Draft of Blinux-FAQ

[Hans Zoebelein <hzo goldfish cube net>]

Hi Blinuxers, 

here comes the draft of the Blinux FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).
Michael Gorse <mgorse wpi edu> was so kind to build and maintain them.

--Hans


[Begin draft of the Blinux FAQ ]
This is just a draft. If there's a question that you think should be on
here, or if you want to add something in or correct something, send me some
email.

[TBD -- insert intro]

Q: What is Blinux-list? What can I use it for?

A: Blinux-list is a list intended for discussion of Linux usage as it
relates to the blind and visually impaired community. Blinux-list is not
intended as a place to get answered for general Linux questions; there are
plenty of resources available on the net for this.

Q: Where can I download Linux? Which Linux distribution is best for a blind
user?

A: There is no single answer to this question, any more than there is a
single choice for a sighted person. Different people prefer different
distributions, but the distribution that you choose does not restrict the
software that you can run, so each is more or less equally accessible. Some
distributions may be easier than others to install without sighted
assistance by using a serial terminal; Slackware can be installed in this
way (see the Emacspeak howto), but this should not be the only factor that
you use in deciding on a distribution, if possible. The Distribution howto
may be worth reading. You may want to buy a Linux cd, especially if you
don't have a fast internet connection, but all distributions are available
for download at different places depending on which one you use.

Q: Can I install Linux without sighted assistance?

A: It depends on the distribution you use. If you have a second computer or
other device that you can use as a terminal, you might be able to install
over your computer's serial port. Slackware can be installed in this way.
Other distributions, such as Redhat, may require sighted assistance to
install.

Q: What screen readers are available for Linux? Will my DOS screen reader
work?

A: Linux and Dos are completely different operating systems and Linux does
not natively run Dos software. If you have another system that you can use
as a terminal, one option would be to hook it up to your Linux box and
access Linux through your terminal. This setup has the advantage that you
can continue to use your existing screen reader, and may be a good option
while you're getting started. . A variation on this technique would be to
network your systems together. The Emacspeak howto (which I would recommend
reading) has some information on using a terminal. Brltty allows braille
displays to work in the console and supports a variety of devices; it has a
web page at http://www.cam.org/~nico/brltty/. There are also several
programs for providing speech that are in various stages of development.
Emacspeak is the most developed of these and is an advanced audio system
that runs under Emacs, adding speech to all of Emacs's features. Screader,
svlpro), and Speak-up are more general-purpose screen readers but are newer
and still being developed.

Q: Emacs is a text editor. So Emacspeak only provides speech for that one
editor?

A: Emacs is an editor but it is a powerful program capable of doing many
other things as well. Add-ons have been developed for it to allow the user
to read email and browse the web, for example. Emacs also allows the user to
escape to a shell, and Emacspeak may thus be used to give speech output to
programs that are not written as Emacs modules.

Q: What synthesizers are supported under Linux? Are there any software
synthesizers available?

Different screen readers support different synthesizers. Emacspeak includes
a server for DEC-Talk synthesizers, but Jim Vanzandt has written servers for
the Doubletalk / Litetalk, Braille 'n Speak / BrailleLite / Type 'n Speak,
Accent, and Apollo 2 synthesizers. Bart Bunting has also written an
Emacspeak server for Mbrola which can be used to get speech out of an
ordinary sound card. [tbd - I don't know how this works since I haven't got
around to trying it; if one of you has used it, I'd like to know how stable
it is.] Svlpro supports the Echo, DEC-Talk, Accent, Speak-out, Braille 'n
speak, Apollo, and Artic Transport. The Linux kernel includse a driver for
the Doubletalk, and a driver for the DEC-Talk PC is available. Other
internal synthesizers will probably not work. In particular, it would be
difficult to write a driver for the Sounding Board since it would also be
necessary to write text-to-speech software for the card since it only knows
how to make utterances, and GW Micro will not release specifications for it.

Q: Where can I find accessible linux documentation?

A: There is a whole library of documentation, including whole books,
available at many ftp and web sites, and their mirrors, in multiple formats,
including ascii text. These are products of the "LDP" (Linux Documentation
Project), which is mirrored from metalab.unc.edu (formerly known as
sunsite). Good starting places for web based documentation are
www.linuxnow.com and www.linuxresources.com.

If a very cheap CD library is desired instead, go to one of the cheap Linux
CD distributors (see the question on cheap cdroms). For example, Cheapbytes
puts a snapshot of much of the Linux Documentation Project archives on each
CD, in the "doc" directory (actually, this is fairly traditional for linux
CD's, no matter where you buy them).

Don't overlook the archives for blinux and leb.net, etc, from the end of the
blinux mailing list messages:

Blinux software archive at ftp://leb.net/pub/blinux
Blinux web page at http://leb.net/blinux

See also the Reading-List HOWTO, which references many of the resources by
name, that you will find in the places mentioned above.

Orielly also publishes books on a wide variety of computer-related topics,
and their books are available from Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic in
audio form or as html or sgml documents.

Once you have access to an installed Linux system, you should be able to
access lots of documentation in the /usr/doc directory and it's
subdirectories, including just about everything from the Linux Documentation
Project, if it was selected for installation, or installed later. There is a
whole beginners book about Linux, in HTML, for instance. These same
documents are all available from the ftp mirrors mentioned above, and from
many linux web sites.

