution?? [john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org: Problem with lightdm]

[Didier Spaier]

[message re-sent from my usual email address, sorry for the duplicates]

Hello John,

I second the suggestion from Jason to start in console mode the type startx
wheneve needed to start Mate, at least as a workaround.

Now to have lightdm start in tty7 as previously, you could edit the file:
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
and remove the leading # in this line:
#minimum-vt=7
Also check if this variable is set otherwise in this file.

About speech in the lightdm greeter and assuming you are running the gtk one,
edit the file:
/etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and include these settings:

indicators = ~a11y;~session;~power
a11y-states = +reader
reader = orca

As I am not using Debian but maybe some Debian specific settings come into play,
I CC the Debian accessibility mailing list so that Debian users can tell if
something works differently in Debian Bookworm.

Friendly regards,
Didier

Le 04/07/2022 à 10:43, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> I sent this message to the blinux list and did not receive a reply. perhaps 
> someone on this list knows what is hapening. I am cuyrrently using Windows 
> for my Web acces.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> - Forwarded message from "John J. Boyer"  
> -
> 
> Subject: Problem with lightdm
> From: "John J. Boyer" 
> Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:03:36 -0500
> To: Linux for blind general discussion 
> 
> Until about six months ago, when I booted up  lightdm would ask what user to 
> log into and the password. It would then set up console 7, set the screen for 
> this console to graphics mode and start  Orca. It would not affect the other 
> consoles, so i could continue to use them in command mode, with brltrty. Now 
> lightdm just sets the screen to graphics mode without asking anything. I have 
> to use systemctl to disable it, so I can use the machine. 
> How can I get the former behavior back? As it is, I can't use Mate at all.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 

Re: [orca-list] Do you have a solution?? [john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org: Problem with lightdm]

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John,

I second the suggestion from Jason to start in console mode the type startx
wheneve needed to start Mate, at least as a workaround.

Now to have lightdm start in tty7 as previously, you could edit the file:
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
and remove the leading # in this line:
#minimum-vt=7
Also check if this variable is set otherwise in this file.

About speech in the lightdm greeter and assuming you are running the gtk one,
edit the file:
/etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf and include these settings:

indicators = ~a11y;~session;~power
a11y-states = +reader
reader = orca

As I am not using Debian but maybe some Debian specific settings come into play,
I CC the Debian accessibility mailing list so that Debian users can tell if
something works differently in Debian Bookworm.

Friendly regards,
Didier

Le 04/07/2022 à 10:43, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> I sent this message to the blinux list and did not receive a reply. perhaps 
> someone on this list knows what is hapening. I am cuyrrently using Windows 
> for my Web acces.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> - Forwarded message from "John J. Boyer"  
> -
> 
> Subject: Problem with lightdm
> From: "John J. Boyer" 
> Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:03:36 -0500
> To: Linux for blind general discussion 
> 
> Until about six months ago, when I booted up  lightdm would ask what user to 
> log into and the password. It would then set up console 7, set the screen for 
> this console to graphics mode and start  Orca. It would not affect the other 
> consoles, so i could continue to use them in command mode, with brltrty. Now 
> lightdm just sets the screen to graphics mode without asking anything. I have 
> to use systemctl to disable it, so I can use the machine. 
> How can I get the former behavior back? As it is, I can't use Mate at all.
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 

Re: R: which desktop is more accessible in debian

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Roberto

Le 29/06/2022 à 15:27, Roberto Burceni a écrit :
> Thank you for your response. Which distribution are you using for xlqt?

Slint, but running the pre-version 15.0 not yet released (I am its maintainer).

Cheers,
Didier

Re: which desktop is more accessible in debian

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Le 29/06/2022 à 14:25, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> Roberto Burceni, le mer. 29 juin 2022 14:03:38 +0200, a ecrit:
>> Which is the more accessible desktop at this moment between mate xlqt and 
>> gnome?
> 
> We rather usually recommend mate.

I was about to recommend to also give a go to LXQt (mostly accessible and now my
daily driver), but the version available as a meta-package in Debian is still
0.16.0 while the most recent one is 1.1.0, so probably better wait until and/or
request that it be updated.

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Marked For Autoremoval: How can we help? :)

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Cindy and all,

Caveat: I am not running Testing, actually no running Debian at all.

This being said, I think that the best thing to do is feed the bug thread you
mentioned, highlighting the consequences for users of Testing relying on a11t
software, thus how important and urgent it is to fix it.

As an aside, I consider Thomas (author of Xorriso among others) as the Booting
Guru. He is always very helpful.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 28/05/2022 à 17:41, Cindy Sue Causey a écrit :
> Happy Day!
> 
> Testing and autoremovals got a quick brush-by today (2022.05.28) over
> at Debian-User. That just caused me to pull all those emails back out
> of trash from May 26.
> 
> There were 71 that hit my own inbox. As soon as I saw espeakup, this
> felt like something critical. Upon second look today I noticed the
> list also includes fenrir, edbrowse, and orca, high traffic topics
> from this list.
> 
> Thomas Schmitt mentioned this nvidia-graphics-drivers bug over at the
> Debian-User's thread [0]:
> 
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1011268
> 
> Is that about the best place to point to when asking if anyone has
> special skills to help knock that out? Per Thomas, addressing that
> will affect about a zillion packages beyond those from Accessibility.
> 
> Thank you for any feedback! My skills have yet to progress so my hope
> is reach out into the Internet's social media once I know how to ask
> for help without treading on anyone else's efforts.
> 
> Cindy :)
> 
> [0] https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2022/05/msg00743.html
> 

Re: Some times no sound after login into Mate

[Didier Spaier]

Le 02/05/2022 à 16:31, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> Christian Schoepplein, le lun. 02 mai 2022 08:40:35 +0200, a ecrit:
>> Is this another bad issue with pulseaudio and might a switch to 
>> pipewire help?
> 
> I'd tend to believe so.
> 
> Samuel

Or use alsa, possibly through libao.
Didier

Re: wpa_supplicant in console installation

[Didier Spaier]

Hi David

http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wpa/wpasupplicant_2.9.0-21_amd64.deb

I hope it's the right one, not running Debian.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 01/05/2022 à 00:46, David Hoff Jr a écrit :
> I have installed a console only Debian 11 32 bit to an older netbook with the
> netinstall iso. wpa_supplicant was not installed on the console only
> installation. I am unable to connect to the internet without wpa_supplicant. 
> How
> do I obtain the wpa_supplicant package I need so I can install it manually? 
> With
> another computer I have spent the last hour looking at www.packages.debian.org
> but am quite confused trying to find it. I also spent a couple of hours on
> google without finding what I need. Any help would be appreciated.
> 

Re: results from trying to install speak-up

[Didier Spaier]

The last modification of speechd-up date back 2011 and this has been provided in
all Debian versions ever since. Period.

Le 28/03/2022 à 20:11, Chime Hart a écrit :
> Well, thank you DJ, in following your link, I may have run in to helpful
> packages which I will explore. Meanwhile you mention a 0.5 version of
> speechd-up, but I think I saw a 0.6 at their freeb site, but I got errors when
> working with it. Thanks
> Chimesoft
> 

Re: Didier speak-with script?

[Didier Spaier]

The script will only work as intended if someone adapt it to Debian, or rewrite
it for Debian. There is no other way.

Didier

Le 19/03/2022 à 23:28, Chime Hart a écrit :
> Well, thank you David for your analysis. I tried your suggestions-and an only
> difference, mine mentions Fenrir.
> gzip: /proc/config.gz: No such file or directory
> speechd-up is not a valid argument of this command.
> Usage: /usr/sbin/speak-with  or  or none
> Choose a console screen reader to talk with among:
> -e   fenrir (Modular, flexible and fast console screen reader)
> 
> or use one of the supported hard synthesizers:
> 
> or type  "/usr/sbin/speak-with none" to mute all screen readers.
> Back again live. I have no idea what it thinks the DecTalk is-and-I surely
> wouldn't want to try the "none" option. We do have an alias or script to 
> reload
> the DecTalk
> rd: aliased to sudo /sbin/modprobe  -r speakup_dectlk; sudo
> /usr/sbin/modprobe  speakup_dectlk; sudo cp /usr/local/bin/characters
> /sys/accessibility/speakup/i18n/; sudo echo '10' | sudo tee
> /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/flush_time
> Back again live, that was alll supposed to be on a single line, but after
> pasting, I couldn't fix the spacing. Thanks.
> Chime
> 

Re: Crypted LVM and beep tones

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Nick and All,

In our case (initial RAM disk being in an encrypted partition, which is the root
partition of the system to start, not a separate /boot partition) we need GRUB
to first unlock the main device to be able to load the kernel then the initial
RAM disk, which it does requesting the passphrase before displaying the boot
menu.

It would indeed be possible to have the passphrase requested by an initial RAM
disk, but this initial RAM disk should in that case be first loaded from a non
encrypted device, like for instance an USB stick: this is not something set up
by default in Slint but a power user could implement that.

Bundle this (speaking) initial RAM disk with the kernel in an EFI stub is left
to the reader as an exercise ;)

Cheers

Didier
--
Didier Spaier
Slint maintainer


Le 12/03/2022 à 04:52, Nick Gawronski a écrit :
> Hi, If speech is enabled and as I set the initial ramdisk to generic to 
> include
> all drivers why not include the espeakup and sound packages so you could have
> speech during this process?  I myself also use this encryption feature and as
> you could always create a key file and add it to another luks slot I would not
> rather have to do this as I am not sure if there is a timeout when that prompt
> appears after booting.  It would be nice to have speech during that process or
> if a Braille display was connected Braille support or better yet both.  Nick
> Gawronski
> 
> On 3/11/2022 2:45 PM, Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hi Cristian,
>>
>> I have requested that to upstream (grub-devel mailing list), without success:
>> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2021-02/msg2.html
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 11/03/2022 à 19:39, Christian Schoepplein a écrit :
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I have to crypt my harddisk for my working laptop. Allthough it is no big
>>> problem to enter the encryption password some seconds after grub I wonder 
>>> if a
>>> acustical signal could be played that tells me that the password prompt is
>>> displayed. Also a signal about successfully entered the password or not 
>>> would be
>>> really cool.
>>>
>>> Does anyone know if acustical signals are possible for the described 
>>> situation?
>>> Beep tones like for grub would be absolutely enough.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>>    Schoepp
>>>
> 

Re: Crypted LVM and beep tones

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Cristian,

I have requested that to upstream (grub-devel mailing list), without success:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2021-02/msg2.html

Cheers,
Didier

Le 11/03/2022 à 19:39, Christian Schoepplein a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I have to crypt my harddisk for my working laptop. Allthough it is no big
> problem to enter the encryption password some seconds after grub I wonder if a
> acustical signal could be played that tells me that the password prompt is
> displayed. Also a signal about successfully entered the password or not would 
> be
> really cool.
> 
> Does anyone know if acustical signals are possible for the described 
> situation?
> Beep tones like for grub would be absolutely enough.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
>   Schoepp
> 

Re: Bad Behavior by GRUB

[Didier Spaier]

Well I meant "two" more files and an "EFI" partition. I need some rest...

Le 11/01/2022 à 11:46, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> thanks for the files.
> 
> First I need to more files:
>>From Slint type: find /boot/efi > efislint
>>From Debian type: find /boot/efi > efidebian
> (I mistakenly wrote find instead of find in my previous message)
> 
> Then you wrote:
> 
>> There is NO EFI partition on the USB File Stick that I was using to install
>> Debian, it is just an iso copied to the USB stick - it's a Debian 
>> installation
>> with firmware that I put on the USB stick with the command cp debian.iso 
>> /dev/sdc.
> 
> Actually there is an USB partition on the USB stick, the magic being done by
> xorriso from Thomas Schmitt when writing the ISO in case of Slint.
> 
> Example below:
> # cp debian-11.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /dev/sdd
> # lsblk -lo name,size,fstype|grep sdd
> sdd 7,4G iso9660
> sdd1378M iso9660
> sdd22,5M vfat
> # mount /dev/sdd2 /mnt
> # find /mnt
> /mnt
> /mnt/efi
> /mnt/efi/boot
> /mnt/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
> /mnt/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
> /mnt/efi/debian
> /mnt/efi/debian/grub.cfg
> 
> As an aside there is no /efi/boot/grub.cfg but only /efi/debian/grub.cfg so I
> fail to understand what told your firmware to look for \EFI\BOOT\grub.cfg
> (wich is equivalent to /efi/boot/grub.cfg)
> 
> Maybe the additional files that I requested will tell us?
> 
> Cheers,
> Didier
> 
> Le 11/01/2022 à 08:36, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>> Didier, 
>>
>> I didn't know if you wanted me to reply also to the list, which I will do, 
>> but
>> I'm sending this to you only until you tell me otherwise.
>>
>> Yes I confused GRUB menu with the firmware, from what I understand it is GRUB
>> that is changing the UEFI settings in my firmware BIOS SETUP to boot to the 
>> last
>> operating system, even before my USB stick if I wanted to boot from one - 
>> say to
>> put a new distro on my computer.  I cannot interrupt the boot into the last
>> operating system which is at the top of the BIOS settings.  I will grab my
>> camera and take a picture!
>>
>>
>> Here are the files you asked for.
>>
>> >From Slint, type as root: efibootmgr > efivars and send me the file efivars
>> >From Slint, send me the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg renamed grubslint
>> >From Slint, type: file /boot/efi > efislint and send me the file efislint
>> >From Debian, send me the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg renamed grubdebian
>> >From Debian type: file /boot/efi > efidebain ans send me the file efidebian
>> >From Slint, identify the EFI partition of the repair bot stick; mount it on 
>> >/mnt
>> and type: find /mnt > stick and send me the file stick.
>>
>> There is NO EFI partition on the USB File Stick that I was using to install
>> Debian, it is just an iso copied to the USB stick - it's a Debian 
>> installation
>> with firmware that I put on the USB stick with the command cp debian.iso 
>> /dev/sdc.
>>
>> So I used a file stick from the multi-boot utility SARDU and I'm sending you 
>> the
>> results of "find /mnt/efi > stick". I can use some of the programs on that to
>> repair grub and so forth.
>>
>> If you want me to send this to the debian-accessibility list, I will do so.
>>
>> Thanks again for your help, but I still am not sure you are understanding me,
>> but time will tell.
>>
>> BRGDS,
>> David
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 5:53 PM Didier Spaier > <mailto:did...@int.fr>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Le 10/01/2022 à 21:15, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>> > GRUB now puts a "Preferred Boot" at the top of GRUB's choices so that 
>> it goes
>> > directly to the last successfully used operating system.
>>
>> I think you are confusing the GRUB menu with the menu of the firmware.
>>
>> > But here's the PROBLEM.
>> >
>> > As soon as my computer boots into one of the operating systems, either 
>> Slint,
>> > Debian, or Windows 10, GRUB adds an entry to the very top of my 
>> computer's
>> BIOS 
>> > SETUP changing the boot device boot order, which previously was USB HD,
>> then my
>> > hard drive, and inserts whatever operating system it last booted into,
>> modifying
>> > the previous BIOS boot settings.
>>
>> As I wrote in the Slint mailing list this is the expected behavior 
>>

Re: Bad Behavior by GRUB

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

thanks for the files.

First I need to more files:
>From Slint type: find /boot/efi > efislint
>From Debian type: find /boot/efi > efidebian
(I mistakenly wrote find instead of find in my previous message)

Then you wrote:

> There is NO EFI partition on the USB File Stick that I was using to install
> Debian, it is just an iso copied to the USB stick - it's a Debian installation
> with firmware that I put on the USB stick with the command cp debian.iso 
> /dev/sdc.

Actually there is an USB partition on the USB stick, the magic being done by
xorriso from Thomas Schmitt when writing the ISO in case of Slint.

Example below:
# cp debian-11.2.0-amd64-netinst.iso /dev/sdd
# lsblk -lo name,size,fstype|grep sdd
sdd 7,4G iso9660
sdd1378M iso9660
sdd22,5M vfat
# mount /dev/sdd2 /mnt
# find /mnt
/mnt
/mnt/efi
/mnt/efi/boot
/mnt/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
/mnt/efi/boot/grubx64.efi
/mnt/efi/debian
/mnt/efi/debian/grub.cfg

As an aside there is no /efi/boot/grub.cfg but only /efi/debian/grub.cfg so I
fail to understand what told your firmware to look for \EFI\BOOT\grub.cfg
(wich is equivalent to /efi/boot/grub.cfg)

Maybe the additional files that I requested will tell us?

