- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

GRML for Speakup
by John G. Heim 13 Jun '25

13 Jun '25

With the help of someone on the GRML list, I created a script that can modify a standard GRML image for a particular hardware synth. If you use this script, you can create a GRML image that comes up talking via your hardware synth. It can also create an image that speaks via software speech without having to type in the commands after it boots. GRML is a Debian fork designed for use by people who like the command line. It is useful as a rescue system. You can activate speakup after it bootsbut with my script, you don't have to type anything. I pre-built images for the LiteTalk and for software speech. These images and the script can be found here: https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/

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Debian 12, perl5, multiple files, language and mangled, regular expressions
by David Mehler 12 Jun '25

12 Jun '25

Hello, I've got a problem. Iwas trying to use perl to get a pattern out of a bunch of files. The pattern was .ecc wanted to replace it with nothing just remove it no extra space no nothing. My perl command was: perl -i -p -e "s/.ecc/''/g;" filelist Normally I use '' for my perl patterns but didn't think that would work due to the need for the period. I tried this on a copy of one of the files and it seemed to work. Trying it for real now has blown things up, the pattern is gone but I think perl added '' and/or hidden characters in the files that I am not seeing. I got a message from perl "setting locale failed. Please check that your locale settings LANGUAGE=(unset) LC_ALL=(unset) LANG = "en_us" are installed on your system" that's the gist. When I did this I was one user and used sudo to go another in this case sudo -i. How do I fix this? Thanks. Dave. -- Sent with Thunderbird

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A Saturday Night in June Story
by John G. Heim 09 Jun '25

09 Jun '25

It's a beautiful Saturday evening in June -- time for a story. Today i was messing around with computers and I remembered something that happened years ago. I was working for the Math Dept at the University Of Wisconsin and I had to type in a command that, if I typed it in wrong, could really do a lot of damage. If I did it wrong, I would have to reinstall stuff, restore from backups, etc. It might take days. So I checked and double checked what I had typed. Then I stopped and checked it again, just in case. Finally, I hit the enter key and ... my machine went down. I could hear the hard drive and the fan spin to a stop. Worse, all the machines in the room were going down. And then I realized that even the lights had gone off! It was only a split second before it hit me -- this was just a coincidence. The building had suffered a power outage and it had nothing to do with what I had typed. But for that split second, I came pretty close to filling my pants.

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windows server 2022 uninstall roles
by mattias jonsson 06 Jun '25

06 Jun '25

with rdp i run nvda on the server no issues with install roles and features but take for example uninstall remote access the space key only expand the list over remote access components how in the world i uninstall it? i found the uninstall-remoteaccess power shell command but it dont uninstall everyting

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Re: Question re repairing and reinstalling
by John G. Heim 04 Jun '25

