- Blind-sysadmins - lists.hodgsonfamily.org

True NAS installation accessibility?
by David Mehler 13 Aug '25

13 Aug '25

Hello, Is anyone using True NAS? If so is the installation ISO speech-accessible or can it be modified to be so? Thanks. Dave. -- Sent with Thunderbird

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VSphere remote console accessibility
by Zameer Mahomed 21 Jul '25

21 Jul '25

Hi all, Hope you are well. I've just started using VSphere to manage servers. I find the web interface very accessible however, Once a server has been created, is where the issues start. I am not able to access the web console as understandably the keys do not pass through to the server, as I am using a browser with JAWS as the screen reader. I do not have the opportunity to download the VMWare remote console client yet, but I was wondering if anyone has any work arounds to access the server and apply initial configuration if you've used VSphere? While I wait for the download, if you've used the remote console, can I direct the keys to the server like I can using RDP or VMware workstation? Your help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards

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installing windowss server with narrator
by mattias jonsson 07 Jul '25

07 Jul '25

are it possible this days? looks like some isos dont have narrator

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An update re Comptia+ exam accomidations
by ultimatethesecond＠googlemail.com 04 Jul '25

04 Jul '25

Hi all. Just an update if it's useful to anyone else. It's taken a while but I have now been granted requested accommodations for the Comptia Security+ exam by Pearson Vue. There's nothing in the letter saying I can't share this info. SO. Accommodations are: Use a screenreader, my home system and extra time. I provided a copy of my blind registration certificate and a letter from my GP outlining the impact of sight loss on a practical level. i.e. I need to use a screenreader for all computer based tasks. I was sent a link to a test system. This tests your set up rather than it being an exam simulator. It will check you have no potentially problematic processes or services running, internet speed, camera, audio playback and microphone. My laptop actually failed this, despite the camera being enabled. I think there were some background processes related to VMWare it didn't like too. SO switched to my desktop using an external webcam. For obvious reasons, you need to disconnect any usb drives, close any other applications and also disable Dropbox. I couldn't kill the DB service so just uninstalled it. I could have probably stopped it starting in MsConfig I suppose but just wanted to complete the test. At one point, you are asked to check you can see yourself on screen. I used Aira via RIM for help with this. My desktop past the system test. In confirming this with Pearson Vue, I also let them know my desktop has no monitor screen and asked if the moderator during the exam could give me verbal instructions should I not be in view of the camera. Rather than risk disqualification because they can't see me of course. They have noted this. This was all pretty straight forward I'm glad to say. July is a busy month so I hope to book the exam in August. Regards Chris.

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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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