Accessible boot loader

David Mehler

7 Nov 2013 7 Nov '13

4:35 a.m.

Hello, Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on. I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one? Thanks. Dave.

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Katherine Moss

7 Nov 7 Nov

2:49 p.m.

Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader Hello, Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on. I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one? Thanks. Dave. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

John G. Heim

3:24 p.m.

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance. PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script. #!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE" On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

Katherine Moss

3:26 p.m.

What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE? -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance. PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script. #!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE" On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

John G. Heim

4:35 p.m.

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader. On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu. The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader. On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

Katherine Moss

4:42 p.m.

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader. On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu. The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader. On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

John G. Heim

4:55 p.m.

Did you google it? I've done maybe 5 minutes of work on suse in my career. Years ago, we used to have a supercomputer with suse on it. So this is far from my area of expertise but googling seems to indicate that the opensuse installer image starts gnome and you can run orca. See: http://accessiblefreedom.org/wiki/index.php?title=Open_Suse#Starting_The_Liv... But it looks to m On 11/07/13 10:42, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

Scott Granados

4:57 p.m.

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one. On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

5:05 p.m.

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one. On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

5:05 p.m.

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

5:11 p.m.

That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one. On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

David Mehler

5:50 p.m.

Hello, For my situation I don't have machines that have pc speakers on the motherboards so this wouldn't work. What I'm going to atempt to do with this setup is since it's using syslinux I'm going to redefine the menu given on this project and I'll just have to memorize it I suppose, arrow down three times for option x or similar. Thanks. Dave. On 11/7/13, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

5:51 p.m.

You're a coder too? Cool! -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:50 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader Hello, For my situation I don't have machines that have pc speakers on the motherboards so this wouldn't work. What I'm going to atempt to do with this setup is since it's using syslinux I'm going to redefine the menu given on this project and I'll just have to memorize it I suppose, arrow down three times for option x or similar. Thanks. Dave. On 11/7/13, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

5:51 p.m.

...

That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

John G. Heim

6:26 p.m.

If you can modify the syslinux configuration, you don't have to memorize any keystrokes because you can set the default to whichever boot menu item you need. In the syslinux.cfg there will be a line like "default 0". Zero is the first menu item. If you want it to boot the third menu item by default, you change it to "default 2". And then you can also change the timeout so it automatically does the default after a certain number of seconds. Saying, "timeout 0" will do it immediately. ", "timeout 5" gives you five seconds. On 11/07/13 11:50, David Mehler wrote:

...

Hello,

For my situation I don't have machines that have pc speakers on the motherboards so this wouldn't work.

What I'm going to atempt to do with this setup is since it's using syslinux I'm going to redefine the menu given on this project and I'll just have to memorize it I suppose, arrow down three times for option x or similar.

Thanks. Dave.

On 11/7/13, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

David Mehler

5:50 p.m.

...

That's an interesting way to install SuSE, though it sounds like it would work. I'll have to get another copy of the live ISO then; I can't find my Windows 7 disc, so I'll have to put Linux on an old system of mine till I find it. Though I'm screwed if this particular system doesn't support booting from USB.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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Katherine Moss

5:11 p.m.

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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John G. Heim

6:30 p.m.

You are probably thinking of sonar linux. http://sonar-project.org/ On 11/07/13 11:05, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one.

On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

John G. Heim

6:38 p.m.

I have to correct something I said earlier. I tried getting grub to play a sound file at boot and it did not work. You can give grub a the name of a file to play at boot but it isn't a raw sound file. It's a data file with notes to play in what I assume is a format specific to grub.

Katherine Moss

6:39 p.m.

Must be quite a learning curve there then? -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 1:39 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader I have to correct something I said earlier. I tried getting grub to play a sound file at boot and it did not work. You can give grub a the name of a file to play at boot but it isn't a raw sound file. It's a data file with notes to play in what I assume is a format specific to grub. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

6:39 p.m.

John G. Heim

7 p.m.

You mean the learning curve for the musical format? Well, there are plenty of examples out there for the GRUB_INIT_TUNE parameter for debian's version of grub. Here are some xexamples. They should work in ubuntu, vinux, and sonar too. # Play "On Wisconsin" at boot GRUB_INIT_TUNE="600 294 5 277 2 330 4 294 5" # Play a foru note tune at boot: GRUB_INIT_TUNE="2000 400 4 0 1 500 4 0 1 600 4 0 1 800 6" In an earlier message I posted a script that plays your GRUB_INIT_TUNE similar to what it will sound like when you boot. I couldn't get it exactly the same but it is close enough so you can test your tunes. In fact, I would really like to write something that takes a ABC music file and converts it to beep codes and converts beep codes to a grub I can't imagine when I'll ever have that much spare time though.tune. On 11/07/13 12:39, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

Must be quite a learning curve there then?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 1:39 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

I have to correct something I said earlier. I tried getting grub to play a sound file at boot and it did not work. You can give grub a the name of a file to play at boot but it isn't a raw sound file. It's a data file with notes to play in what I assume is a format specific to grub.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

Greg B.

7:31 p.m.

...