Cheers,
Didier

Le 11/01/2022 à 08:36, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> Didier, 
> 
> I didn't know if you wanted me to reply also to the list, which I will do, but
> I'm sending this to you only until you tell me otherwise.
> 
> Yes I confused GRUB menu with the firmware, from what I understand it is GRUB
> that is changing the UEFI settings in my firmware BIOS SETUP to boot to the 
> last
> operating system, even before my USB stick if I wanted to boot from one - say 
> to
> put a new distro on my computer.  I cannot interrupt the boot into the last
> operating system which is at the top of the BIOS settings.  I will grab my
> camera and take a picture!
> 
> 
> Here are the files you asked for.
> 
>>From Slint, type as root: efibootmgr > efivars and send me the file efivars
>>From Slint, send me the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg renamed grubslint
>>From Slint, type: file /boot/efi > efislint and send me the file efislint
>>From Debian, send me the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg renamed grubdebian
>>From Debian type: file /boot/efi > efidebain ans send me the file efidebian
>>From Slint, identify the EFI partition of the repair bot stick; mount it on 
>>/mnt
> and type: find /mnt > stick and send me the file stick.
> 
> There is NO EFI partition on the USB File Stick that I was using to install
> Debian, it is just an iso copied to the USB stick - it's a Debian installation
> with firmware that I put on the USB stick with the command cp debian.iso 
> /dev/sdc.
> 
> So I used a file stick from the multi-boot utility SARDU and I'm sending you 
> the
> results of "find /mnt/efi > stick". I can use some of the programs on that to
> repair grub and so forth.
> 
> If you want me to send this to the debian-accessibility list, I will do so.
> 
> Thanks again for your help, but I still am not sure you are understanding me,
> but time will tell.
> 
> BRGDS,
> David
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2022 at 5:53 PM Didier Spaier  <mailto:did...@int.fr>> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Le 10/01/2022 à 21:15, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> > GRUB now puts a "Preferred Boot" at the top of GRUB's choices so that 
> it goes
> > directly to the last successfully used operating system.
> 
> I think you are confusing the GRUB menu with the menu of the firmware.
> 
> > But here's the PROBLEM.
> >
> > As soon as my computer boots into one of the operating systems, either 
> Slint,
> > Debian, or Windows 10, GRUB adds an entry to the very top of my 
> computer's
> BIOS 
> > SETUP changing the boot device boot order, which previously was USB HD,
> then my
> > hard drive, and inserts whatever operating system it last booted into,
> modifying
> > the previous BIOS boot settings.
> 
> As I wrote in the Slint mailing list this is the expected behavior unless 
> when
> installing grub you used the --no nvram option, which prevents GRUB to 
> write a
> boot entry in the firmware's menu.
> 
> > Now on the next boot, my computer which previously booted from USB 
> stick, now
> > will boot directly into the last operating system that I used and it's
> > impossible to enter BIOS Setup at all by pressing the setup key 
> (usually F2).
> 
> If you can't enter the firmware setup in this context your firmware is 
> buggy,
> this has nothing to do with GRUB.
> 
> > What I have to do is to use the GRUB entry in Debian or Slint to go 

Re: Bad Behavior by GRUB

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Chile and All,

Sorry for the too many typos, please read:

As I wrote in the Slint list you can use the efibootmgr application shipped in
Slint and also available in Debian for several purposes, among which
a) Change the order of the boot entries permanently.
b) Tell the firmware to boot a specific boot entry at next boot.

So what I meant is that efibootmgr is also available in Debian.

Other correction: the option if grub-install to prevent writing a boot entry in
the firmware's boot menu is: --no-nvram (with a hyphen between no and nvram).

last, discard this line:
2) You can

As an aside and still about GRUB, I highly recommend blind users to install
grub-emu, which allows to get a an accessible preview of the GRUB menu as it
will be displayed after rebooting.

It is best used in a console but can also be used in a graphical environment.

You can navigate in this (fake) menu with the down and up arrow keys to
highlight (put the focus on) a boot entry of which you can display the details
pressing 'e'. You can go back to the menu pressing Escape.

To exit from grub-emu press c then type exit and press Enter.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 11/01/2022 à 10:39, Chime Hart a écrit :
> Hi All: Yesterday Didier mentioned an item called "alos" for Debian, which
> neither apt nor aptitude have? Wonder if it were a typo? Thanks in advance
> Chime
> 

Re: Bad Behavior by GRUB

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Le 10/01/2022 à 21:15, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> GRUB now puts a "Preferred Boot" at the top of GRUB's choices so that it goes
> directly to the last successfully used operating system.

I think you are confusing the GRUB menu with the menu of the firmware.

> But here's the PROBLEM.
> 
> As soon as my computer boots into one of the operating systems, either Slint,
> Debian, or Windows 10, GRUB adds an entry to the very top of my computer's 
> BIOS 
> SETUP changing the boot device boot order, which previously was USB HD, then 
> my
> hard drive, and inserts whatever operating system it last booted into, 
> modifying
> the previous BIOS boot settings.

As I wrote in the Slint mailing list this is the expected behavior unless when
installing grub you used the --no nvram option, which prevents GRUB to write a
boot entry in the firmware's menu.

> Now on the next boot, my computer which previously booted from USB stick, now
> will boot directly into the last operating system that I used and it's
> impossible to enter BIOS Setup at all by pressing the setup key (usually F2).

If you can't enter the firmware setup in this context your firmware is buggy,
this has nothing to do with GRUB.

> What I have to do is to use the GRUB entry in Debian or Slint to go to the 
> last
> entry which is "UEFI Firmware Settings" and this will cause my computer to
> reboot into the UEFI Firmware Settings - the same settings that I mentioned
> earier, that is accessed by a key press immediately when the BIOS name flashes
> on the screen - which now is inaccessible for even the sighted because the
> computer just directly goes to the last operating system that was used.
> Without this entry in GRUB the only ways to go back to a BIOS SETUP that 
> allows
> me to boot to USB stick is to either boot into Windows and search for Advanced
> Boot Settings, then UEFI Firmware settings, and reboot - which will do the 
> exact
> same thing as the bottom GRUB menu entry in Debian or Slint> Or I can take my 
> computer apart and find the RESET button and press it and it
> will reset my firmware to the original where I again have access to Boot 
> device
> choice - in my case by pressing F2.
> 
> But whenever I boot into any operating system, I again lose the ability to 
> boot
> into a USB stick because GRUB places an entry at the top of my BIOS UEFI 
> settings!

Again, rather because your firmware is buggy:
1. That GRUB places an entry at the top of my BIOS UEFI (aka firmware) settings
is perfectly normal. But you can prevent it if you want, see at the end of this
message.
2. That this prevent you to access your firmware settings is not normal at all,
but you should blame his faulty behavior to your firmware, not to GRUB.

> Certainly this action by GRUB should be disabled in an accessible version of
> Linux, or disabled altogether!

Not at all. If you install an OS, you most of the time expect it to start at
next boot.

But if you do not want wall, you can avoid it several ways: include a custom
boot entry in GRUB's menu or edit directly the firmware boot menu from a running
OS. The second solution is easier, so I will describe it.

As I wrote in the Slint list you can use the efibootmgr application shipped in
Slint and alos available in Debian for several purposes, among which
a) Change the order of the boot entries permanently.
b) Tell the firmware to boot a specific boot entry at next boot.

However in the Slint mailing list you wrote (my comments after the quotes)

> Jim has to run efibootmgr as root then find the USB HD on the list, which on
> your list is Boot000C* USB HDD, so he substitutes the last four number after
> Boot in the list for the USB HD and then he can boot directly into the USB 
> stick.
>
> Mine was Boot0013* USB HDD:
>
> So I ran as root:
>
> efibootmgr -n 0013
>
> And then when I run as root:  reboot, I should boot directly to the USB stick.
>
> I tried, and it didn't go well at all.
>
> Booting brought me to EFI shell and it said:
>
> Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\grub.cfg
>
> Not found.

We do not know what is in your repair USB stick, thus cannot draw a conclusion.

It is possible that you typed a wrong number, or that you has several USB
devices plugged in and you landed in another one, or that there be an issue with
the content of the USB stick's EFI partition, or that this be the consequence of
a bug in the firmware.

> If I type exit at the EFI shell, I eventually get to a firmware boot menu and 
> I
> use that menu to boot from a USB device which was listed containing my boot
> repair USB stick.
>
> The boot repair USB sticks, which allowed me to update, repair and reinstall
> GRUB on /dev/sda but now not with as good a result as before, because now if I
> boot from the hard drive (I have /sda and /sdb) I get the same errors.

Again this can be an issue with your firmware

> So I have to insert my boot repair USB stick which has a menu utility and I 
> can
> boot to Slint, Debian or Windows from there.

Jos Lemmens passed away on November 9, 2021

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

I have been sad to learn that we lost Jos from his web page:
http://jlemmens.nl/
http://ta.twi.tudelft.nl/dv/staff/lemmens/jlemmens.nl/

Quote from this page:

--
Update November 9, 2021: I am very sorry to inform you that Jos quietly passed
away this morning.
He will be remembered as our own dear, clever, little "Stephen Hawking".
His brother Kees and other family.

His VPS server was closed recently and this website is now temporarily hosted at
the TU Delft.
--

Los was the developer of eBook-speaker and daisy-player, both included in Slint.

I had communicated with him not so long ago.

I will miss him.

Best regards,

Didier

Re: creating and maintaining accessible Linux distros

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Rich

Le 05/01/2022 à 09:04, Rich Morin a écrit :
> In summary, I'm wondering what it would take to get versions of the more 
> accessible OS distros set up to run (via a VM) on pmOS.  Does anyone else 
> think this is a feasible and/or worthwhile goal?

Feasible, hardly (I concur on what Jeffrey wrote). Maybe more on a Pi-like
devices, but you know the fate of Fernando Botelho’s F123Light project.

Anyway, the best you can do in my opinion is join an existing project and help
them instead of trying to start a new one with (still in my opinion) non realist
specifications.

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

On 31/12/2021 18:35, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Perhaps we can just dump the wiki page
> 
> http://wiki.debian.org/accessibility
> 
> somewhere in the installed system?

If going this way I suggest to also ship the good ol' w3m in the installer to
read the relevant part during installation, as it is a both a browser and a
pager, needs very few key binding, and can be stripped from useless features in
this context through configure options to limit the payload.

I consider doing this in the Slint installer instead of or maybe in addition to
slint-doc, to read part of https://slint.fr/doc/HandBook.html

There is nothing fancy in slint-doc really, it's just a shell script which
provides a documentation menu using dialog. Source here:
https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/source/slint-docs/
Not all files there are shipped, one can have a look to:
https://slackware.uk/slint/x86_64/slint-14.2.1/source/slint-docs/slint-docs.SlackBuild
to know what is in the package.

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Mike and all,,

also you can use w3m as both a web browser and a pager, so it allows to read
documentation it text format as remote and local web pages.

You can also use lynx as Chime wrote, and allo links.

Also you can use several consoles at the same time, allowing for instance to
read the document in one and type commands in another one.

Suggested reading (mostly borrowed to SUSE, applicable to any Linux):
https://slint.fr/doc/shell_and_bash_scripts.html

Cheers,
Didier

On 31/12/2021 03:21, Chime Hart wrote:
> Well, Mike, I will hopefully answer both your questions. #1 I think there are
> ways of creating menus based on LYNX the browser, similar to what Universities
> made for students or visitors. #2 You can also use LYNX to browse or read 
> files
> on your local drive. So as an example, if you were to type lynx . you would 
> see
> names of files-and-directories in the style of a web-page. And if your 
> documents
> were in a text format, you could type lynx mike.txt  and lynx would display 
> it.
> There are certainly other ways of reading files from a command-line, but I 
> think
> as a starter, this would be best. Happy exploring.
> Chime
> 

Re: Fwd: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

David,

I meant that nobody should have an exclusive choice, i.e. anyone should be
allowed to use both a console and a graphical environment (possibly at the same
time), not being limited to the mode of operation the used first after booting.

Cheers,
Didier

On 31/12/2021 02:16, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> Didier,
> 
> I didn't understand this:
> 
> "I agree that nobody should have to choose between a text interface and a
> graphical one (and between Braille and speech). As an aside mpv is 
> perfectly
> able to display videos in a console, but I digress."
> 
> 
> I'm guessing you might be saying nobody should be forced to either have to 
> use a
> test or graphical interface, because that's exactly what you have done in your
> work on Slint. Users can specify which Desktop - MATE and KDE are standard as 
> is
> just a text log on.
> 
> Which is perfect for those of us who either prefer text console or have such 
> low
> powered computers that working in Graphic User Interface is only used when
> necessary because screen drawing just takes so long.
> 
> If so your quote could be:
> 
> I agree that everybody should have a choice between a text interface and a
> graphical one (and between Braille and speech). As an aside mpv is perfectly
> able to displays videos in a console, but I digress.
> 
> I personally know many who value Slint's ability to boot directly into console
> without Xserver running as a big plus to that distro.
> 
> I modify Debian by using systemctl by disabling lightdm.
> 
> As root:
> 
> systemctl stop lightdm
> systemctl disable lightdm
> 
> This will cause Debian to boot into the console, and from there, I can just 
> use
> "startx" to go into graphical mode.
> 
> Works well, and on my old computer, it's much faster.
> 
> Regards,
> David
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Fwd: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

I meant "as the tune is only played"

On 31/12/2021 01:57, Didier Spaier wrote:
> it actually creates a sub-menu per boot entry, as the tune is
> only pressed when you press Enter.

Re: Fwd: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Chime,

indeed GRUB can play tunes. I am guilty of a program making use of that to
create and edit a boot menu, boot entries from top to bottom getting one more
note. Only caveat: it actually creates a sub-menu per boot entry, as the tune is
only pressed when you press Enter.  

I called it the EFI Multi-boot Menu Maker or EFI3M. It is available here:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/EFI3M

However, a simpler solution is to use grub-emu, which displays an accessible
"fake" boot menu in a running system, with exactly the same layout and content
as the one that GRUB will display after rebooting.

On 31/12/2021 00:24, Chime Hart wrote:
> Well Martin-and-All, considering a PC-speaker gives a boop when a boot menu
> appears, couldn't more be done to take advantage of that? I mean, at very 
> least,
> have different amount of beeps as we up-and-down arrow. Obviously for Hams, CW
> would be an option, but I don't know what any actual words would sound like 
> in a
> pc-speaker? In my laptop that boop plays in the sound-card. I remember there 
> was
> a script, I think something like a toones which played some sort of music on
> bootup. Also, the Jupitor distro had rather active progress tones.
> Chime
> 

Re: Debian Accessibility

[Didier Spaier]

The best virtualization software in my opinion is Qemu, especially wrt sound
thus speech.

