[Grml] Accessibility works fine for me

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
Just a quick note that for what I could test of the medium64 daily build accessibility seemed to work.

Here is what I tested:
* Let the ISO boot normally on a MacBookPro.
* I got nothing to indicate that the CD had finished booting (don't know if that is what should happen currently). I just listened for when the CD activity seemed to stop.
* I then tried to start brltty with no options and it started fine detecting my Braille display.
* Then I checked sound levels. Everything except master seemed to be muted. As there was one channel labelled front speakers I decided to raise this volume first. Not sure if that is needed but if it is for sound output then may be that needs to be changed so that I will not need to raise that level.
* I loaded the speakup_soft module which worked fine.
* Started espeakup which also started fine.

Things I could not test:
* I could not test hardware speech output as my apollo synthesiser requires a serial port and the MacBookPro has no serial port. The MacBookPro is the only 64-bit computer I have.

The main issues which come out of this is, some way of knowing the CD is booted (may be a sequence of beeps) and possibly the sound not being properly unmuted (which possibly is a hardware specific issue and may be harder to fix for "everyone").

Michael Whapples

[Michael Whapples]

Well if you want nerdy, how about GRML done out in morse code?

As for the unmuting of the sound card, I used alsamixer with brltty, possibly not the most efficient combination but it worked for me.

Michael Whapples

My problems with my hardware synth are absolutely not grml problems. I've found the same problem occurs with the speakup module in the stock debian kernel in the testing release. There is something wrong with the kernel module for the doubletalk synt starting around kernel 2.6.38. It works in kkernel version 2.6.32 and it works in newer kernels on 32 bit machines. Its only newer 64 bit kernels where the problem occurs.
I have not been able to get software speech to work but that's probably because I don't know how to unmute a sound card in character mode. There ought to be a linux package to set a rational configuration for sound cards. There used to be a program called alsaconf but it was dropped from the alsa packages a few years ago. I can't imagine why. It seemed to work like a charm.
Anyway, personally, I am satisfied with hardware synth support and braille support. If you say software speech works, so much the better.
Although, I think it would be both useful and cool for grml to pplay a little tune through the beep command when its done booting. Like ubuntu has its distinctive drum beat when the GUI is done loading. It would become the grml theme mmusic. I would make it my ring tone. I think it would be ccool to be on the bus and have my phone ring and have some other nerd recognize it as the grml boot tune.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples at aim.com>
To: <grml at mur.at>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 11:20 AM
Subject: [Grml] Accessibility works fine for me

Post by Michael Whapples
Hello,
Just a quick note that for what I could test of the medium64 daily build accessibility seemed to work.
* Let the ISO boot normally on a MacBookPro.
* I got nothing to indicate that the CD had finished booting (don't know if that is what should happen currently). I just listened for when the CD activity seemed to stop.
* I then tried to start brltty with no options and it started fine detecting my Braille display.
* Then I checked sound levels. Everything except master seemed to be muted. As there was one channel labelled front speakers I decided to raise this volume first. Not sure if that is needed but if it is for sound output then may be that needs to be changed so that I will not need to raise that level.
* I loaded the speakup_soft module which worked fine.
* Started espeakup which also started fine.
* I could not test hardware speech output as my apollo synthesiser requires a serial port and the MacBookPro has no serial port. The MacBookPro is the only 64-bit computer I have.
The main issues which come out of this is, some way of knowing the CD is booted (may be a sequence of beeps) and possibly the sound not being properly unmuted (which possibly is a hardware specific issue and may be harder to fix for "everyone").
Michael Whapples
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http://ml.grml.org/mailman/listinfo/grml
join #grml on irc.freenode.org
grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/

[John G. Heim]

My problems with my hardware synth are absolutely not grml problems. I've
found the same problem occurs with the speakup module in the stock debian
kernel in the testing release. There is something wrong with the kernel
module for the doubletalk synt starting around kernel 2.6.38. It works in
kkernel version 2.6.32 and it works in newer kernels on 32 bit machines. Its
only newer 64 bit kernels where the problem occurs.

I have not been able to get software speech to work but that's probably
because I don't know how to unmute a sound card in character mode. There
ought to be a linux package to set a rational configuration for sound cards.
There used to be a program called alsaconf but it was dropped from the alsa
packages a few years ago. I can't imagine why. It seemed to work like a
charm.

Anyway, personally, I am satisfied with hardware synth support and braille
support. If you say software speech works, so much the better.

Although, I think it would be both useful and cool for grml to pplay a
little tune through the beep command when its done booting. Like ubuntu has
its distinctive drum beat when the GUI is done loading. It would become the
grml theme mmusic. I would make it my ring tone. I think it would be ccool
to be on the bus and have my phone ring and have some other nerd recognize
it as the grml boot tune.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples at aim.com>
To: <grml at mur.at>
Sent: Sunday, November 06, 2011 11:20 AM
Subject: [Grml] Accessibility works fine for me

Post by Michael Whapples
Hello,
Just a quick note that for what I could test of the medium64 daily build
accessibility seemed to work.
* Let the ISO boot normally on a MacBookPro.
* I got nothing to indicate that the CD had finished booting (don't know
if that is what should happen currently). I just listened for when the CD
activity seemed to stop.
* I then tried to start brltty with no options and it started fine
detecting my Braille display.
* Then I checked sound levels. Everything except master seemed to be
muted. As there was one channel labelled front speakers I decided to raise
this volume first. Not sure if that is needed but if it is for sound
output then may be that needs to be changed so that I will not need to
raise that level.
* I loaded the speakup_soft module which worked fine.
* Started espeakup which also started fine.
* I could not test hardware speech output as my apollo synthesiser
requires a serial port and the MacBookPro has no serial port. The
MacBookPro is the only 64-bit computer I have.
The main issues which come out of this is, some way of knowing the CD is
booted (may be a sequence of beeps) and possibly the sound not being
properly unmuted (which possibly is a hardware specific issue and may be
harder to fix for "everyone").
Michael Whapples
_______________________________________________
Grml mailing list - Grml at ml.grml.org
http://ml.grml.org/mailman/listinfo/grml
join #grml on irc.freenode.org
grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/