October 2011 - Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

Telephony systems
by Andrew Hodgson 14 Nov '12

14 Nov '12

Hi all, Our current Call Manager 4.x servers are creaking under their age, and we are looking at replacing this either with a new Cisco telephony system or a completely new system altogether. The system has to use IP as the connection to the handsets, as we don't want to add in more cables. Has anyone any experience in deploying a new Call manager setup, or a similar telephony system, and how was the accessibility? Thanks. Andrew.

9 30

let's talk Backup Exec
by Ryan Shugart 21 Dec '11

21 Dec '11

Hey everyone: I just got a promotion at work, and with the goodness of a promotion comes more responsibilities. I'm now in charge of our backup infrastructure. We run Backup Exec 12.5, and have 16 or so media servers in various branch offices around the world. While Backup Exec used to be very accessible, over the last two versions accessibility seems to have gone into something of a decline, I already use scripts just to read the main table of jobs, and might need more just to get around the scheduling window so I can actually schedule a job. I'd consider the rest of the program accessible but clunky, tabbing doesn't always bring you where you think it will, on some screens tab order seems to be dynamic. Backup Exec also has an odd way of bringing up alert windows and grabbing your focus, even when you tell it specifically not to. While clunkyness is OK on one server, when you have fifteen individual servers to manage and no way to do it in a centralized fashion clunkyness is less acceptable. This is also less than a quarter of my new responsibilities as well. The current admin has the remote desktop console setup with all the Backup Exec servers in his favorites, stays logged into each server with a Backup Exec window open, and flicks from screen to screen and can easily glance at the output from each job. For us screen reader users, that doesn't work well. I've already got e-mail alerts set up and am using some Outlook rules to sort failure jobs out from successes, but was wondering if there's anything else I can be doing? I'd think people in really large environments with hundreds of media servers aren't logging into each server on a daily basis, so there has to be better ways to handle this. Any ideas? Thanks. Ryan

6 14

How to perform fully unattended Windows 7 installation
by Mgr. Janusz Chmiel 09 Nov '11

09 Nov '11

Good morning, I would like to inform You about excellent program, which is able to modifi Windows7 CD so it can be used for performing fully unattended installation. The name of The program for creating fully unattended bootable Windows 7 iso images is RT 7 Lite This program can be really used for creating fully unattended Windows 7 installations. Drivers can be integrated while using this program. I AM recommending all visually impaired users to use latest awailable Supernova screen reader for using this program. Because Supernova is able to automatically report The name of editable fields while using RT 7 Lit. The program is even offering The feature to copy customized Windows7 installation to USB flashdisk and program is making this flashdisk bootable, It can even format this flash drive. The created flash disk can be used even for performing fully unattended installations if user is running Windows XP and user is running The installer inside this operating system with his favourite screen reader. Bootable flashdisk and bootable DVD can be ofcourse used also for performing unattended installation if harddrive is empty and user is booting from The bootable DVD or USB flashdisk. The disadvantage of this procedure is, that some older computers are requiring user to load some harddrive drivers, so for example, i have been able to perform unattended installation of Windows 7 Ultimate edition only, if i have been executed The installer from running Windows XP. After reboot, installer worked fully automatically. The issue is, that eventhough Windows7 is containing many sound drivers, in some cases, one integrated sound chip can be recognized by using two drivers and The sound chip is not working properly, so NVDA or other screen readers can not be used. I have been using IBM Thinkpat model 2668 for this test. Te name of integrated sound cart is Soundmax integrated digital audio. I had to please my sighted mother to choose The right sound cart, drivers are included for this sound chip in The WIndows7, but user must choose The right detected cart. If somebody of us would like to perform fully unattended installation of Windows 2000, 2003, XP, I AM strongly recommending YOu to use The excellent program Windows Unattended CD creator. Do not be afraid, eventhough it is signed as A BETA application, is working excellently. Please also do not forget, that installer of WIndows XP is automatically browsing The floppy drives for finding The diskette with file winnt.sif extension. If installer will find The required file, installer can work in The fully unattended mode by using original not customized WIndows XP installation CD. Ofcourse, winnt.sif must contain required lines of text to instruct The installer how to work in fully unattended mode. The only issue is, that user can not automatically install required drivers, because installer anticipants, that The driver folder $OEM$ will be located on The installation media. So installing drivers can be performed only, if user will use customized WIndows XP media. There is also Nlite application, which is integrating The drivers to The .cab files. -- Mgr. Janusz Chmiel