Cheers,
Didier

On 30/12/2021 19:15, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> I have tried one time but was unable to get speech output and was using a
> virtual machine due to my machine being a secure boot system, the debian
> installer is my favorite text based installer but I like how features are 
> being
> borrowed from it, I've yet to do a debian installation video on youtube since
> I've done others
> 
> On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 6:13 PM Didier Spaier  <mailto:did...@slint.fr>> wrote:
> 
> The Slint installer borrows at least one feature from the Debian 
> installer: the
> way sound cards are probed just after booting, to find a working one 
> (thanks
> Samuel).
> 
> More generally, sharing ideas and features between distribution benefit 
> users of
> all of them. Trying to find which one is the best is pointless as it 
> depends on
> the users' needs and use cases, in other words their requirements.
> 
> Cheers,
> Didier
> 
> On 30/12/2021 18:56, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> > Another thing, about the installer, even if you don’t know how to get
> speech on,
> > this is for anyone new, they can just press the down arrow 5 times on 
> the boot
> > menu on an refi system, plus on supported systems, like my old Lenovo, 
> you
> hear
> > 2 beeps, I believe the current project leader is also visually 
> impaired, if I
> > could, I could back port orca41 since I’ve had no trouble using it
> >
> >> On 30 Dec 2021, at 17:52, D.J.J. Ring, Jr.  <mailto:n...@arrl.net>
> >> <mailto:n...@arrl.net <mailto:n...@arrl.net>>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,friendly list, this discussion was inside another discussion and
> perhaps
> >> partly because of my poor choice of words, was thought to be a distro 
> flame
> >> war, but that was never my intention or desire.
> >>
> >> I want to make a point about Accessibility in general and Accessibility
> >> in Debian in particular.  Nothing I say should be taken as an offense 
> to any
> >> of the developers who have done an amazing job in making Linux, and 
> Debian in
> >> particular accessible.
> >>
> >> My two favorite Linux distros are Debian and Slint. I have some 
> favorable
> >> comments about how robust Slackware is opposed to Debian - or most 
> other
> >> distributions - but that's way off topic.  Suffice it to say, that 
> being a
> >> Debian is the only way to go type person, I've been very impressed 
> with the
> >> robustness of Slackware, especially the accessible International 
> version,
> Slint.
> >>
> >> Now on topic.
> >>
> >> Part of accessibility is having accessibility features known about by 
> users
> >> and have them easily used.  Debian does this very well in their 
> installer
> >> which speaks to blind or visually impaired users, and provides visually
> >> impaired users with a high contrast graphical installer.  Excellent.
> >>
> >> My original post - which I take responsibility of not wording as well 
> as I
> >> should have mentioned "ease of use". I was attempting both to tell the
> members
> >> of this list, which are both users and developers about how Slint 
> based on
> >> Slackwware has succeeded in having almost all of it's accessibility 
> features
> >> accessible to the new non-technical user.  As the blind that go to the
> >> museums  say:  "What's good of having guided tour headphones available 
> in the
> >> manager's office when the only notice of them is a written notice we
> cannot see?"
> >>
> >> None of the accessibility features in Slint require any user effort 
> other
> than
> >> running a script to use. With Debian you first have to know these 
> features
> >> even exist, then you have to install them. In Slint, thanks to Didier
> Spaier's
> >> work these features are documented in an accessible console document. 
> Of
> >> course, his work depends in part on your wonderful work on brltty and 
> other
> >> features, again, this is not an invitation to a distro war, it's just 
> about
> >> accessibility features being accessible and my recognizing these 
> features
> have
> >&

Re: Fwd: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Martin, you made my day with your story about the 6800-base microcomputer.

I used a microcomputer for the first time circa 1978 (not sure an Olivetti
Programma 101 with external magnetic cards to store programs and data that I
used previously would be considered a computer nowadays).

This machine was equipped with a keyboard, a screen, two 8 inches floppy disks
readers an a 10 MB hard disk. It had an Inter 8080 inside with 64 KB of RAM.

People seeing it on my desk thought it was kind of a terminal and often asked:
"but where is the computer". You are not alone, my friend .

I agree that nobody should have to choose between a text interface and a
graphical one (and between Braille and speech). As an aside mpv is perfectly
able to displays videos in a console, but I digress.

Oh, and about OCR I highly recommend the Lios software, which associated to
Tesseract (or Cuneiform) can manage scanning and recognizing, recognize images
also in a pdf file or taken by the computer's camera, speak the recognized text
with espeak-ng and store an audio recording in wav of mp3 format, relying on
speech-dispatcher and any of the associated speech synthesizers.

Cheers,
Didier

On 31/12/2021 00:02, Martin McCormick wrote:
> I've been following this sometimes-difficult discussion intently
> as it goes to the heart of what computer users who happen to be
> blind deal with on a daily basis especially when things go wrong.
> How much insult can your working environment take before you
> simply can't rescue what's there without either blowing the whole
> thing away for a fresh install, getting somebody sighted to watch
> the screen at 3:00 on a Sunday morning while you poke around,
> trying to get the system to boot again.
> 
>   We've got the same darn problem today that I first
> encountered the first time I ever laid hands on a microcomputer
> which was in 1977 or so.
> 
>   I got to go to a presentation by the University of
> Houston, Clear Lake City which was given at Oklahoma State
> University.  I was a graduate student then and one of my
> advisors got me a ticket to attend.
> 
>   My knowledge then was severely limited to say the least
> and I even remember asking the professor who gave the
> demonstration whether this 6800-base microcomputer was actually
> connected to a big main-frame on campus or if it was the whole
> thing.
> 
>   He was very nice about it all and said it was the whole
> computer, not connected to anything else.
> 
>   The box probably had only a few KB of ram in it, 8 big
> toggle switches across the front of it and probably a pair of
> 7-segment LED readouts for the display.
> 
>   No!  It wasn't accessible but it could have been made
> that way if someone connected an extra device to the
> seven-segment display drivers.
> 
>   It's the same darn problem we have now only in it's
> nascent form.  If only we could just read what those LED readouts
> said.
> 
>   Of course, I knew nothing about computers at that moment
> except that you could get them to play music, run machines and
> even talk if they were powerful enough and programmed by people
> who were smart at their jobs.
> 
>   In 1965 or so, I heard a radio program in which a Bell
> Labs computer had been programmed to sing "A Bicycle Built for Two"
> 
> in a male voice that sounded unearthly but was understandable.
> 
>   In High school, a teacher played that same Bell Labs
> computer singing "A Bicycle Built for two" with a musical
> accompaniment of electronic notes along with the voice.
> 
>   I wondered at the time how does one do that?
> 
>   So basically, electronic computers that can talk and or
> print Braille have been around in industrial systems for over
> sixty years and the problem is still that they have tremendous
> potential but it doesn't come by accident.  Somebody has to
> deliberately decide to solve a specific problem and whether that
> solution fits in such a way as to solve other problems, is almost
> an accident if it does.
> 
>   We still have this fixation on a visual readout as being
> the sole way to peek inside the operation of the system and
> absolutely 0 alternative methods to do so or to put it another
> way, there is no Plan B and it's an utter shock when you raise
> the issue.  Imagine, as a small child, being told that the stove
> is hot but giving your hand a third-degree burn every day because
> one insists on touching the stove even though the outcome is
> quite predictable.  We would call that mental illness anywhere
> else because most of us don't like being burned so tend to
> remember how we got that way and we figure out to, dare I say it?, 
> learn to use the mitt to pickup the hot pan and not have to go to
> the emergency room every day for the same reason.
> 
>   One day, we may have a video evaluation device that
> connects where a monitor does, reads the screen via OCR plus
> looks for a cursor blinking away somewhere on the screen 

Re: Debian Accessibility

[Didier Spaier]

The Slint installer borrows at least one feature from the Debian installer: the
way sound cards are probed just after booting, to find a working one (thanks
Samuel).

More generally, sharing ideas and features between distribution benefit users of
all of them. Trying to find which one is the best is pointless as it depends on
the users' needs and use cases, in other words their requirements.

Cheers,
Didier

On 30/12/2021 18:56, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> Another thing, about the installer, even if you don’t know how to get speech 
> on,
> this is for anyone new, they can just press the down arrow 5 times on the boot
> menu on an refi system, plus on supported systems, like my old Lenovo, you 
> hear
> 2 beeps, I believe the current project leader is also visually impaired, if I
> could, I could back port orca41 since I’ve had no trouble using it
> 
>> On 30 Dec 2021, at 17:52, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. > > wrote:
>>
>> Hello,friendly list, this discussion was inside another discussion and 
>> perhaps
>> partly because of my poor choice of words, was thought to be a distro flame
>> war, but that was never my intention or desire.
>>
>> I want to make a point about Accessibility in general and Accessibility
>> in Debian in particular.  Nothing I say should be taken as an offense to any
>> of the developers who have done an amazing job in making Linux, and Debian in
>> particular accessible.
>>
>> My two favorite Linux distros are Debian and Slint. I have some favorable
>> comments about how robust Slackware is opposed to Debian - or most other
>> distributions - but that's way off topic.  Suffice it to say, that being a
>> Debian is the only way to go type person, I've been very impressed with the
>> robustness of Slackware, especially the accessible International version, 
>> Slint.
>>
>> Now on topic.
>>
>> Part of accessibility is having accessibility features known about by users
>> and have them easily used.  Debian does this very well in their installer
>> which speaks to blind or visually impaired users, and provides visually
>> impaired users with a high contrast graphical installer.  Excellent.
>>
>> My original post - which I take responsibility of not wording as well as I
>> should have mentioned "ease of use". I was attempting both to tell the 
>> members
>> of this list, which are both users and developers about how Slint based on
>> Slackwware has succeeded in having almost all of it's accessibility features
>> accessible to the new non-technical user.  As the blind that go to the
>> museums  say:  "What's good of having guided tour headphones available in the
>> manager's office when the only notice of them is a written notice we cannot 
>> see?"
>>
>> None of the accessibility features in Slint require any user effort other 
>> than
>> running a script to use. With Debian you first have to know these features
>> even exist, then you have to install them. In Slint, thanks to Didier 
>> Spaier's
>> work these features are documented in an accessible console document. Of
>> course, his work depends in part on your wonderful work on brltty and other
>> features, again, this is not an invitation to a distro war, it's just about
>> accessibility features being accessible and my recognizing these features 
>> have
>> been wonderfully achieved in Slint.
>>
>> If such wonderful achievements aren't at least mentioned, some or all of them
>> will probably never be brought into Debian to improve accessibility.Certainly
>> as Samuel pointed out, all these features are available in Debian, but
>> unfortunately it takes a bit of digging to find out about them.
>>
>> Again, thanks to everyone for their efforts in achieving accessibility of
>> Linux. This always was a team effort of many selfless persons world-wide, and
>> for that I am personally grateful and appreciative.
>>
>> David 
> 

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

On 30/12/2021 12:20, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Didier Spaier, le jeu. 30 déc. 2021 10:32:24 +0100, a ecrit:
>> On 30/12/2021 08:10, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>>> You also have the same choice on other distributions such as Debian.
>>>
>>> Please don't fall in a distro war, we don't need that.
>>
>> Well Samuel, you quoted me out of context, I am not the one who started the 
>> war.
> 
> I didn't quote you, I quoted D.J.J. Ring.
> 
> Samuel

Ah, OK, I stand corrected.

Didier

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Jordan,

Answers to some of your statements after the quotes.

On 30/12/2021 08:13, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> chromium is only accessible on distros based on debian based
> on a dependency that only debian has and that ubuntu also uses, fedora users
> are out of luck here, so are arch and opensuse users

I wonder which dependency you are speaking about.
Initially as Joanmarie Diggs wrote in:
https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca/Chromium
you needed to launch Chrome or Chromium with these options
--enable-caret-browsing
--force-renderer-accessibility
but this is not necessary any more in recent versions of Chrome and Chromium.
You only need insure that ACCESSIBILITY_ENABLED=1 is in your environment.
This is true regardless of the distribution in use.

On 30/12/2021 08:58, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> slint is not based on a newer version of slackware
True, Slint is based on Slackware64-14.2 released in 2016. However it includes
the most recent versions of Orca, speech dispatcher and console screen readers
as Mate desktop, mpv and vlc, for instance.

This being said, yes I would like to re-base it on a more recent Slackware
version, hopefully in a not too distant future. There is some hope: Patrick
Volkerding posted that Slackware 15 could be released circa 17 January 2022.

> also, it doesn't support secure boot
True, and I agree that we should overcome this limitation. Recent work has been
done by a Slackware contributor on this regard, and I will try to provide this
support in Slint 15.

> I highly discourage
> anyone from using slackware or anything based on it especially for new users

You are free to give the advice you deem appropriate. I am just guessing that
this one is not based on a recent personal experience.

> also, linux distros that focus on accessibility tend to go out of support 
> pretty
> quickly

Indeed I can't guarantee that I will be able to provide support in the next 30
years (hint: I am 72), but hope someone will take over Slint maintenance and
support. And I am not the only one to provide support in our mailing list.

This being said, it is neither uncommon let alone unfeasible to switch to
another distribution for any reason. I started with Mandrake.

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

On 30/12/2021 08:10, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> You also have the same choice on other distributions such as Debian.
> 
> Please don't fall in a distro war, we don't need that.
> 
> Samuel

Well Samuel, you quoted me out of context, I am not the one who started the war.

This being said, I usually try not to follow https://xkcd.com/386/ but no always
succeed, sorry 

Best,
Didier

Re: Iggdrasill, a new amazing screen reader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Jordan,

the quote below make me think that you didn't try Slint yet.

On 30/12/2021 00:11, Jordan Livesey wrote:
> when it comes to accessible distros, debian is just too
> good that its not recommended to use distros that are not debian

Link to know what is Slint:
https://slint.fr/doc/HandBook.html

Cheers,
Didier

PS There are blind Slint users who never go graphical but use only one the
console screen readers provided (espeakup, speechd-up, fenrir) or their hard
synthesizer with speakup, and others who use only a Braille display on the
command line, others who switch back and fort between console and graphical. Of
course Orca is also available (version 41.1 at time of writing).

PPS No need to remind me that this is a Debian list. I know .

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Le 12/12/2021 à 16:21, Michael A Ray a écrit :
> Orca is never going to adequately cover any application that is not a GTK
> application.

Never? Qt applications are already covered and as I have heard that there have
been progress wrt accessibility of some KDE apps in recent versions, using KDE
Framework 5 and Qt5. I will check as soon as I can.

> 1. Somebody needs to fix the bug in the sd_espeak module of speech-dispatcher 
> so
> that it does not unload itself randomly. This will make it possible to choose
> espeak and not pulse, and still get reliable stability.

I concur to what Samuel said: not properly reported bugs will not be fixed.

To report a bug in speech-dispatcher you can use the mailing list:
https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/speechd-discuss
of file an issue in GitHGub:
https://github.com/brailcom/speechd/issues

To report a bug an orca:
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
or on GitLab:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca

Also I am not sure to understand what you mean writing that "the sd_espeak
module of speech-dispatcher so that it does not unload itself randomly" Can you
please elaborate? If it is that you have issues switching from a speech
synthesizer to another one in the Voices tab of the Screen Reader Preferences
window of Orca, well not here and not yet reported by a Slint user or elsewhere
that I am aware of.

Then, what does mean "make it possible to choose espeak and not pulse"? Do you
mean that you suggest to get rid of the features of Speech Dispatcher and let
orca implement them internally? If so, good luck to find someone to do it (and
what would be the benefit?).

> 2. There need to be alternative "factories" chooseable under the Orca 
> settings.
> Currently speech-dispatcher is it.

By factory I assume that you mean a speech system, linking screen readers,
speech synthesizers and apps processing the audio as does Speech Dispatcher.

I am not aware of any other available for Linux than Speech Dispatcher doing
that. Further, as for desktops maybe it would be better to enhance what exists
than reinvent the wheel?

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Christian beliebers here using Debian

[Didier Spaier]

I strongly recommend to anyone interested in religions to read "Et 
l'homme créa

les dieux" by Pascal Boyer. Attention: as far as I know, this book is only
available in French. I am 100% agnostic, I accept that others have religious
beliefs as long as they do not claim that these beliefs are knowledge and do
not try to share them with me and even less to impose them on me.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 18/11/2021 à 19:12, David Hoff Jr a écrit :

I believe there is a bit of misunderstanding here. A Swedish person
trying to use the English language has used the word "fairy" incorrectly.
His intent was correct, but his word was not.

It would be nice if Linux had a fully functional Bible program which was
accessible with Orca on the Linux desktop. It does have a console tool
such as Diatheke which with personalized scripting can be used for
reading and searching the scripture, but that takes some scripting work.

Windows have a few Bible programs, a few are reasonably accessible, which
I have used in the past. I took the time to copy every chapter in the
Bible and save them to a text file which I now use daily for reading.
These are very useful in Linux, but not the same as a program to use for
reading and research.

God has provided, we just have to find out how to use the resources he
provides.



OpenPGP_0xD50202EF60C03EEA.asc
Description: OpenPGP public key


OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

Idem. It says a few things like "web new component" or "terminal, text" 
when you focus something (the kind of object, somehow), that's about it.


They need some time to go beyond that, which is fine, just no need to hurry.

Le 05/11/2021 à 14:58, Vojtech šmiro a écrit :

Hello,

did you tried:
https://github.com/yggdrasil-sr/yggdrasil-prototype/releases/download/v-0.4.20/yggdrasil-prototype.run 



Dne 05. 11. 21 v 14:21 Didier Spaier napsal(a):

Hi,

I built it just typing "cargo build" at the root of the source tree. 
this gave me a binary named yggdrasil-prototype.


starting it didn't seem to do anything and no info on the website on 
how to use it.