04 Jun '25

You need to do the usual things you do when you don't have a network connection. Start out with lspci to identify your network card. Find out which driver use that network card. Run an lsmod to see if the driver is loaded. If it is not loaded, load it and see what happens. If it is loaded, find out what device it creates. If the module is loaded and the device is created, try bringing it up. If it's already up, try pinging it's IP address. If you can ping it, try pinging something outside like www.google.com. Else you can work backwards and try pinging www.google.com first and work backwards from there. In other words, the first thing you need to do is to identify at which point the network configuration is failing.Once you figure that out, you can ask here or google it or whatever. On 5/31/25 8:31 AM, Steve Matzura wrote: > Still no ssh because still no network. dhclient won't find it and > netcardconfig doesn't do anything. Should I write to the grml support > list to find out what I can do to diagnose or fix this, do you think? > > > On 5/29/2025 10:56 PM, John G. Heim wrote: >> Sounds as if everything is working as expected. If you are right >> about your machine not having a PC speaker, it can't beep at the boot >> prompt. But it sounds as if you are doing everything else right. And >> ssh should be working. >> >> I have never seen GRML fail to bring up a network connection. But I >> suppose it could happen. Are you saying that only the loopback >> device is displayed when you type "ip addr"? >> >> When you start GRML, it brings up a menu. You have to press the q key >> to exit the menu before you can start typing commands. >> >> >> >> On 5/29/25 7:09 PM, Steve Matzura wrote: >>> I downloaded grml and wrote it to a USB thumb drive. It boots >>> perfectly, with two problems. >>> >>> >>> 1. If it's supposed to beep before I press TAB and then >>> "ssh=MyPassword", I'm not hearing the beep. No real surprise there, >>> I'm not even sure this machine's speaker actually works. I've never >>> heard it beep. Ever. >>> >>> >>> 2. After booting, if I wait about a minute, then press TAB followed >>> by typing "ssh=MyPassword" and pressing ENTER, Speakup speaks the >>> remainder of the boot process, then I get a prompt that tells me, >>> among other things, to press ENTER to return to the shell. This I >>> do, and I get a nicely talking Debian grml prompt. But if I then >>> type "ip addr", it tells me my IP address is 127.0.0.1. The network >>> cable is definitely connected on both ends. Does this mean it maybe >>> doesn't recognize my hardware? Can I remedy all of the above once I >>> hit the grml shell prompt? >>> >>> >>> On 5/29/2025 12:17 PM, John G. Heim wrote: >>>> If you want the character interface, i would recommend GRML. >>>> >>>> GRML includes the speakup modules and espeakup. All you have to do >>>> to get sofware speech is to create a bootable GRmL thumb drive or >>>> CD and once it boots, type "modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup". >>>> >>>> You can also pretty easily enable an ssh server on a system booted >>>> into GRML. So then you can ssh in and do whatever you want. >>>> >>>> We are in the process of creating a web site for blind people to >>>> document accessibility techniques but it's not live yet. The final >>>> draft version of the documentation i wrote for GRML is here: >>>> >>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.johnheim.com/articles/grml/*__;Lw!!… >>>> >>>> I am not sure my ISP's firewall is going to allow you to get to >>>> that page. So if you can't get to it, let me know and I'll figure >>>> something out. >>>> >>>> PS: I have a version of the GRML iso that is supposed to start >>>> talking during boot. It doesn't work on all of the hardware i tried >>>> it on. If it doesn't start talking during boot, just type "espeak" >>>> after it's done booting. You won't have to load the speakup modules >>>> at least. >>>> >>>> https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/soft-full-2025.05-amd64.iso >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 5/29/25 10:03 AM, Steve Matzura via Blind-sysadmins wrote: >>>>> I have a Debian version 11 system that needs repairing or >>>>> reinstalling, but before I do that, I need to boot something that >>>>> will let me access the system disk and copy some >>>>> hard-to-reconstruct configuration files from some application >>>>> directories to a holding place on another drive in the same >>>>> cabinet. Should I do this with a Debian Live distribution, or can >>>>> it be done from the regular Debian installation disk? In either >>>>> case, am I stuck with using a desktop to find the file(s) in >>>>> question and copy them to the holding location, or can I get >>>>> Speakup in a shell? If I'm stuck with a desktop, which ones is >>>>> most accessible? I've never been a fan of the Linux desktop >>>>> environment, much preferring the CLI, but you can't always get >>>>> what you want from these distros, but like the song says, if you >>>>> try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. >>>>> Ultimately, that's my question--which accessible live distro do I >>>>> need/should I use to effect the above? >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- >>>>> blind-sysadmins(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org >>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to >>>>> blind-sysadmins-leave(a)lists.hodgsonfamily.org

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Re: Update to Repair/Reinstall
by John G. Heim 02 Jun '25

02 Jun '25

On 6/2/25 10:18 AM, Steve Matzura wrote: > guess I've been somewhat spoiled by that magic. But then again, I > expect computers to do what they realistically cannot--behave like > toasters--but even knowing that, I still expect a few basic things to > just work, like finding my boot device, my audio device, my input > device (keyboard) and my main communications device (NIC) and just > make them work immediately. If I change any of those things, I want my > operating system to figure that out, automatically load the correct > driver, and carry on, all behind the scenes without any intervention > from yours very truly. I know that most Linux systems come packed with > lots of drivers for various hardware to get started, and these days, > most hardware has pretty well-known and standard parts--RealTek audio > devices, Broadcomm NIC's, and the like. And the operating system > usually finds them all. Just not this time. That's the puzzler. > Something's different, or missing, and I'm bound to find out what it is. > But it did recognize your network card, load a driver, and create a network interface. At this point, the odds are that you actually do have a network connection. I mentioned that you can start the debugging at the other end and assume the problem is with the router, firewall, something like that. That's what we should have done. The upside is that you learned a little about diagnosing network problems in Linux. But to go even further off the original topic, Linux systems admin is a really good career choice for a person with a visual disability. I don't mean to suggest that *Yyou* consider that. I'm just making the discussion even more general than it is after you brought up Linux itself. Where I live, In Madison, Wisconsin, a Linux sys admin can write his own ticket. Even a blind Linux sys admin will have his choice of positions to accept. This is true of everywhere technology is the main driver of the economy. So that includes every university town in the USA plus whole regions of the country like Silicon Valley, , the Charlotte research triangle, etc. And the beauty of being a blind Linux sys admin is that you are barely at a disadvantage compared to your sighted counterparts. Every once in a while, you'll hit an accessibility snag. But almost everything is done via the command line and text files. The biggest problem, of course, is access to the BIOS/EUFI. But you're not any better off being a Windows sys admin when it comes to accessing the EUFI.