I'm wondering though if there does exist a talking install for OpenSuSE

Ther is a Linux distribution called Sonar, I think. Greg B. Email: gbobo@woh.rr.com -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: Thursday, November 7, 2013 12:05 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader I know of two. Vinux and something else, though the name is escaping me. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:57 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader How many blindness specific versions are there? I only know of one. On Nov 7, 2013, at 11:42 AM, Katherine Moss wrote: though;but again, they probably don't think it necessary with all of the blindness-specific versions of Linux out there. Which, might I add, does indeed spread the wrong message to the open source community.

...

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 11:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

There is a difference between a talking boot loader and an talking

install. A boot loader is a program that loads a kernel. The boot loader allows you to pick different kernels or different options for a kernel. It comes up before the operating system is loaded. Once the kernel is loaded, you can do all kinds of fancy things. I'm not saying a boot loader with a screen reader doesn't exist but I'd be very much surprised if it does. It's hard enough to get a screen reader built into a kernel much less a boot loader.

...

On the other hand, a boot loader that plays different sound files for

different boot menu options is not at all far fetched. And I provided a link to a blog post that says that's what opensuse used to do. The reason that makes sense technically is that if the sound file is the right format, it would only require the boot loader to write it directly to the PC speaker device. No sound driver or speech synthesizer would be necessary. The grub boot loader has a similar feature. But it plays the pre-recorded sound file only once per boot. So I'm guessing that what opensuse did was make it possible to play a sound file for each item on the boot menu.

...

The reason it would help with an accessible install is that it would allow

you to select a talking install from the boot menu. When you do a linux install, you get this boot menu that asks what kind of install you want to do. Those menu items are defined by the developers so they could provide pre-recorded sound files that matched the text of each boot menu item. As you cursored through the items on the boot menu, it plays these sound files and it's just like a screen reader.

...

On 11/07/13 09:26, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk.

...

...
-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According

to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

...
PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your

GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays

In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE? the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

...

...
#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\"

-f2 ` fi TEMPO=""

...
FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

4:42 p.m.

...

What I was referring to is that the bootloader used to be able to talk. In other words, it used to have screen reader support. I mean, how is a generic sound file going to assist us in independently installing OpenSuSE?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:24 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Are you sure that opensuse doesn't still support that feature? According to the google, it just played a sound file through the PC speaker. And if you have the right format for your sound file, that is literally just a write operation. There would be little reason to remove such a feature because it wouldn't take any maintenance.

PS: Here is a script I wrote that kind of lets you hear your GRUB_INIT_TUNE before you update grub. It reads /etc/default/grub and plays the GRUB_INIT_TUNE via the beep command. It doesn't give exactly the right tempo but you should be able to get a pretty good idea of what you are going to hear at boot with this script.

#!/bin/bash if [ ! -z "$1" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=$1 fi if [ "$GRUB_INIT_TUNE" == "" ]; then GRUB_INIT_TUNE=`grep ^GRUB_INIT_TUNE /etc/default/grub | cut -d\" -f2 ` fi TEMPO="" FREQ="" TUNE="" for VAL in $GRUB_INIT_TUNE; do if [ "$TEMPO" == "" ]; then TEMPO=$VAL elif [ "$FREQ" == "" ];then FREQ=$VAL; elif [ "$TUNE" == "" ]; then TUNE=" -d $TEMPO -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" else test "$FREQ" == "0" || TUNE="$TUNE -n -f $FREQ -l ${VAL}00" FREQ="" fi; done; beep $TUNE echo "$TUNE"

On 11/07/13 08:49, Katherine Moss wrote:

...
Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

Katherine Moss

3:26 p.m.

...

Gosh, I love Open SuSE! It's my favorite Linux distribution. I remember that too, but for whatever reason they quit developing it. If you are a coder, you could always bring it back to life. I think what has happened is that most of the mainstream Linux developers are aware of blindness-specific versions of Linux, so they think, Oh, okay, the blind will just use what they know as accessible so that now we don't have to worry about it.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of David Mehler Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:35 PM To: blind-sysadmins Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Accessible boot loader

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

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Katherine Moss

2:49 p.m.

John G. Heim

3:05 p.m.

Well, I'll be dipped in honey and tied to an anthill. It does exist. It plays pre-recorded sound samples through the PC speaker. http://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/11/06/bootloader-gets-chattier/ That's way better than what you can do in grub. Grub has a parameter, GRUB_INIT_TUNE, which you can use to make it play a beep tune or a sound file through the PC speaker. I've never tried to play a sound file but I have all my machines set up to play "On Wisconsin" at boot. It occurs to me that we might be able to get the grub developers to make the GRUB_INIT_TUNE parameter something you could put in a boot stanza so that grub could play a different tune or a different sound file for each line of the boot menu. For all I know, you may already be able to do that. In debian, the GRUB_INIT_TUNE parameter is set in /etc/default/grub which implies it's a global parameter. On 11/06/13 22:35, David Mehler wrote:

...

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

-- --- John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

Kerry Hoath

8 Nov 8 Nov

12:26 a.m.

Never seen this at all. getting sound drivers active at boot would be extremely difficult. I used to do it with serial output and some lilo tricks. Regards, Kerry. On 7/11/2013 12:35 PM, David Mehler wrote:

...

Hello,

Does anyone remember a while back, maybe they still do, OpenSuse had an accessible boot loader? It would say via speech output what item you were on.

I'm wanting to get that or an alternative? I was wondering if anyone knew of one?

Thanks. Dave.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

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participants (6)

David Mehler
Greg B.
John G. Heim
Katherine Moss
Kerry Hoath
Scott Granados