I don't have the time to investigate further asking questions to the 
developers, feel free to do it. Me, I will come back later.


Didier

Le 05/11/2021 à 13:26, Vojtech šmiro a écrit :

Hello,

do you heard about this screenreader? It's in Alpha, but it's really 
glad to see there is another option to work with linux. I want to 
inform many people to be interest in, because the project starts and 
every person who is interrested is important..


https://yggdrasil-sr.github.io/

Take care.

Best regards

Vojta.

Re: Iggdrasil, a new amazing screenreader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

I built it just typing "cargo build" at the root of the source tree. 
this gave me a binary named yggdrasil-prototype.


starting it didn't seem to do anything and no info on the website on how 
to use it.


I don't have the time to investigate further asking questions to the 
developers, feel free to do it. Me, I will come back later.


Didier

Le 05/11/2021 à 13:26, Vojtech šmiro a écrit :

Hello,

do you heard about this screenreader? It's in Alpha, but it's really 
glad to see there is another option to work with linux. I want to inform 
many people to be interest in, because the project starts and every 
person who is interrested is important..


https://yggdrasil-sr.github.io/

Take care.

Best regards

Vojta.

Re: [slint] Re: After Upgrade 14 September 2021 Cannot Login to Mate (fwd)

[Didier Spaier]

Certainly not, Jude, as Debian doesn't use session-chooser:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/slint-scripts/blob/master/session-chooser

PS and OT: the new package mate-session-manager is available.

Cheers,
Diider

Le 15/09/2021 à 15:04, Jude DaShiell a écrit :

Could the same thing have happened in debian?


-- Forwarded message --
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 05:46:50
From: Didier Spaier 
Reply-To: sl...@freelists.org
To: sl...@freelists.org
Subject: [slint] Re: After Upgrade 14 September 2021 Cannot Login to Mate

Hello David,

thanks for your bug report!

The issue is that new mate-session-manager installs a file named:
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.mate-session
whereas in previous versions it was named:
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.mate

This confuse session-chooser as it looks for the latter, not the former.

As a workaround, please type this as root:
cd /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
ln -s xinitrc.mate-session xinitrc.mate

Then as regular user type:
session-chooser mate
startx

I will provide a new package mate-session-manager making this symbolic link as
a post-installation task later today.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 15/09/2021 ? 01:26, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a ?crit :

Hello List,

After update on 14 September 2021, I can no longer log into MATE.

I updated and upgraded after seeing Didier's message today 15 September 2021.

I still cannot log into Mate, only the other Desktop Environments.

I can use the other Desktop Environments (DE) by using "session-chooser" all
of them work but an odd thing happens.

After successfully starting another DE, if I try to start mate with
session-chooser, I cannot open mate, but I open the last DE that I used.

I used several DE and this repeats itself, if I use lxde, when I try to use
"session-chooser mate", mate won't run, but lxde will, same thing with
kde-plasma and the other DE that are in SLINT.

Just in case the Xorg log will help, I attach it.

Best regards,

David

===
The Slint mailing list.
Archive: https://www.freelists.org/archive/slint
To subscribe or unsubscribe, email slint-requ...@freelists.org with the subject
'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe', then answer the email you will receive.
More: email slint-requ...@freelists.org with as subject 'help' or 'commands'.

Re: Any users of non-UTF8 locales here?

[Didier Spaier]

Err, yes, but what is your point?


How to make sure users have always LANG set?

I don't know if/how Debian sets LANG by default but I have
seen users of others distributions bypassing this settings one way or 
another, thn e womaining "someting is wrong".

Re: Any users of non-UTF8 locales here?

[Didier Spaier]

Le 26/08/2021 à 23:08, Samuel Thibault a écrit :

Non-UTF8 locales are getting retired from Debian.  Are there people here
who are still using such locale?  You can determine that by running

locale charmap

If it says UTF-8, you're safe.  If it says something else, you need a
migration plan :)


[OT]: if I unset LANG, "locale charmap" gives:
ANSI_X3.4-1968
which is roughly another name for US-ASCII.

Doing that can lead to issues and support requests, e.g.:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2021-08/msg00118.html[/OT]

Didier

Re: debian bullseye on chrome os with crouton

[Didier Spaier]

Le 24/08/2021 à 23:27, Samuel Thibault a écrit :

On the long run I don't think it will continue working. The use of
/run/user is widespread nowadays, so software will cope with it.
/dev/shm however is seen as a security concern, and people will want to
replace its use with other means, to the point of being able to remove
it.


Will look at that, thanks for the heads-up.

Didier

Re: debian bullseye on chrome os with crouton

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Le 24/08/2021 à 21:48, Samuel Thibault a écrit :

In stretch the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR variable was not set, and thus the
speech-dispatcher socket would end up in the user's home, and I
guess that happens to be working by luck with crouton. Of course,
you can try to change the path of the socket in speechd.conf, or set
CommunicationMethod to inet_socket to use a TCP/IP port. But best would
be to get crouton to fix the bug.


As an aside, the XDG Base Directory Specification states under "Environment
variables":


> $XDG_CACHE_HOME defines the base directory relative to which 
user-specific
> non-essential data files should be stored. If $XDG_CACHE_HOME is 
either not set

> or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.cache should be used.
>
> $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR defines the base directory relative to which 
user-specific
> non-essential runtime files and other file objects (such as sockets, 
named
> pipes, ...) should be stored. The directory MUST be owned by the 
user, and he
> MUST be the only one having read and write access to it. Its Unix 
access mode

> MUST be 0700.

But in practice some software use one or the other environment variable
for the same purpose (including sockets)

For this reason I ended up setting these defaults for Slint in
/etc/skel/.profile

export XDG_CACHE_HOME=/dev/shm/$(whoami)
mkdir -p /dev/shm/$(whoami)
chmod 700 /dev/shm/$(whoami)
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=$XDG_CACHE_HOME

Maybe not very orthodox, but no issue reported so far due to these default
settings.

Cheers,
Didier

Re: firmware-11.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso Install

[Didier Spaier]

Hi David,

After your nap (mine just ended, by the way), please provide commands' 
output

requested by Samuel (on your Debian 11 system, of course).

As a reward, Samuel will release speech-dispatcher 11.0, maybe :-)

Cheers,
Didier

Le 22/08/2021 à 12:42, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :

Hi Samuel,

I'll get this to you later. I've found a work around to not being able to
log into Mate. If you have more than one Desktop Environment you can log
in. If you only have Mate you have to change the selection from "default"
to "Mate" and it works, you can now log in and reboot and it will always
login.

I have screen reader but only in the console that is used to run Xorg.

Something strange though:  I have 6 other consoles, 1 through 6 that I can
scroll through while Mate is running in Xorg.

So part of the problem must be that for Debian 11 a special console was
created just for Xorg.

I'll disable lightdm and startx in console 1 and see if I still have six
consoles or just 5 others.

That might give a clue as to why only the login console has screen reader.

Nap time.

David

On Sun, Aug 22, 2021, 05:14 Samuel Thibault  wrote:


Hello,

I can only repeat myself.

I am not getting theses issues in my tests, so we need information from
your machine to determine what is going wrongly in your case.

For the MATE problem, please bring it up to MATE maintainers who will
know what to inspect, we in debian-accessibility don't have the
knowledge of what log file is best to look at etc.

For the double card problem, we need the output of these commands:

amixer -c 0 scontrols
amixer -c 1 scontrols
cat /proc/asound/cards
echo /sys/class/sound/card*/id
cat /sys/class/sound/card*/id
lsmod
dmesg | grep firmware
cat /var/run/espeakup.card
amixer -c 0 scontents
amixer -c 1 scontents

There is no way the bug can be ever fixed if we don't have such kind of
information from your system.

Concerning shift pg-up/down, it's Linux that dropped the support for
software scrolling in the Linux console in version 5.9, because the code
is very complex and nobody was taking the time to maintain it.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item=Linux-5.9-Drops-Soft-Scrollback

Samuel

Re: large VGA font in speech-based installer.

[Didier Spaier]

Le 19/08/2021 à 09:18, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> But the actual result completely depends on the actual resolution that
> your framebuffer is getting.

In a previous Slint installer, to help people with low vision I used 
fbterm to
display texts, adapting the font size to this resolution, to maximize 
the font
size while displaying at least a fixed number of rows and columns for a 
proper

layout of the text.

Of course fbterm is not usable by brltty and espeakup, so in these cases was
not used.

The program I used to get the characteristics of the frame buffer is 
checkfb.c

(not written by me) that I just uploaded here:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/unsorted

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Debian 11 unofficial firmware first installation

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

Le 18/08/2021 à 23:40, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :

I was frustrated
because after I learned from the Slint list that there was a problem
with the release candidate of Debian, I wanted to test it myself, and
I installed three different versions of Debian with firmware and ALL
of them failed and I've been contacted by others who have told me that
they also cannot log into GUI with either RC3 or the 11.0 release of
Bullseye.  I knew of no one that this RC3 worked for, all were
reporting failures.


Actually David, you posted this problem on the Slint mailing list:
https://www.freelists.org/post/slint/OT-Debian-Bullseys-Released

Not surprisingly nobody answered this message that you aptly tagged [OT].

Cheers,
Didier

Re: Screen Reader

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Aaron

There are also blind users of the Linux console. They most often use 
links or
lynks and read the screen with espeakup, fenrir, speechd-up a hard 
synthesizer

(with speakup) or a Braille display.

Cheers,
Didier
--
Didier Spaier
Slint maintainer
https://slint.fr


Le 30/07/2021 à 20:51, Aaron a écrit :

I need to demonstrate the benefits of writing accessible html to my
development group, and I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good
screen reader I can use. It doesn't have to be open source, but I'd like
it to do a really good job of showing what is possible and how following
the WCAG standards helps, and allow me to demonstrate some of the things
that make even compliant sites a pain to use when you can't see the screen.

Thanks,

Aaron

Re: MATE Terminal Emulator Accessibility: it won't let users scroll upwards to review

[Didier Spaier]

Le 25/04/2021 à 10:58, Sebastian Humenda a écrit :

Didier Spaier schrieb am 25.04.2021, 10:53 +0200:

Le 25/04/2021 à 10:38, Sebastian Humenda a écrit :

Is there a way to silence Orca to prevent "double" screen reading?


I'd try this: in the Orca preferences GUI, tab Speech, uncheck "enable
Speech"


Well, that leaves the Orca commands still being bound. Ideally, I could use
the BRLTTY navigation functionality.


I have no idea if/how this is possible, hopefully Samuel will answer.
Cheers,

Didier

Re: MATE Terminal Emulator Accessibility: it won't let users scroll upwards to review

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

Le 25/04/2021 à 10:38, Sebastian Humenda a écrit :

Is there a way to silence Orca to prevent "double" screen reading?


I'd try this: in the Orca preferences GUI, tab Speech, uncheck "enable 
Speech"


Cheers,
Didier

Re: No BRLTTY with Bulseeye RC3

[Didier Spaier]

Ho Sebastian,

maybe a path issue?

Here brltty version 6.3 has its binary installed in /bin, dunno for 
Debian and

its weird anyway that /bin be not in the PATH but still, what gives:
'which brltty'?

Didier

Le 25/03/2021 à 22:16, Sebastian Humenda a écrit :

Hi

I've downloaded the RC3 of the  installer from
   
https://chuangtzu.ftp.acc.umu.se/cdimage/bullseye_di_alpha3/amd64/iso-cd/debian-bullseye-DI-alpha3-amd64-netinst.iso

After the installation, BRLTTY was not started. Loggining into the system, I
found out that brltty was not installed, or at least it could not be launched
(see steps below).

1.  Wrote the image to a USB drive.
2.  Rebooted the system.
3.  The braille display was not delected after 20 seconds, so I pressed down
 and return to select the textual install.
4.  After a few moments, BRLTTY started and I could proceed the installation
 with braille.
5.  I have used the netinst CD and due to firmware issues, not configured
 networking.
6.  I rebooted the system with installation media detached.
7.  No BRLTTY was launched. With sighted assistence, I entered my passphrase
 for /home (/ is not encrypted) and logged in as root.
8.  BRLTTY is not installed, the command brltty or /sbin/brltty does not
 exist.

I have used the netinstall. So is it normal that BRLTTY is not part of the
base system? If this is intended behaviour, I will go and repair the system
with sighted assistence. Otherwise, I'll wait for more testing instructions
:).

Thanks
Sebastian

Re: Bug#985666: alsa-utils: no sound after installation

[Didier Spaier]

Le 23/03/2021 à 22:57, Samuel Thibault a écrit :

Hello,

Nick Gawronski, le dim. 21 mars 2021 16:58:00 -0500, a ecrit:

pactl info

Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused


Ah, bummer, could you run instead

sudo -u lightdm bash -c 'XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$UID pa-info'

?

Thanks,
Samuel


Anyway as I just reported in the speech-dispatcher and orca
mailing lists any orca newer than June 4, 2019 (or from version 33.3)
doesn't speak in lightdm.

Diider

Re: Bug#985666: alsa-utils: no sound after installation

[Didier Spaier]

Looks like orca is running for lightdm, with espeak-ng as TTS.

Le 21/03/2021 à 21:58, Nick Gawronski a écrit :

Hi, Here is that output.  Nick Gawronski

Script started on 2021-03-21 15:56:41-05:00 [TERM="xterm-256color" 
TTY="/dev/pts/0" COLUMNS="120" LINES="30"]

[?2004hroot@debian641:~# ps axf
[?2004l
     PID TTY  STAT   TIME COMMAND
   2 ?    S  0:00 [kthreadd]
   3 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [rcu_gp]
   4 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [rcu_par_gp]
   6 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/0:0H-events_highpri]
   9 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [mm_percpu_wq]
  10 ?    S  0:00  \_ [rcu_tasks_rude_]
  11 ?    S  0:00  \_ [rcu_tasks_trace]
  12 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/0]
  13 ?    I  0:00  \_ [rcu_sched]
  14 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/0]
  15 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/0]
  16 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/1]
  17 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/1]
  18 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/1]
  20 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/1:0H-kblockd]
  21 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/2]
  22 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/2]
  23 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/2]
  25 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/2:0H-events_highpri]
  26 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/3]
  27 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/3]
  28 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/3]
  30 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/3:0H-kblockd]
  31 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/4]
  32 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/4]
  33 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/4]
  35 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/4:0H-events_highpri]
  36 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/5]
  37 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/5]
  38 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/5]
  40 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/5:0H-events_highpri]
  41 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/6]
  42 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/6]
  43 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/6]
  45 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/6:0H-events_highpri]
  46 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/7]
  47 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/7]
  48 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/7]
  50 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/7:0H-events_highpri]
  51 ?    S  0:00  \_ [cpuhp/8]
  52 ?    S  0:00  \_ [migration/8]
  53 ?    S  0:00  \_ [ksoftirqd/8]
  55 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/8:0H-events_highpri]
  65 ?    S  0:00  \_ [kdevtmpfs]
  66 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [netns]
  67 ?    S  0:00  \_ [kauditd]
  69 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/1:2-events]
  70 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/2:1-cgroup_destroy]
  71 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/2:2-events]
  72 ?    S  0:00  \_ [khungtaskd]
  73 ?    S  0:00  \_ [oom_reaper]
  74 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [writeback]
  75 ?    S  0:00  \_ [kcompactd0]
  76 ?    SN 0:00  \_ [ksmd]
  77 ?    SN 0:00  \_ [khugepaged]
  79 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/3:1-events]
  96 ?    I  0:01  \_ [kworker/8:1-events]
  97 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kintegrityd]
  98 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kblockd]
  99 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [blkcg_punt_bio]
     100 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [edac-poller]
     101 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [devfreq_wq]
     102 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/3:2-events]
     103 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kworker/4:1H-kblockd]
     104 ?    I  0:00  \_ [kworker/4:1-events]
     105 ?    S  0:00  \_ [kswapd0]
     106 ?    I< 0:00  \_ [kthrotld]
     107 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/24-pciehp]
     108 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/25-pciehp]
     109 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/26-pciehp]
     110 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/27-pciehp]
     111 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/28-pciehp]
     112 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/29-pciehp]
     113 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/30-pciehp]
     114 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/31-pciehp]
     115 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/32-pciehp]
     116 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/33-pciehp]
     117 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/34-pciehp]
     118 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/35-pciehp]
     119 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/36-pciehp]
     120 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/37-pciehp]
     121 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/38-pciehp]
     122 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/39-pciehp]
     123 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/40-pciehp]
     124 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/41-pciehp]
     125 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/42-pciehp]
     126 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/43-pciehp]
     127 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/44-pciehp]
     128 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/45-pciehp]
     129 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/46-pciehp]
     130 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/47-pciehp]
     131 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/48-pciehp]
     132 ?    S  0:00  \_ [irq/49-pciehp]
     133 ? 