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Update to Repair/Reinstall
by Steve Matzura 01 Jun '25

01 Jun '25

Apologies for not being as up on all this stuff as maybe I should be and presumably the rest of you are, but Linux isn't, nor has it ever been, an interest of mine--I only use it because I have to, and begrudgingly at that. I find the whole concept obtuse, confusing, confounding, unreasonably complicated, and not made to actually get things done in an efficient manner for the average Joe User in the world. But that doesn't mean I won't do what I have to do in order to use it, and I certainly would not spend a nanosecond bashing it--it has its uses, just not very many of them for me, except when I'm forced into it by the things I'm asked to do with computers at times. Give me OpenVMS or MS Windows any day. With that disclaimer out of the way ... John was extremely helpful--instrumental, in fact--in setting me up with a talking grml so I could turn on ssh and just get in there from another machine and copy off what I need from my old system. This didn't work out because I can't figure out how to get my network started on the target system. It doesn't look on the wired network for my Dream Machine router, which is happily sitting there, ready, willing and able to provide a network address for anyone who comes a-calling. On said target system, lspci shows the device, lsmod shows the driver, netcardconfig lets me set it up with the proper address, subnet and broadcast values, but, as I pointed out to John, even after all that, the system can't see past the end of its network nose. I've given up (for now) trying to figure out why this is. Instead, I copied the files I needed from the old system to the grml thumb drive for later usage, and am now ready to install real Debian 12--should I really try 13?--on the old internal SSD. However, here's where I've run into a Speakup/ESpeak problem. The grml-debootstrap script displays choices just like standard character-cell Linux always does, but with one exception: there's nothing I can find to figure out which of the selections is the chosen one--there are no symbols between the graphic brackets to indicate that, unlike most other character-cel interfaces that put a star ("*") or graphic symbol that looks like a square in between the brackets. I looked for a Speakup user guide, and the only one I could find is from 2010. How do I figure out which option is chosen on these menus, and where's a more up-to-date Speakup manual that would contain this info? Again, a really big thank-you to John, who spent probably far longer trying to troubleshoot me through my network problem than he have to. This stuff is supposed to just work, but when it doesn't, finding the one link in the long chain that's not behaving or doesn't exist can be daunting. Just look at some of the recent posts under the banner "I Want to Love Linux But Linux Won't Love Me Back," and if you don't already know, you'll find out how frustrating things can be when they don't work as expected.

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Question re repairing and reinstalling
by Steve Matzura 30 May '25

30 May '25

I have a Debian version 11 system that needs repairing or reinstalling, but before I do that, I need to boot something that will let me access the system disk and copy some hard-to-reconstruct configuration files from some application directories to a holding place on another drive in the same cabinet. Should I do this with a Debian Live distribution, or can it be done from the regular Debian installation disk? In either case, am I stuck with using a desktop to find the file(s) in question and copy them to the holding location, or can I get Speakup in a shell? If I'm stuck with a desktop, which ones is most accessible? I've never been a fan of the Linux desktop environment, much preferring the CLI, but you can't always get what you want from these distros, but like the song says, if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. Ultimately, that's my question--which accessible live distro do I need/should I use to effect the above?

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Anyone taken an online exam with Pearson Vue?
by ultimatethesecond＠googlemail.com 28 May '25

28 May '25

HI all. Seeing if this gets through. Has anyone taken an exam online with Pearson Vue? I gather they need to have a camera on, so they can see the room. This shouldn't be a problem. How did accommodations work out? If this is possible at all, that is. I would hope we can take exams online, get extra time and use our screenreaders. I'm looking to take the Comptia Security Plus exam. If anyone else has done, is there much visual content? The practise questions I'm using have the odd diagram but everything is multiple choice. Thanks. Chris.

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experience with Learning Tree courses
by Fayre, Jason 27 May '25

27 May '25

Hello, Has anyone had any experience with Learning Tree for IT courses? They seem to have an accessibility statement, but that doesn't always mean much. I'm looking to take courses in Azure and Modern Endpoint Management. Please note: for accessibility reasons, please do not send me screenshots. Vacation alert: Jason Fayre Assistive Technology Specialist | Enterprise Endpoint Compute | Employee Technology Services | CIBC 81 Bay Street, 14th Floor Toronto ON, Canada, M5J 0E7 | Tel: (416) 412-2678 | jason.fayre(a)cibc.com<mailto:jason.fayre@cibc.com>

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