2 2

Windows 8 developer release and unattended file
by Mgr. Janusz Chmiel 29 Oct '11

29 Oct '11

Dear advanced users, I would like to valuably and kindly ask You for advice. Does somebody of You know, if Windows8 developer release is supporting unattended mode like a Windows7? I Am very sad, because i have found out, that development release of Windows8 is not supporting fully unattended mode of Vmware player while choosing Windows7 operating system. BUt it is very probably true, that unattended mode will very probably be incorporated to The stable release of Windows8. I would also like to know, if newest vmwareplayer is supporting The Windows8 in fully unattended installation mode. Thank You very much. -- Mgr. Janusz Chmiel

3 6

FTP site with all PCLINUX distribution releases including Zen mini releases and full Gnome releases
by Mgr. Janusz Chmiel 29 Oct '11

29 Oct '11

Dear advanced users and developers, I have found out ammazing FTP server, which is containing all PC Linux releases, including live KDE, live Gnome, live Zen mini Gnome. I would like to inform YOu, that Pclinux is The best Linux distribution, which is supporting remastering of installed release, one of The Zen mini release is even supporting reliable system administration tasks support while running it, even if user is not running xserver as root user. This algorithms are for now only The part of Mandriva One, Ubuntu and also onlyone created PclinuxOS zen mini Gnome release. I will let You know which one is including this good accessibility support. Finish-install Perl script can be safely terminated after finishing installation, this Perl script can be finished safely from The running Gnome session. The best awailable PCLinux release have been The Zen mini Gnome 2009.1, ALSA sound server have been used, and eventhough professional accessibility settings were not enabled like in later releases, user was able to use Adobe flash player with Alsa support. If somebody would be able to incorporate newest Pclinux OS kernel to this old release, I AM convinced, that this distro would be excellent. The 2009.1 also included unique remastering script, which allowed users to specifi The target partition for creating remaster, so this distro could be remasterd even while using it in live CD mode from running live session, even with The computer with only 512 MB of RAM. I was even been able to use USB flash disk like a target partition by using remastering script. I do not know about other distribution, which can do this and is fully accessible for visually impaired users. I have A special suggestion for advanced Linux kernel developer. Who of us would try to incorporate Speakup to one of The Pclinuxos kernel? -- Mgr. Janusz Chmiel

1 1

working win7 unattend file
by David Mehler 29 Oct '11

29 Oct '11

Hello, Does anyone have a fully unattended working win7 unattended file called autounattend.xml? I'm trying to setup an unattended install of 7 in a vm environment and have it done, but I would like to confirm that my answer file is correct. Thanks. Dave.

2 2

working win7 unattend file
by David Mehler 28 Oct '11

28 Oct '11

Hello, Does anyone have a fully unattended working win7 unattended file called autounattend.xml? I'm trying to setup an unattended install of 7 in a vm environment and have it done, but I would like to confirm that my answer file is correct. Thanks. Dave.

1 0

remote access to a linux box
by David Mehler 17 Oct '11

17 Oct '11

Hello, I know about ssh, in fact that's how I usually access a linux machine remotely. That's cli based, I'm wondering if it's possible to do it via the GUI? Is something like vnc workable? I know it isn't on a windows machine, or some other method of access? In this case I'm using a Vinux VM with Orca. Thanks. Dave.

2 3

remote access to a linux box
by David Mehler 16 Oct '11

16 Oct '11

Hello, I know about ssh, in fact that's how I usually access a linux machine remotely. That's cli based, I'm wondering if it's possible to do it via the GUI? Is something like vnc workable? I know it isn't on a windows machine, or some other method of access? In this case I'm using a Vinux VM with Orca. Thanks. Dave.

1 0

Unassisted linux install?
by Scott Granados 11 Oct '11

11 Oct '11

Hi, So I have a Dell 1950 server. Are there any methods for unattended or unassisted install for blind users of Linux, specifically CentOS? What’s the latest? Can I use a serial cable with the Dell and do a console install? I don’t have a kickstart server in place else this would be simple. Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks Scott

3 4