Re: eBook-speaker 6.0

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Jos and All,

I just upgraded eBook-speaker to version 6.0

Caveat: if LC_ALL is not set %s is replaced by LC in ebook-speaker.c

Being to busy|lazy|"beginner in C"  (choose any three) to provide a
proper patch I just wrote this wrapper script as a workaround:

didier[~]$ cat /usr/bin/ebook-speaker
LC_ALL=$LANG eBook-speaker $*

"It works in Slint"(TM) as LANG is always set there (but not LC_ALL).

Thanks again!

Best regards,
Didier

Le 01/02/2021 à 22:47, Didier Spaier a écrit :

Thanks Jos, I will try it as soon as possible,

Best regards and stay safe,

Didier

Le 01/02/2021 à 19:09, Jos Lemmens a écrit :

On my site http://jlemmens.nl you will find eBook-speaker version 6.0.
pulseaudio not always find all soundcards. So from this version on,
eBook-speaker brings up a soundcard-selector (option -i), so that a 
user can

choose between  ALSA and pulseaudio.
Hope it works on all systems.

Re: eBook-speaker 6.0

[Didier Spaier]

Thanks Jos, I will try it as soon as possible,

Best regards and stay safe,

Didier

Le 01/02/2021 à 19:09, Jos Lemmens a écrit :

On my site http://jlemmens.nl you will find eBook-speaker version 6.0.
pulseaudio not always find all soundcards. So from this version on,
eBook-speaker brings up a soundcard-selector (option -i), so that a user can
choose between  ALSA and pulseaudio.
Hope it works on all systems.

Re: Embosser on USB parallel

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Le 06/10/2020 à 00:42, Raphaël POITEVIN a écrit :
> CUPS-BRF (Virtual BRF Braille Printer)

I'd try that.

Cheers, Didier

Re: Larger Console Fonts

[Didier Spaier]

Le 07/07/2020 à 00:19, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> D.J.J. Ring, Jr., le lun. 06 juil. 2020 10:03:27 -0400, a ecrit:
>> Is there a larger size font?
> 
> No. This has been requested already

As an aside, there's also fbterm which can draw characters of any size.

Indeed it doesn't work with speech but can still help folks with a low
vision not needing neither speech nor braille.

Didier

Re: Why doesn't this page work with Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John,

I tried it on Slint with Chrome on Firefox on Mate and it works.

It is also accessible with speech from Orca, in both Firefox and Chrome.

I am not able to try with braille though.

Maybe post on the Orca mailing list?

Best regards,
Didier

Le 12/06/2020 à 06:12, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> Please look at the attached html fille. It is a small experimental page.
>  It works with Chrome on Windows, but not with Chromium or firefox on mate. 
>  Why is this? Can I make it work? It will be used to develop a 
> word-association O
>  game for my websites.
> 
> Thanks,
> John

Re: How do I delete a file in Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Richard,

I forgot to mention caja-gksu although it be included in Slint,
so thanks for the heads-up  

For whoever in concern, it needs to be activated. To do that
you can, from caja, do this:
Press Ctr+E for to raise the Edit menu.
press P to raise the Preferences window.
Arrow left once or right 6 times to reach the Extensions tab.
Arrow down several times to reach the gksu extension.
Press the space bar to toggle the extension on or off.
Press Enter to close the window.

Cheers,

Didier  

Le 08/06/2020 à 11:56, Richard Owlett a écrit :
> On 06/08/2020 02:52 AM, Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> caja also can be run as root, as well as pcmanfm (also shipped
>> in Slint).
>>
>> But doing this is a very bad idea as it makes to easy to delete
>> important parts of the system inadvertently.
>>
>> Cheers,
> 
> Check out caja-gksu .
>> The gksu extension for Caja allows you to open files with
>> administration privileges using the context menu when browsing
>> your files with Caja.
> 
> It adds "Open as administer" to menu presented when right-clicking on file or 
> folder.

Re: How do I delete a file in Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

caja also can be run as root, as well as pcmanfm (also shipped
in Slint).

But doing this is a very bad idea as it makes to easy to delete
important parts of the system inadvertently.

Cheers,

Didier


Le 08/06/2020 à 09:09, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> I did a bit more looking around, there is one file manager that will run as
> root user (administer account.) it's pcmanfm-qt install that program, it
> has an option to open the folder as root, you can delete any file with
> root.
> 
> You can also use it in graphical mode to chown a file or to chmod a file
> when the regular user doesn't own the file.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David
> 
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2020, 16:24 Didier Spaier  wrote:
> 
>> Maybe off topic, but a good reading:
>> https://wpollock.com/AUnix1/FilePermissions.htm
>>
>> Le 06/06/2020 à 22:10, Didier Spaier a écrit :
>>> PS: the file should be owned by the user who tries to delete it
>>> if the directory where it is stored has the sticky bit set. This
>>> is generally the case for the /tmp directory.
>>>
>>> Didier
>>>
>>> Le 06/06/2020 à 21:49, Didier Spaier a écrit :
>>>> Hello John.
>>>>
>>>> To delete a file in Caja if it has the focus, indeed use the del key.
>>>>
>>>> But this can fail in two cases:
>>>> 1. This file can't be deleted as it has the "i" (meaning immutable)
>>>>attribute, as indicated in "man chattr"
>>>> 2. The user running caja does not have the "write" privilege for the
>>>>directory where the file is located. However, that the file itself be
>>>>or not owned by the user who tries to delete it doesn't matter.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Is unlikely, but 2 is likely in your case.
>>>>
>>>> Yes Mate does have the equivalent of the recycle bin. Its usage can be
>>>> set in the Edit > Preferences menu of Caja. Also, you can display a Help
>>>> window for Caja when it has the focus just pressing F1, if your
>>>> distribution ships mate-help.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Didier
>>
>>
> 

Re: How do I delete a file in Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

Maybe off topic, but a good reading:
https://wpollock.com/AUnix1/FilePermissions.htm

Le 06/06/2020 à 22:10, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> PS: the file should be owned by the user who tries to delete it
> if the directory where it is stored has the sticky bit set. This
> is generally the case for the /tmp directory.
> 
> Didier
> 
> Le 06/06/2020 à 21:49, Didier Spaier a écrit :
>> Hello John.
>>
>> To delete a file in Caja if it has the focus, indeed use the del key.
>>
>> But this can fail in two cases:
>> 1. This file can't be deleted as it has the "i" (meaning immutable)
>>attribute, as indicated in "man chattr"
>> 2. The user running caja does not have the "write" privilege for the
>>directory where the file is located. However, that the file itself be
>>or not owned by the user who tries to delete it doesn't matter.
>>
>> 1. Is unlikely, but 2 is likely in your case.
>>
>> Yes Mate does have the equivalent of the recycle bin. Its usage can be
>> set in the Edit > Preferences menu of Caja. Also, you can display a Help
>> window for Caja when it has the focus just pressing F1, if your
>> distribution ships mate-help.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Didier

Re: How do I delete a file in Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

PS: the file should be owned by the user who tries to delete it
if the directory where it is stored has the sticky bit set. This
is generally the case for the /tmp directory.

Didier

Le 06/06/2020 à 21:49, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> Hello John.
> 
> To delete a file in Caja if it has the focus, indeed use the del key.
> 
> But this can fail in two cases:
> 1. This file can't be deleted as it has the "i" (meaning immutable)
>attribute, as indicated in "man chattr"
> 2. The user running caja does not have the "write" privilege for the
>directory where the file is located. However, that the file itself be
>or not owned by the user who tries to delete it doesn't matter.
> 
> 1. Is unlikely, but 2 is likely in your case.
> 
> Yes Mate does have the equivalent of the recycle bin. Its usage can be
> set in the Edit > Preferences menu of Caja. Also, you can display a Help
> window for Caja when it has the focus just pressing F1, if your
> distribution ships mate-help.
> 
> Cheers,
> Didier
> 
> Le 06/06/2020 à 17:11, John J. Boyer a écrit :
>> What I want to know is how I can delete a file within caja. Does Mate have 
>> the equivalent of the Recycle Bin?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> John
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 06, 2020 at 09:03:53AM -0400, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
>>> Are you the owner of the file? If it's not your file you cannot delete it.
>>>
>>> If that's the case open terminal and ls -l to see who owns the file and
>>> which group. See if the owner had write permission on the file. If not you
>>> have to chmod 644 the file with the root account to give owner read and
>>> write permission.
>>>
>>> sudo chmod 644 "file name"
>>>
>>> Where  "file name" is the actual file name but no quotation marks.
>>>
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jun 6, 2020, 08:53 John J. Boyer 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I can select a file in caja, but when I press the delete key nothing
>>>> happens. What works?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> John J. Boyer
>>>> Email: john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org
>>>> website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org
>>>> Status: Company dissolved but website and email addresses  live.
>>>> Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
>>>> Mission: developing assistive technology software and providing STEM
>>>> services
>>>> that are available at no cost
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
> 

Re: How do I delete a file in Mate?

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John.

To delete a file in Caja if it has the focus, indeed use the del key.

But this can fail in two cases:
1. This file can't be deleted as it has the "i" (meaning immutable)
   attribute, as indicated in "man chattr"
2. The user running caja does not have the "write" privilege for the
   directory where the file is located. However, that the file itself be
   or not owned by the user who tries to delete it doesn't matter.

1. Is unlikely, but 2 is likely in your case.

Yes Mate does have the equivalent of the recycle bin. Its usage can be
set in the Edit > Preferences menu of Caja. Also, you can display a Help
window for Caja when it has the focus just pressing F1, if your
distribution ships mate-help.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 06/06/2020 à 17:11, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> What I want to know is how I can delete a file within caja. Does Mate have 
> the equivalent of the Recycle Bin?
> 
> Thanks,
> John
> 
> On Sat, Jun 06, 2020 at 09:03:53AM -0400, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
>> Are you the owner of the file? If it's not your file you cannot delete it.
>>
>> If that's the case open terminal and ls -l to see who owns the file and
>> which group. See if the owner had write permission on the file. If not you
>> have to chmod 644 the file with the root account to give owner read and
>> write permission.
>>
>> sudo chmod 644 "file name"
>>
>> Where  "file name" is the actual file name but no quotation marks.
>>
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 6, 2020, 08:53 John J. Boyer 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I can select a file in caja, but when I press the delete key nothing
>>> happens. What works?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> John
>>>
>>> --
>>> John J. Boyer
>>> Email: john.bo...@abilitiessoft.org
>>> website: http://www.abilitiessoft.org
>>> Status: Company dissolved but website and email addresses  live.
>>> Location: Madison, Wisconsin, USA
>>> Mission: developing assistive technology software and providing STEM
>>> services
>>> that are available at no cost
>>>
>>>
>>>
> 

Re: Audio problems with Debian, speech output and the latest VMware Workstation release :-(

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

Maybe OT, but very possibly Qemu does a better job than VMware Workstation 15.

At least its audio is very good, with a choice between several sound cards.

You can find an installer here:
https://qemu.weilnetz.de/w64/

Cheers,
Didier

Le 05/06/2020 à 09:44, Christian Schoepplein a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I unfortunatly have to use Debian in a virtual machine on a Windows 10 
> system. The virtualitation software I am using is VMware Workstation 15.
> 
> Since the latest update of VMware Workstation to the version 15.5.5 the sound 
> output and therefore also the speech output is stucking. It sounds like the 
> system is under heavy load and speech is only outputed in fragments with 
> little breaks in between... Its a little bit difficult to explain...
> 
> I have to systems with the same configuration and on both systems the problem 
> occures. I've changed nothing in the virtual linux system and on the host 
> system itself, only VMware Workstation was updated to the latest version 
> (15.5.5). So I am very sure it is a problem with VMware Workstation
> 
> I just want to ask if anyone here is also using VMware Workstation on Windows 
> 10 and has the same problems after the last update. And maybe anyone has an 
> idea how to solve the problems, maybe I can do something on the linux system 
> or in the settings of the VM. I downgrated the system to an older version of 
> VMware Workstation and anything is good again, but if there is a solution for 
> Workstation 15.5.5 it would be good to know.
> 
> Ofcourse I will contact VMware and ask for a solution, but I am sure they 
> will not be able to help because they do not know enough about working with a 
> screen reader, speech output, e.g..., but I will try anyway.
> 
> Cheers and thanks for any help or idea,
> 
>   Schoepp
> 

Re: Orca question

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

when it's done, yes, or:
slapt-get --upgrade
as lynx is already shipped in Slint.

But please be patient, I am looking at Debian packaging especially
lynxcfg.patch, before deciding what to change in the new package.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 05/06/2020 à 10:31, Pawel L. a écrit :
> slapt-get --install-set slint
> 
> should update the current version, right?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Pawel
> 
> On 2020-06-04 7:03 p.m., Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hello Pawel and all,
>>
>> You made me remember that I have stored the lynx.cfg proposed by Jude
>> to be shipped as an alternate configuration in next release of a
>> lynx package for Slint. I will provide lynx-2.9.0dev.5 tomorrow with it.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 05/06/2020 à 00:54, Pawel L. a écrit :
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> David is right about lynx working in more blind-friendly way in Debian than 
>>> in Slint since Debian comes with lynx.cfg preconfigured differently from 
>>> Slint version.
>>>
>>> In Slint it is necessary to turn cursor on and tune up few more settings to 
>>> make it better with Speakup for instance.
>>>
>>> I believe Didier mentioned in one of his email that Slint respects lynx's 
>>> developer configuration or so and it should be up to a user to make any 
>>> needed changes.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Pawel
>>>
>>> On 2020-06-04 3:09 p.m., Didier Spaier wrote:
>>>> Hi David,
>>>>
>>>> currently we ship lynx-2.9.0dev.4 in Slint, but I hardly understand why
>>>> lynx itself would behave differently between Debian (which version?) and
>>>> Slint on this regard, but maybe if your config file makes a difference.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway we need more information to investigate.
>>>>
>>>> Please attach your config file to your next message and tell with which
>>>> console screen reader you observe this behavior: espeakup, speechd-up,
>>>> fenrir?
>>>>
>>>> Also, please provide a link to a web page on which this issue appears,
>>>> and post to or at least CC the Slint mailing list so we know if other
>>>> Slint users encounter the same issue.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Didier
>>>>
>>>> Le 04/06/2020 à 19:29, David Hoff Jr a écrit :
>>>>> You are correct, Lynx does work better when used from the command line, 
>>>>> but in Slint, when using a screen reader, Lynx is not very usable. The 
>>>>> Tab and Up/Down cursor keys are suppose to read only the link but instead 
>>>>> the link and a lot of other information is spoken by the screen reader 
>>>>> making it extremely difficult to determine where you are and what is 
>>>>> being spoken. David Ring did send me a revised config file which I 
>>>>> appreciated. I
>>>>> currently use Lynx and Debian on an older netbook and it is very easy to
>>>>> configure and use. Is it possible that Slint could reconfigure Lynx to
>>>>> work in a similar fashion?
>>>>>

Re: Orca question

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Pawel and all,

You made me remember that I have stored the lynx.cfg proposed by Jude
to be shipped as an alternate configuration in next release of a
lynx package for Slint. I will provide lynx-2.9.0dev.5 tomorrow with it.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 05/06/2020 à 00:54, Pawel L. a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> David is right about lynx working in more blind-friendly way in Debian than 
> in Slint since Debian comes with lynx.cfg preconfigured differently from 
> Slint version.
> 
> In Slint it is necessary to turn cursor on and tune up few more settings to 
> make it better with Speakup for instance.
> 
> I believe Didier mentioned in one of his email that Slint respects lynx's 
> developer configuration or so and it should be up to a user to make any 
> needed changes.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Pawel
> 
> On 2020-06-04 3:09 p.m., Didier Spaier wrote:
>> Hi David,
>>
>> currently we ship lynx-2.9.0dev.4 in Slint, but I hardly understand why
>> lynx itself would behave differently between Debian (which version?) and
>> Slint on this regard, but maybe if your config file makes a difference.
>>
>> Anyway we need more information to investigate.
>>
>> Please attach your config file to your next message and tell with which
>> console screen reader you observe this behavior: espeakup, speechd-up,
>> fenrir?
>>
>> Also, please provide a link to a web page on which this issue appears,
>> and post to or at least CC the Slint mailing list so we know if other
>> Slint users encounter the same issue.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 04/06/2020 à 19:29, David Hoff Jr a écrit :
>>> You are correct, Lynx does work better when used from the command line, but 
>>> in Slint, when using a screen reader, Lynx is not very usable. The Tab and 
>>> Up/Down cursor keys are suppose to read only the link but instead the link 
>>> and a lot of other information is spoken by the screen reader making it 
>>> extremely difficult to determine where you are and what is being spoken. 
>>> David Ring did send me a revised config file which I appreciated. I
>>> currently use Lynx and Debian on an older netbook and it is very easy to
>>> configure and use. Is it possible that Slint could reconfigure Lynx to
>>> work in a similar fashion?
>>>

Re: Orca question

[Didier Spaier]

Hi David,

currently we ship lynx-2.9.0dev.4 in Slint, but I hardly understand why
lynx itself would behave differently between Debian (which version?) and
Slint on this regard, but maybe if your config file makes a difference.

Anyway we need more information to investigate.

Please attach your config file to your next message and tell with which
console screen reader you observe this behavior: espeakup, speechd-up,
fenrir?

Also, please provide a link to a web page on which this issue appears,
and post to or at least CC the Slint mailing list so we know if other
Slint users encounter the same issue.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 04/06/2020 à 19:29, David Hoff Jr a écrit :
> You are correct, Lynx does work better when used from the command line, but 
> in Slint, when using a screen reader, Lynx is not very usable. The Tab and 
> Up/Down cursor keys are suppose to read only the link but instead the link 
> and a lot of other information is spoken by the screen reader making it 
> extremely difficult to determine where you are and what is being spoken. 
> David Ring did send me a revised config file which I appreciated. I
> currently use Lynx and Debian on an older netbook and it is very easy to
> configure and use. Is it possible that Slint could reconfigure Lynx to
> work in a similar fashion?
> 

Re: Orca question

[Didier Spaier]

Hi David,

lynx is really better used on the command line with a console screen reader,
like espeakup, speechd-up or fenrir, or brltty if you have a Braille device.

Cheers,

Didier

Le 29/05/2020 à 01:46, David Hoff Jr a écrit :
> I have asked this question of the Orca mail list but since I am not a list 
> member they have not responded.
> 
> 
> I am  using Debian 10 with all updates, 64 bit using the Lynx browser with 
> the Mate terminal.
> 
> 
> I use the Orca read command (Keypad add) to read the full page. Is there a 
> way to keep Orca from speaking the new line character when reading a web 
> page?  There are a lot of the new line characters and it is very distracting.

Re: The mate-user-guide is inaccessible.

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John,

In Debian Buster Mate is at version 1.20 but in Slint currently it is at 
version 1.24.

This could explain (or not: to be honest I didn't check) some of the 
differences.

This being said the sources files of the various components of Mate come from 
the same repositories, but the choice to include or not a feature and the 
associated default configuration is made by the package maintainers of the 
various distributions. 

Cheers,
Didier


Le 20/05/2020 à 19:57, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> All right, I can use yelp, but the procedure is rather weird. I have Debian 
> Buster. Originally it was CLI only. I first tried Gnome, but that kept 
> crashing and 
> burning. Mate is much better. I have a Focus 40 Braille display. When I start 
> yelp I can arrow down from the top. Things flash on the display, much too 
> fast to 
> read. Pressing the forward advance button does nothing, but if I press the 
> back button on the display I will get to something. Then pressing the forward 
> button 
> enables me to read the screen. I can even press buttons and links to go to 
> topics and read those.
> 
> I've gotten used to having to use some weird maneuvers to get to things on 
> the GUI. Some of that may be due to Orca. I think that Orca and Mate should 
> behave the 
> same on all distros.
> 
> Thanks,
> John

Re: The mate-user-guide is inaccessible.

[Didier Spaier]

Hello John,

As Alex said, at least here (Slint distribution) there are several ways to 
access the help for the Mate desktop:

1. With the focus on the desktop, just press F1.
2. Press Alt + F1 to put the focus on the Application menu, arrow right twice 
to switch to the System menu, then Arrow down three times to focus on Help and 
press Enter.
3. Start  mate-terminal, or just press Alt + F2 to raise a Run... dialog, then 
type either yelp or gnome-help, press Enter, then press Tab to navigate to the 
help for the Mate desktop (Orca will give an output only when you press Tab in 
this case, at least here).

If the key bindings or commands differ when using Mate, please Alex tell us.

Caveat: I confirm that Orca speaks when using the Mate help, but didn't check 
that a braille device gets the output as well (I add that knowing that you are 
deaf, and not owning one).

Slint list in CC: please some of you using a braille device confirm or infirm 
in the Slint list (or here if registered to this one) that it's usable with the 
Mate help.

As an aside, providing a web site with the same information is doable using 
yelp-tools. I have considered doing that at least for Slint (and suggest to the 
Mate developers to provide such a thing for all distributions), but didn't as 
the integrated help became accessible.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 20/05/2020 à 16:59, Alex ARNAUD a écrit :
> Didier in CC told me mate-user-guide is accessible so it could probably told 
> you the trick to make it working
> 
> Best regards.
> 
> Le 20/05/2020 à 16:13, John J. Boyer a écrit :
>> Hello,
>>
>> Thanks Alex.
>>
>> I have tried going to wiki.mate-desktop.org/#!index.md with both firefox and 
>> Chromium. I couldnt make head or tail of the site. The help option in Mate
>> does not work.
>> How can I read the mate-user-guide? My opinioon is that they should have 
>> made it a simple Web page. That is what NVDA did.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> John

Re: Is there a Mate mailing list?

[Didier Spaier]

Hi John,

No, the haven't a mailing list.

They have an IRC channel though:
mate @ irc.freenode.net

I hope pidgin is accessible enough with braille through Orca.

But I guess your questions can be answered in debian-accessibility as well.

Also, the Slint distribution that I maintain also ships Mate 1.24, feel free
to post questions about it there. registration is mandatory, how-to subscribe
is indicated in this blog post:
https://slint.fr/blog/welcome-to-the-new-slint-mailing-list.html

PS There is no such thing as a dumb question, only dumb answers.

Cheers,
Didier

Le 10/05/2020 à 23:58, John J. Boyer a écrit :
> I hope they will answer dumb newbie questions.
> 
> John

Re: Synthesis volume in the debian installer

[Didier Spaier]

Le 01/05/2020 à 12:22, john doe a écrit :
> the cp utility also provide the -v flag.

Yes, if you use the version shipped in the GNU coreutils package.

But as this option is not specified by POSIX one can't be sure that it
be available.

I also try to avoid the GNU extensions of grep, sed, and also the
bashisms, at least in published scripts, but I digress 

Didier

Re: Synthesis volume in the debian installer

[Didier Spaier]

Le 01/05/2020 à 11:54, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> I don't know if cp will accept a block device as target, but dd will

cp does too, I learned that from Thomas Schmitt.

As it takes some time to complete for a big file and doesn't provide
an output I usually use it like this/
cp /path/to/iso /dev/ && echo "Done."

Re: Noob

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Blaine,

For folks with low version I highly recommend using the Compiz window manager.

I have no idea if/how it can be installed in LMDE. I didn't find it this 
repository: packages.linuxmint.com

But I am not a Mint user myself, so it's quite possible that I miss something 
obvious.

Else, if that's acceptable for you and your wife I'd suggest to use instead 
Debian with a Mate desktop and the compiz-mate package.

Best regards,

Didier 


Le 12/04/2020 à 22:42, Blaine Clark a écrit :
> Hello all.
> 
> Noob to this list and to more-or-less, kind-a sort-a straight Debian. I 
> recently installed LMDE 4 for my wife and myself. I was playing around with 
> the fresh release on a Live load and my wife decided to watch over my 
> shoulder. She said "I want that, now". Everyone knows when the wife says 'I 
> want that' and then adds 'now', that means 'why don't I have it already'! 
> So-o ...
> 
> We've been Linux users since 2007. We started with Ubuntu and stayed there 
> until 2012 when they went all Unity on us, blech. We moved to Linux-Mint Mate 
> and stayed there until two weeks ago when we moved to LMDE. My wife is blind 
> in one eye and has distorted vision in the other plus 'floaters'. I've just 
> got age induced moderate low vision. She prefers low contrast colors and 
> themes which we just blunder into as best we can. Does anyone on list have 
> some off the cuff or some standardized tips, hints and tweaks for us to try 
> for low contrast?
> 
> One more item, is there a way to include personalized desktop settings and 
> current themes into a backup? Maybe I'll break these two questions into two 
> emails if that's better.
> 
> Thanks all
> 
> Blaine

Re: bookworm for accessibility

[Didier Spaier]

Le 23/03/2020 à 10:24, Samuel Thibault a écrit :
> Jos Lemmens, le lun. 23 mars 2020 10:01:14 +0100, a ecrit:
>> On Mon, Mar 23, 2020 at 07:54:39AM +0100, mattias wrote:
>>> but ebookspeaker are a consoel app?
>> Indeed, but maybe it also works in xterm. I don't use X myself, so
>> I'm not sure.
> 
> Any console app can run in an xterm indeed.

Indeed it runs in an xterm as in mate-terminal I just checked.

Thanks Jos!
Didier

Re: OCRDesktop

[Didier Spaier]

Howdy,

@Chrys: I confirm, I just tried it again, thanks!

I will package it for Slint, hopefully someone will for Debian.

@Pavel

Meanwhile you can just clone the repository, install the dependencies
(you will have to chek them for Debian) and just put the executable in
your $PATH an set up a shortcut to start OCRdesktop.

That's what I did to test here.

Best regards,

Didier

Le 21/02/2020 à 09:41, Linux A11y a écrit :
> Howdy,
> 
> The OCRdesktop git is already tesseract 4 compatible.
> 
> Cheers chrys
> 
> Von meinem iPhone gesendet
> 
>> Am 21.02.2020 um 09:14 schrieb Didier Spaier :
>>
>> Hi Pavel,
>>
>> I can't answer for Debian specifically, but last time I checked
>> OCRdesktop was not yet compatible with Tesseract 4, due to dependency of
>> OCRdesktop itself not yet compatible with Tesseract 4 if I remember
>> well.
>>
>> Maybe things have changed, I will check.
>>
>> MeanwhileOCRdesktop is listed among "TODO Packaging" software in
>> https://wiki.debian.org/accessibility-devel.
>>
>> That's all I know.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Didier
>>
>>
>>
>>> Le 21/02/2020 à 08:33, Pavel Vlček a écrit :
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I want to make my Debian environment accessible as I can, so I installed 
>>> Lios and now, I want to try install OCRdesktop, but in the readme is Arch 
>>> installation only. How can I install it on Debian 10? Some python install 
>>> command, but I can not find the correct way.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Pavel
>>
> 

Re: OCRDesktop

[Didier Spaier]

Hi Pavel,

I can't answer for Debian specifically, but last time I checked
OCRdesktop was not yet compatible with Tesseract 4, due to dependency of
OCRdesktop itself not yet compatible with Tesseract 4 if I remember
well.

Maybe things have changed, I will check.

MeanwhileOCRdesktop is listed among "TODO Packaging" software in
https://wiki.debian.org/accessibility-devel.

That's all I know.

Best regards,

Didier



Le 21/02/2020 à 08:33, Pavel Vlček a écrit :
> Hi,
> 
> I want to make my Debian environment accessible as I can, so I installed Lios 
> and now, I want to try install OCRdesktop, but in the readme is Arch 
> installation only. How can I install it on Debian 10? Some python install 
> command, but I can not find the correct way.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Pavel

Re: Large Cursors

[Didier Spaier]

I meant "why post in this list", not "why not..."

Le 2/11/20 à 11:04 PM, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> In Slint this works, I just checked.
> 
> Err, my mistake: these commands should be typed as regular user, not as
> as root as I wrongly wrote, and that's almost certainly why they didn't
> work for you.
> 
> Why not post in this list (debian-accessibility) instead of the Slint
> mailing list?
> 
> Best,
> 
> Didier
> 
> Le 2/11/20 à 10:49 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>> I'm using Slint.
>>
>> David
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020, 16:28 Didier Spaier > <mailto:did...@slint.fr>> wrote:
>>
>> I don't know how Mate configuration is done in Debian.
>>
>> Please someone who knows, answer.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Didier
>>
>> Le 2/11/20 à 10:19 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>> > None of the commands make a change.
>> >
>> > How can I check to see if the default theme is installed?
>> >
>> > I can't change to white - the cursor is now black.  I wanted to see if
>> > that command worked, but that doesn't work either.
>> >
>> > The size commands don't work and the color commands have no effect.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > David
>> >
>> > On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 3:58 PM Didier Spaier > <mailto:did...@slint.fr>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi David,
>> >>
>> >> type as root:
>> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 48
>> >> If that's not enough:
>> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 60
>> >> and so on. The default size is 24.
>> >>
>> >> For a white cursor, type:
>> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate
>> >> For a black cursor, type:
>> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate-black
>> >>
>> >> Best,
>> >>
>> >> Didier
>> >>
>> >> PS this works in Slint, maybe also in Debian, try.
>> >>
>> >> Le 2/11/20 à 9:35 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>> >>> Hello everyone,
>> >>>
>> >>> I don't see well but I still have vision so I try to use Mate 
>> desktop.
>> >>>
>> >>> I manage, I use ORCA when I need to - thanks for this wonderful 
>> tool, and I use console for as much as possible, like mail with mutt.
>> >>>
>> >>> I cannot find a desktop theme with big cursor pointer icons.
>> >>>
>> >>> I really like the inverting Extra Large cursor pointers icons that 
>> Windows the size is excellent and the inverting is very nice. The cursor 
>> pointer changes to black on a white page, and to white on a black background.
>> >>>
>> >>> I'd love to have that in the same size!
>> >>>
>> >>> Is this available?  If not does any of this group speak to the group 
>> that does cursor icons and would they ask for this?
>> >>>
>> >>> Best regards,
>> >>>
>> >>> David
>> >>
>> >
>>
> 

Re: Large Cursors

[Didier Spaier]

In Slint this works, I just checked.

Err, my mistake: these commands should be typed as regular user, not as
as root as I wrongly wrote, and that's almost certainly why they didn't
work for you.

Why not post in this list (debian-accessibility) instead of the Slint
mailing list?

Best,

Didier

Le 2/11/20 à 10:49 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> I'm using Slint.
> 
> David
> 
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020, 16:28 Didier Spaier  <mailto:did...@slint.fr>> wrote:
> 
> I don't know how Mate configuration is done in Debian.
> 
> Please someone who knows, answer.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Didier
> 
> Le 2/11/20 à 10:19 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> > None of the commands make a change.
> >
> > How can I check to see if the default theme is installed?
> >
> > I can't change to white - the cursor is now black.  I wanted to see if
> > that command worked, but that doesn't work either.
> >
> > The size commands don't work and the color commands have no effect.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > David
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 3:58 PM Didier Spaier  <mailto:did...@slint.fr>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi David,
> >>
> >> type as root:
> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 48
> >> If that's not enough:
> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 60
> >> and so on. The default size is 24.
> >>
> >> For a white cursor, type:
> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate
> >> For a black cursor, type:
> >> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate-black
> >>
> >> Best,
> >>
> >> Didier
> >>
> >> PS this works in Slint, maybe also in Debian, try.
> >>
> >> Le 2/11/20 à 9:35 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> >>> Hello everyone,
> >>>
> >>> I don't see well but I still have vision so I try to use Mate desktop.
> >>>
> >>> I manage, I use ORCA when I need to - thanks for this wonderful tool, 
> and I use console for as much as possible, like mail with mutt.
> >>>
> >>> I cannot find a desktop theme with big cursor pointer icons.
> >>>
> >>> I really like the inverting Extra Large cursor pointers icons that 
> Windows the size is excellent and the inverting is very nice. The cursor 
> pointer changes to black on a white page, and to white on a black background.
> >>>
> >>> I'd love to have that in the same size!
> >>>
> >>> Is this available?  If not does any of this group speak to the group 
> that does cursor icons and would they ask for this?
> >>>
> >>> Best regards,
> >>>
> >>> David
> >>
> >
> 

Re: Large Cursors

[Didier Spaier]

I don't know how Mate configuration is done in Debian.

Please someone who knows, answer.

Best,

Didier

Le 2/11/20 à 10:19 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> None of the commands make a change.
> 
> How can I check to see if the default theme is installed?
> 
> I can't change to white - the cursor is now black.  I wanted to see if
> that command worked, but that doesn't work either.
> 
> The size commands don't work and the color commands have no effect.
> 
> Thanks,
> David
> 
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 3:58 PM Didier Spaier  wrote:
>>
>> Hi David,
>>
>> type as root:
>> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 48
>> If that's not enough:
>> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 60
>> and so on. The default size is 24.
>>
>> For a white cursor, type:
>> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate
>> For a black cursor, type:
>> gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate-black
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Didier
>>
>> PS this works in Slint, maybe also in Debian, try.
>>
>> Le 2/11/20 à 9:35 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
>>> Hello everyone,
>>>
>>> I don't see well but I still have vision so I try to use Mate desktop.
>>>
>>> I manage, I use ORCA when I need to - thanks for this wonderful tool, and I 
>>> use console for as much as possible, like mail with mutt.
>>>
>>> I cannot find a desktop theme with big cursor pointer icons.
>>>
>>> I really like the inverting Extra Large cursor pointers icons that Windows 
>>> the size is excellent and the inverting is very nice. The cursor pointer 
>>> changes to black on a white page, and to white on a black background.
>>>
>>> I'd love to have that in the same size!
>>>
>>> Is this available?  If not does any of this group speak to the group that 
>>> does cursor icons and would they ask for this?
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>>
>>> David
>>
> 

Re: Large Cursors

[Didier Spaier]

Hi David,

type as root:
gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 48
If that's not enough:
gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-size 60
and so on. The default size is 24.

For a white cursor, type:
gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate
For a black cursor, type:
gsettings set org.mate.peripherals-mouse cursor-theme mate-black

Best,

Didier

PS this works in Slint, maybe also in Debian, try.

Le 2/11/20 à 9:35 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. a écrit :
> Hello everyone,
> 
> I don't see well but I still have vision so I try to use Mate desktop.
> 
> I manage, I use ORCA when I need to - thanks for this wonderful tool, and I 
> use console for as much as possible, like mail with mutt.
> 
> I cannot find a desktop theme with big cursor pointer icons.
> 
> I really like the inverting Extra Large cursor pointers icons that Windows 
> the size is excellent and the inverting is very nice. The cursor pointer 
> changes to black on a white page, and to white on a black background.
> 
> I'd love to have that in the same size!
> 
> Is this available?  If not does any of this group speak to the group that 
> does cursor icons and would they ask for this?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> David

Re: Console Font for Lower Vision People

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

Le 7/01/20 à 16:55, Alexandre ARNAUD a écrit :
> Does the TerminusBold32x16.psf.gz should work too?

that's the same font, only the shipped glyphs differ, ter-v* having
the most. From the README:

2.4. Legend.

names   mappingscovered codepage(s)

ter-1*  iso01, iso15, cp1252ISO8859-1, ISO8859-15, Windows-1252
ter-2*  iso02, cp1250   ISO8859-2, Windows-1250
ter-7*  iso07, cp1253   ISO8859-7, Windows-1253
ter-9*  iso09, cp1254   ISO8859-9, Windows-1254
ter-c*  cp1251, iso05   Windows-1251, ISO8859-5
ter-d*  iso13, cp1257   ISO8859-13, Windows-1257
ter-g*  iso16   ISO8859-16
ter-i*  cp437   IBM-437
ter-k*  koi8r   KOI8-R
ter-m*  mik Bulgarian-MIK
ter-p*  pt154   Paratype-PT154
ter-u*  koi8u   KOI8-U

ter-v*  all mappings / code pages listed above and many others, about 110
language sets, 8 or 16 foreground colors depending on the kernel and
console driver

names   style

ter-*n  normal
ter-*b  bold
ter-*f  framebuffer-bold

PS and OT for Alex: David doesn't want to use fbterm on the console
because he prefers to keep speech, but IIRC you don't so you should
really try it if not already done.

For instance:
fbterm -s 4O
4O is the font size, you may make it as big as you want.

To get out of the frame buffer just press Ctrl+d

Happy New Year to all.

Best,

Didier

Re: Sv: Re: grub

[Didier Spaier]

Sorry for this dupicate post using another SMTP srver, my mistake.

Le 7/12/19 à 21:55, Didier Spaier a écrit :

Well,

I assume that Jude answered privately as I didn't see his message
in the list.

This being said:

@ Mattias: it doesn't hurt to be polite, let alone kind with people
trying to help you, even if you think that they misunderstood your
question. (written before Samuel just posted something similar)

@ Jude: this setting in grub.cfg:
GRUB_INIT_TUNE= 
just tells Grub to play this tune when it's ready to receive commands
from the user, not when a specific menu entry is focused.

Now to answer Mattias' question:

1. As far as I know it is not currently possible to set up grub to play
a tune when a menu entry is focused, only when you press Enter on a menu
entry, which is not what you want.

2. A way to overcome this limitation is to include each menu entry in
a sub-menu in grub.cfg. Then you can set a different tune for each sub-
menu (like one for Windows and one for Debian). So if you press Enter
the tune you will hear will tell you in which sub-menu you are. Then:
_if this is the one you want, just press Enter once more to actually
boot the first entry of the sub-menu.
_else press Esc to go back to the main menu.

I have done something similar in EFI3M:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/EFI3M
However it only works in EFI mode.

It should be doable to write a script that post-processes grub.cfg
every time it is rebuilt by grub-mkconfig or update-grub (which is
just a shortcut for "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" and possibly
back up the previous one), this is in my TODO list for Slint and I will
make it available for other distributions using GRUB

3. Meanwhile, you can use grub-emu to display the Grub boot menu in a
console or in an accessible graphical terminal:
_ install grub-emu is not yet done
_ type as root or using sudo: grub-emu
This will display the menu of grub as currently set up in an accessible
fashion. You can navigate as if you were in the "real" grub menu to
check the labels of the menu entries and their order, so you will know
how many "down arrow" key presses you will need to reach a specific boot
entry.

Best regards,

Didier


Le 07/12/2019 à 19:33, mattias jonsson a écrit :

Can you read?

Ok i should write if you was a idiot

1: i have both win10 and debian

2 when you start the computer and grub starts

You press down Arrow until windows 10 are on fokus

When windows 10 are on fokus grub beeps

Skickades från E-post <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> för 
Windows 10

*Från: *Jude DaShiell <mailto:jdash...@panix.com>
*Skickat: *den 7 december 2019 19:14
*Till: *mattias jonsson <mailto:mjonsson1...@gmail.com>
*Ämne: *Re: grub

The line that's commented out in probably /etc/default/grub with TUNE on

it needs uncommenting as root or sudo user.  Then also as root or sudo

user you need to update grub.  Something like grub-mkconfig -o

/boot/grub/grub.cfg should do that for you.

--

Re: Sv: Re: grub

[Didier Spaier]

Well,

I assume that Jude answered privately as I didn't see his message
in the list.

This being said:

@ Mattias: it doesn't hurt to be polite, let alone kind with people
trying to help you, even if you think that they misunderstood your
question. (written before Samuel just posted something similar)

@ Jude: this setting in grub.cfg:
GRUB_INIT_TUNE= 
just tells Grub to play this tune when it's ready to receive commands
from the user, not when a specific menu entry is focused.

Now to answer Mattias' question:

1. As far as I know it is not currently possible to set up grub to play
a tune when a menu entry is focused, only when you press Enter on a menu
entry, which is not what you want.

2. A way to overcome this limitation is to include each menu entry in
a sub-menu in grub.cfg. Then you can set a different tune for each sub-
menu (like one for Windows and one for Debian). So if you press Enter
the tune you will hear will tell you in which sub-menu you are. Then:
_if this is the one you want, just press Enter once more to actually
boot the first entry of the sub-menu.
_else press Esc to go back to the main menu.

I have done something similar in EFI3M:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/EFI3M
However it only works in EFI mode.

It should be doable to write a script that post-processes grub.cfg
every time it is rebuilt by grub-mkconfig or update-grub (which is
just a shortcut for "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" and possibly
back up the previous one), this is in my TODO list for Slint and I will
make it available for other distributions using GRUB

3. Meanwhile, you can use grub-emu to display the Grub boot menu in a
console or in an accessible graphical terminal:
_ install grub-emu is not yet done
_ type as root or using sudo: grub-emu
This will display the menu of grub as currently set up in an accessible
fashion. You can navigate as if you were in the "real" grub menu to
check the labels of the menu entries and their order, so you will know
how many "down arrow" key presses you will need to reach a specific boot
entry.

Best regards,

Didier


Le 07/12/2019 à 19:33, mattias jonsson a écrit :

Can you read?

Ok i should write if you was a idiot

1: i have both win10 and debian

2 when you start the computer and grub starts

You press down Arrow until windows 10 are on fokus

When windows 10 are on fokus grub beeps

Skickades från E-post  för 
Windows 10

*Från: *Jude DaShiell 
*Skickat: *den 7 december 2019 19:14
*Till: *mattias jonsson 
*Ämne: *Re: grub

The line that's commented out in probably /etc/default/grub with TUNE on

it needs uncommenting as root or sudo user.  Then also as root or sudo

user you need to update grub.  Something like grub-mkconfig -o

/boot/grub/grub.cfg should do that for you.

--

Re: Sv: Re: grub

[Didier Spaier]

I forgot to say: to get out of grub-emu you need to press c
to get an (emulated) GRUB prompt, the type: exit

 

3. Meanwhile, you can use grub-emu to display the Grub boot menu in a
console or in an accessible graphical terminal:
_ install grub-emu is not yet done
_ type as root or using sudo: grub-emu
This will display the menu of grub as currently set up in an accessible
fashion. You can navigate as if you were in the "real" grub menu to
check the labels of the menu entries and their order, so you will know
how many "down arrow" key presses you will need to reach a specific boot
entry.

Re: Sv: Re: grub

[Didier Spaier]

Well,

I assume that Jude answered privately as I didn't see his message
in the list.

This being said:

@ Mattias: it doesn't hurt to be polite, let alone kind with people
trying to help you, even if you think that they misunderstood your
question. (written before Samuel just posted something similar)

@ Jude: this setting in grub.cfg:
GRUB_INIT_TUNE= 
just tells Grub to play this tune when it's ready to receive commands
from the user, not when a specific menu entry is focused.

Now to answer Mattias' question:

1. As far as I know it is not currently possible to set up grub to play
a tune when a menu entry is focused, only when you press Enter on a menu
entry, which is not what you want.

2. A way to overcome this limitation is to include each menu entry in
a sub-menu in grub.cfg. Then you can set a different tune for each sub-
menu (like one for Windows and one for Debian). So if you press Enter
the tune you will hear will tell you in which sub-menu you are. Then:
_if this is the one you want, just press Enter once more to actually
boot the first entry of the sub-menu.
_else press Esc to go back to the main menu.

I have done something similar in EFI3M:
https://github.com/DidierSpaier/EFI3M
However it only works in EFI mode.

It should be doable to write a script that post-processes grub.cfg
every time it is rebuilt by grub-mkconfig or update-grub (which is
just a shortcut for "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg" and possibly
back up the previous one), this is in my TODO list for Slint and I will
make it available for other distributions using GRUB

3. Meanwhile, you can use grub-emu to display the Grub boot menu in a
console or in an accessible graphical terminal:
_ install grub-emu is not yet done
_ type as root or using sudo: grub-emu
This will display the menu of grub as currently set up in an accessible
fashion. You can navigate as if you were in the "real" grub menu to
check the labels of the menu entries and their order, so you will know
how many "down arrow" key presses you will need to reach a specific boot
entry.

Best regards,

Didier


Le 07/12/2019 à 19:33, mattias jonsson a écrit :

Can you read?

Ok i should write if you was a idiot

1: i have both win10 and debian

2 when you start the computer and grub starts

You press down Arrow until windows 10 are on fokus

When windows 10 are on fokus grub beeps

Skickades från E-post  för 
Windows 10

*Från: *Jude DaShiell 
*Skickat: *den 7 december 2019 19:14
*Till: *mattias jonsson 
*Ämne: *Re: grub

The line that's commented out in probably /etc/default/grub with TUNE on

it needs uncommenting as root or sudo user.  Then also as root or sudo

user you need to update grub.  Something like grub-mkconfig -o

/boot/grub/grub.cfg should do that for you.

--




Le 07/12/2019 à 19:33, mattias jonsson a écrit :

Can you read?

Ok i should write if you was a idiot

1: i have both win10 and debian

2 when you start the computer and grub starts

You press down Arrow until windows 10 are on fokus

When windows 10 are on fokus grub beeps

Skickades från E-post  för 
Windows 10

*Från: *Jude DaShiell 
*Skickat: *den 7 december 2019 19:14
*Till: *mattias jonsson 
*Ämne: *Re: grub

The line that's commented out in probably /etc/default/grub with TUNE on

it needs uncommenting as root or sudo user.  Then also as root or sudo

user you need to update grub.  Something like grub-mkconfig -o

/boot/grub/grub.cfg should do that for you.

--

Re: Future of Accessibility in Debian

[Didier Spaier]

Hi,

+1 to what Alex said, and QT accessibilty is progressing too.

And indeed console applications will continue to work.

As the saying goes: "Don't destroy your now worrying about tomorrow"

Best,

Didier

Le 08/11/2019 à 09:29, Alex ARNAUD a écrit :

Hello Thomas,

To be fully clear: There is no risk to see something changes on your experience 
until approximately 4 years. The issue we've found are in GTK4 and we'll work 
with GTK4 developers to ensure the Linux accessibility will continue to be as 
good as today.

Best regards,
Alex.

Le 08/11/2019 à 01:21, thom...@fastmail.cn a écrit :

Hi,
I have followed the discussion on the orca list lately and the conflicts around 
GTK 4 accessibility. I guess without getting into the drama of it all, I would 
just like to ask those who are knowledgeable if they think we will have Linux 
accessibility going into the future. I guess the issue seems to be that patches 
are being created for what upstream thinks is a broken system in some ways and 
it sounds like things like keyboard snooping could cause problems in the 
future. I honestly don't know enough to understand whether its broken from a 
design standpoint, however, it at least lets me use the computer.
I am not a skilled enough developer to understand all this yet but I rely on 
accessibility software for my job. I guess I would just like as honest as an 
answer as possible. If people think accessibility is going to be removed or key 
parts of the needed infrastructure, I see no other option than to buy a Mac now 
so that I can continue to operate the computer in the future. I did notice some 
comments that proposed removing ATK entirely which obviously would leave me 
dead in the water.. Ultimately, if the end is approaching, I would like to 
purchase a Mac  as soon as possible since I will have to relearn the computer 
and a new screen reader (VoiceOver and would like as smooth a transition as 
possible.
I love using free software and hope to continue doing so, however, I ultimately 
have to do what is necessary to keep my job so I can support myself.
Thanks for any information and i hope those here can understand my concerns and 
honestly just not knowing what to do based on not having the technical 
knowledge to understand entirely what is happening in the different upstream 
packages.

Re: Fwd: installing speakup (etc) in a VirtualBox VM

[Didier Spaier]

Erratum: I should have written python3-brlapyi and/or libbrlapi
instead of (or in addition to?) xbrlapi. But, you get the idea.

On 26/10/2019 21:42, Didier Spaier wrote:

Hello,

On 26/10/2019 16:30, Rich Morin wrote:


I'd like to follow up with a request for help in documenting the kinds of
major dependencies that exist among the a11y-related packages (eg, brltty,
emacspeak, espeak-ng, espeak-ng-data, espeakup, fenrir, mbrola-*, orca,
speech-dispatcher).

I'd love to have this information collected in one place and suspect that
others might also find it useful.  I'd be happy to write this up nicely,
if someone can give (or point me to) the raw data.


The dependencies are distribution-specific because distributions do not
package software the same way. As an example, in Ubuntu Orca optionally
depends on a package named xbrlapi, which gathers the brltty API files,
but this package does not exist in Slint because we ship all brltty
files in a single brltty package. As it seems that you intend to base
your work on Ubuntu, to get started you could look at the dependencies
documented in the Ubuntu package browser.

For instance for Orca (in the disco version), see:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/disco/orca

Indeed if you prefer Debian you'd look for buster at:

https://packages.debian.org/buster/orca

In this case the lists are similar if not identical, because most if not
all Ubuntu a11y packages actually come from Debian.

Best,

Didier

Re: Fwd: installing speakup (etc) in a VirtualBox VM

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

On 26/10/2019 16:30, Rich Morin wrote:


I'd like to follow up with a request for help in documenting the kinds of
major dependencies that exist among the a11y-related packages (eg, brltty,
emacspeak, espeak-ng, espeak-ng-data, espeakup, fenrir, mbrola-*, orca,
speech-dispatcher).

I'd love to have this information collected in one place and suspect that
others might also find it useful.  I'd be happy to write this up nicely,
if someone can give (or point me to) the raw data.


The dependencies are distribution-specific because distributions do not
package software the same way. As an example, in Ubuntu Orca optionally
depends on a package named xbrlapi, which gathers the brltty API files,
but this package does not exist in Slint because we ship all brltty
files in a single brltty package. As it seems that you intend to base
your work on Ubuntu, to get started you could look at the dependencies
documented in the Ubuntu package browser.

For instance for Orca (in the disco version), see:
https://packages.ubuntu.com/disco/orca

Indeed if you prefer Debian you'd look for buster at:

https://packages.debian.org/buster/orca

In this case the lists are similar if not identical, because most if not
all Ubuntu a11y packages actually come from Debian.

Best,

Didier

Re: Handling Slow Serial Input

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

the documentation of the parameters in /sys/accesibilty/speakup
is being currently enhanced, cf.:
http://linux-speakup.org/pipermail/speakup/2019-September/062058.html

say_word_ctl is not yet documented in the proposed patch but there
is this comment in the main.c source file of speakup:

/* get_word - will first check to see if the character under the
 * reading cursor is a space and if spk_say_word_ctl is true it will
 * return the word space.  If spk_say_word_ctl is not set it will check to
 * see if there is a word starting on the next position to the right
 * and return that word if it exists.  If it does not exist it will
 * move left to the beginning of any previous word on the line or the
 * beginning off the line whichever comes first..
 */

Anyway, your question would be read by more informed people in the
speakup mailing list:

http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Best regards,

Didier

On 09/10/2019 21:28, Martin McCormick wrote:

I remember about 9 or 10 years ago that there was a
parameter in speakup that one could adjust to set a timer which
times out after a certain period between characters and treats
what one has gotten so far as a word.

I am receiving serial data from a RS-232 device at 38400
baud which generally works but speakup still has a bit of trouble
which produces tortured speach as it tries to speak words that
are coming in just slowly enough that you hear really odd acents
and words are split partway through at the wrong points so they
break strangely.

If one sets this timer for enough milliseconds, you hear
more normal speech but speakup gets a bit sluggish at this point
so one should set it back to what it normally is for normal
operation.

I found something that looks promising in
/sys/accessibility/speakup.  I forgot exactly what you do to
adjust the timer without, of course, fouling up speakup so I
thought I would ask before I do something I later regret.

$ ls -s /sys/accessibility/speakup
total 0
0 attrib_bleep  0 delimiters  0 no_interrupt  0 reading_punc  0 soft
0 bell_pos  0 ex_num  0 punc_all  0 repeats   0 spell_delay
0 bleeps0 i18n0 punc_level0 say_control   0 synth
0 bleep_time0 key_echo0 punc_most 0 say_word_ctl  0 synth_direct
0 cursor_time   0 keymap  0 punc_some 0 silent0 version

It looks like say_word may be what I am looking for.


Thanks for any good ideas.

Martin McCormick

Re: I have emailed twice

[Didier Spaier]

This is probably a spam or scam. My advice: don't answer it.

On 16/09/2019 13:48, Scott Miller wrote:

Hello debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org

I have tried to email this your debian-accessibility@lists.debian.org mail 
account twice but I got no response, please if you have seen this message I 
need you to revert back to me, I have an important matter to discuss.

Regards,

Scott Miller

Re: speakup-ng clipboard functions broken

[Didier Spaier]

Hello Jude,

1. The behavior of speakup wrt copy and paste depends on the kernel in
use, as speakup is a kernel driver.
2. The kernel shipped in Slint is 4.19.67 since 27 August 2019 and is
not patched. Did you upgrade it recently running upgrade-kernel?
3. In Debian 10.1 (at least from the installer), uname -a reports:
Linux 4.19.0-6-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.67
I don't know if this kernel is patched wrt speakup. A Debian insider
could tell, and also that 4.19.0 differs or not from 4.19.67 on that
respect.
4. Please provide more information on what you did exactly and what
were the intended and actual outcome so I can try myself.

Best,

Didier


On 09/09/2019 01:19, Jude DaShiell wrote:

I use the clipboard in speakup to copy several things normally or did
until earlier today.
When copying an url I checked the contents of the clipboard since when I
tried to paste things didn't work any longer.  All that was in the
clipboard was a series of slash characters with no intervening characters
of any kind.  I suppose that's useful for ascii art but it doesn't work
here.  I switched over to fenrirscreenreader and hope if it has a set of
cut and paste functions for a clipboard these work better than is the case
these days in speakup.  I did the switch on slint and am wondering if
debian's version of speakup also has this flaw in it.

Re: debian 10.1

[Didier Spaier]

On 07/09/2019 21:45, Samuel Thibault wrote:

It can't be sure, that's the problem, because hardware detection
nowadays is completely asynchronous, there is no such thing as "I have
finished detecting hardware", a USB device might show up really late for
instance.


Then why not just display in all cases:

Please wait while we probe your sound card(s)...

Re: debian 10.1

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

answering inline.

On 07/09/2019 19:31, Samuel Thibault wrote:


Errr, re-reading again your mail, is there actually an issue in one of
these cases?

There is an issue if the observed behavior differ from the intended one.
As I am not sure of the intended behavior I wrote:
"this behavior looks slightly weird" (to me, maybe not to others).


Didier Spaier, le ven. 06 sept. 2019 15:58:53 +0200, a ecrit:

tested on both a qemu VM with 1, 2 and 3 soundcards on on bare metal
with a HDA Intel sound card.

It all cases it looks like the installer first skips the first soundcard
probed, whichever it be, displaying:
Waiting for 1 more seconds for any other cards...


What makes you think that it "skips the first soundcard"?


See attached pic. In this case the virtual sound cards were chosen with
this option:
-soundhw es1370,ac97
So having an Intel HDA among the cards or not doesn't change the
behavior.

It first displays:
Waiting for 1 more seconds for any other card...

Having not looked at the script this time, I don't know if it:
1. loops to check that there is only one sound cards before
   using it
2. skip the first one found not intentionally at the beginning
   of the loop.

Anyway, the aforementioned message looks confusing, even if
not spoken.


but then it always find a sound card to use:
_ without asking if there is only one,


Do you mean "without asking whether there is only one" (i.e. it should
have asked), or "without asking when there is only one" (which is
expected)?


"without asking when there is only one" (which is expected).


So, although this behavior looks slightly weird,


Which behavior exactly?


Displaying a line that could make the user think that something
unexpected happened (and anyway the script should know already that
there is only one card if I understand well).

Cheers, Didier

Re: debian 10.1

[Didier Spaier]

On 06/09/2019 16:11, Samuel Thibault wrote:

Didier Spaier, le ven. 06 sept. 2019 15:58:53 +0200, a ecrit:

tested on both a qemu VM with 1, 2 and 3 soundcards


Are these soundcards all the same kind, or different kinds?


Different kinds (see attached pic)


on on bare metal with a HDA Intel sound card.


Was there only one sound cards


Yes:
root[/home/didier]# lspci -knn|grep -iA3 audio
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset 
Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1c20] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Lenovo 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition 
Audio Controller [17aa:21cf]
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset 
Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1c10] (rev b4)
root[/home/didier]#


Are the different sound cards detected by the Linux kernel itself? (see
/proc/asound/cards)


Yes. But I can't tell if they are before probing the cards begins.

Didier

Re: debian 10.1

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

On 06/09/2019 04:13, Samuel Thibault wrote:

 It's now uploaded.  I have made a mini-iso on

http://dept-info.labri.fr/~thibault/tmp/mini.iso

it seems to have the sound issue with intel HDA boards fixed. I.e. it
will be fixed in buster 10.1.

Note that booting such mini-iso can take some time if your USB stick is
slow, because it reads several dozens of MiB from it.

tested on both a qemu VM with 1, 2 and 3 soundcards on on bare metal
with a HDA Intel sound card.

It all cases it looks like the installer first skips the first soundcard
probed, whichever it be, displaying:
Waiting for 1 more seconds for any other cards...

but then it always find a sound card to use:
_ without asking if there is only one,
_ else waiting until the user presses Enter and works normally.

So, although this behavior looks slightly weird, it does allow to use
the installer with speech in all tested cases.

On another topic, I made a request for testing both Orca (in its state
sooner today) and the at-2.33 stack (latest versions), cf.:
http://slint.fr/pipermail/slint_slint.fr/2019-September/000915.html

Have a good day,

Didier

Fwd: Re: webmail and email from command line

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

I am re-posting what follows that didn't reach
the list for some reason since one hour.

I apologize in advance if this results in a
duplicate message.

Didier
  
 Sent again Message 


Hello David,

indeed the one to use is (maintained by Storm Dragon):
https://gitlab.com/stormdragon2976/fleacollar

It DOES work with Slint.

The only feature that failed in Slint was that creation of a GPG key, and Storm
has fixed it one month ago cf. this commit:
https://gitlab.com/stormdragon2976/fleacollar/commit/4500d198d13a77b00349be5b0b45f5496a3a8973

Further, the OP runs Debian not Slint 

Best,

Didier

On 30/08/2019 19:29, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:

Unfortunately there are two fleacoller scripts.

They should consolidate them, but they aren't going to do that.

This is one,
https://88.198.55.25/AIT/fleacollar/raw/5941be5d1f1a85e5498f0647b659056ff7fa125f/fleacollar.sh

But the other one which is difficult to find is more recent.

Here it is:

The latest version is at:
_https://gitlab.com/stormdragon2976/fleacollar/raw/master/fleacollar.sh_
_
_
Unfortunately, it does NOT work with Slint,

Best wishes,


David



On Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:11 mailto:dhof...@att.net>> wrote:

You suggested 'fleacollar.sh' so I downloaded it and used chmod to make
it executable. Fleacollar.sh is not like any script I have ever seen and
just making it executable does not make it redallly usable. Has any one
use it and what changes were made to it to make it usable in a Debian
console installation of Mutt.
-- 
  mailto:dhof...@att.net>>

Re: webmail and email from command line

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

You just need to run it.

Assuming it is in your $PATH just type in a console as regular user:
fleacollar.sh
then press Enter.

But maybe I misunderstood your question?

Best regards

Didier

On 30/08/2019 18:10, dhof...@att.net wrote:

You suggested 'fleacollar.sh' so I downloaded it and used chmod to make
it executable. Fleacollar.sh is not like any script I have ever seen and
just making it executable does not make it redallly usable. Has any one
use it and what changes were made to it to make it usable in a Debian
console installation of Mutt.

Re: Buster and Orca

[Didier Spaier]

Hello

On 26/08/2019 22:12, Samuel Thibault wrote:

Sebseb01, le lun. 26 août 2019 15:49:22 +0200, a ecrit:

If i launch pulseaudio in terminal it say it already launched.


Was it running under your user identity, or something else?


Ans after this if i'm logout and login again, sound working well. You can found
below a extract of  syslog from the boot when i do the command and logout/login


It looks as if some pulseaudio process remains from the lightdm session
when your session tries to start it.
And conversely that some pulseaudio process remains from your session
when lightdm tries to start it.

I don't know how these are supposed to work and why it fails on
your system. I'd recommend contacting the pulseaudio maintainers,
pkg-pulseaudio-de...@lists.alioth.debian.org


I had a seemingly similar issue in Slint. To solve it I added this line in
/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:

session-setup-script=pkill -u lightdm at-spi

However I don't start pulseaudio at the session level, only on demand,
so maybe it's a different issue.

HTH anyway,

Didier
 

Re: sound card ordering

[Didier Spaier]

Helo,

On 23/08/2019 17:35, Keith Barrett wrote:



On 23/08/2019 00:08, Didier Spaier wrote:

Hello,

Just to be sure, please attach /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf to your next post


OK, here it is:

options  index=0
options  index=1


It should be:

options snd_hda_intel index=0
options snd_oxygen index=1

Best regards,

Didier


And type as root:
chmod 644 /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf
although it has probably these permissions already.tried that but no change.


One more thought, can there be more than one .conf file in /etc/modprobe.d as I 
have one called local.conf as well which loads the speakup_soft module?








Best,

Didier

On 22/08/2019 23:05, Keith Barrett wrote:



On 21/08/2019 19:10, Didier Spaier wrote:

Hello,

replying in line (this also answers your more recent private email):

On 20/08/2019 23:23, Keith Barrett wrote:

So I have now specified MID in /etc/default/espeakup and that does cause 
espeakup to start with speech each time the system boots.
However, the card ordering is still very random which means that although 
espeakup is always working, if the cards load so that MID is not 0, I get no 
other system sounds and orca does not work in the gui.

So, I suppose what I should be trying to achieve is to cause the sound cards to 
retain their correct numbering so that all sound works following a reboot.


To do this, type:
cat /proc/asound/modules

0 snd_oxygen
1 snd_hda_intel



You will probably get two lines in the output (one for each card), with
the card number on the left an the associated kernel module name on the
right of each line.

Just create a file as root a file /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf with
two lines:



options  index=0
options  index=1

replacing  by the name of the module for the card you
want to be loaded first and  by the other card's
module name, both spelled exactly as in the output of:
cat /proc/asound/modules.

This way, the cards' order will stay the same across reboots.

Unfortunately, this has not worked, I have created 
/etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf but there has been no change.

The only thing I can think of it whether I may need to change the permissions 
of soundcards.conf?
Thank you for your help, it is appreciated.



Best,

Didier

PS the name of the file in /etc/modprobe.d doesn't matter, but it
has to end in .conf

Re: sound card ordering

[Didier Spaier]

Hello,

Just to be sure, please attach /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf to your next post

And type as root:
chmod 644 /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf
although it has probably these permissions already.

Best,

Didier

On 22/08/2019 23:05, Keith Barrett wrote:



On 21/08/2019 19:10, Didier Spaier wrote:

Hello,

replying in line (this also answers your more recent private email):

On 20/08/2019 23:23, Keith Barrett wrote:

So I have now specified MID in /etc/default/espeakup and that does cause 
espeakup to start with speech each time the system boots.
However, the card ordering is still very random which means that although 
espeakup is always working, if the cards load so that MID is not 0, I get no 
other system sounds and orca does not work in the gui.

So, I suppose what I should be trying to achieve is to cause the sound cards to 
retain their correct numbering so that all sound works following a reboot.


To do this, type:
cat /proc/asound/modules

0 snd_oxygen
1 snd_hda_intel



You will probably get two lines in the output (one for each card), with
the card number on the left an the associated kernel module name on the
right of each line.

Just create a file as root a file /etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf with
two lines:



options  index=0
options  index=1

replacing  by the name of the module for the card you
want to be loaded first and  by the other card's
module name, both spelled exactly as in the output of:
cat /proc/asound/modules.

This way, the cards' order will stay the same across reboots.

Unfortunately, this has not worked, I have created 
/etc/modprobe.d/soundcards.conf but there has been no change.

The only thing I can think of it whether I may need to change the permissions 
of soundcards.conf?
Thank you for your help, it is appreciated.



Best,

Didier

PS the name of the file in /etc/modprobe.d doesn't matter, but it
has to end in .conf