There is a text based web browser called "lynx" (type "lynx" at the command
prompt), that is set up with a default opening page in RedHat installations,
with links to just about all the documentation you could ever want, much if
it on your local hard disk (other distributions probably have a similar
default page). -- L. C. Robinson

Q: Much of the documentation is in HTML format: how do I read it? Can I read
it from MS-DOS?

A: It should be readable with a web browser, like the textmode "lynx"
browser. Lynx is part of linux, but a DOS version is available: check at
http://lynx.browser.org/ -- L. C. Robinson

[Should there be a specific download link here? What if it changes?]

Q: OK, so now I have found the LDP archives. There are hundreds of files.
Where do I start?

A. Heh, heh. Treat it as a resource. Look up what you need, when you need
it. No one learns it all: most only need a small part of it. There are very
few questions that can't be answered this way. There are some great
searching utilities that can help in accessing this stuff: see, for
instance, www.htdig.org, or use the search engines on the LDP web sites.

Of course, you'll want to survey it, look at the indexes, etc, so you'll
know what's available.

A very good starting point is Matt Welsh's excellent "Linux Installation and
Getting Started" guide. -- L. C. Robinson

Q: Now that I have a running linux system, how do I access the installed
documentation?

A: First try the following, from the command prompt: [this should be
augmented with instructions for emacspeak, particularly for Emacspeak help
-- I am not qualified to write that part, because I don't use it] man man
man apropos
info
lynx

Hopefully, your linux distribution has set up lynx with a default page that
will bring a lot of the ldp stuff to you in a convenient way (RedHat does
this).

Be sure to read the Emacspeak HOWTO and Access HOWTO right away. --L. C.
Robinson

Q: Can I install RedHat eyes free?

A: At present, it's not too practical, unless modified somehow, to install
eyes free. Perhaps you get someone to tell you what's on the screen during
the installation.

Advanced unix users might be able to use RedHat's kickstart procedure (see
www.redhat.com, or the Kickstart HOWTO) to prepare an automatic, eyes free
installation. If you are a novice, forget I mentioned it.

Q: Are there certain portions of the Linux environment that are inaccessible
through Emacspeak?

A: Well, of course there will always be drawing and graphical stuff, picture
viewers, etc, that can't be accessed this way. But Linux has hundreds of
utilities and programs in text mode that provide almost any kind of
functionality that you might care about, usually in a better native format
than their graphical counterparts, from the standpoint of a blind user, and
often for others as well. These text mode applications are often superior,
from a productivity and usablity standpoint, for ANY user, though the
learning curve may be higher. These are accessible from within Emacspeak.
--L. C. Robinson

Q: More and more people are talking about X-Windows. Can programs running
under X-Windows still be used by people using Emacspeak?

Generally you would not want to do that. Native text utilities and
applications will usually work better: these are accessible through
emacspeak. --L. C. Robinson

Q. Is anyone working on X-Windows screen reading capability?

A. Yes. Don't hold your breath, though. Much of the X stuff will never work
well this way. There has been some discussion here of the superior
possibilies for the new Gnome desktop (see the archives for details). The
really important thing to understand, is that you have very little reason to
be concerned about the GUI stuff, because of the rich functionality
available in text mode. Also, Brian Selden is working on porting Ultrasonix
to Linux. Ultrasonix is a screen access package for X that was originally
developed for Sun SPARCstations running Solaris; see
http://www.henge.com/~brian/ultralin.html for info.

If I were a new, blind user, I would probably get sgmltools (which was
developed for the linux documentation project -- see www.sgmltools.org), and
use that. I have Word Perfect for Linux, the server edition (which has the
added capability of working on text based serial terminals). I do NOT
recommend it. For people who need the proprietary MS-Word format to send
documents to others, I would recommend using sgmltools to produce HTML
format, and ask them to just use the HTML input capability of their
proprietary word processor to convert or read it. Writing in a macro or
formatter language (linux has several of these) has a more steep learning
curve, but has been shown by studies to be far more efficient than WYSIWYG
solutions, even in the sighted world. --L. C. RObinson

Q. I can't get xxxxx to work....

A. First make sure you are running an up to date version of both Linux and
emacspeak, and anything else you need. Lots of problems disappear just by
running recent software in the Linux world, as improvements are extremely
rapid. You can get recent CD versions for only about $7.00 from multiple
vendors, as mentioned elsewhere in this FAQ, so there's no reason to fool
with old versions.

When you post questions like this, make sure you specify exactly what
software and hardware you are running, including your synth or braille
display: if you do this, it's very likely that someone can tell you
precisely what to put in your config files so that things will work. If the
information is too vague, most people will just ignore your plea for help.

Q: Where can I download Linux? Which Linux distribution is best for a blind
user? [possible additions -- referenced in my other answers:]

Q. Where can I get cheap CD-ROM versions of Linux?

A: Because there are many very cheap CD distributors, it may not be
necessary to guess at what distribution would be best for you. One can
affordably try a variety of candidates. These sell for about $2.00 per CD
(plus shipping and handling, about $5). Popular ones currently include:
RedHat, Caldera, and SuSe, maybe Mandrake, which is an enhanced RedHat,
Slackware (maybe easier to install eyes free, depending on hardware, but a
pain to upgrade, etc), and Debian (the largest, most progams/packages, with
the "alien" conversion utility, which allows borrowing packages from other
distributions, but hard to install, for newbies).

Cheap CDs can be found at www.linuxcentral.com, www.lsl.com,
www.linuxmall.com, and www.cheapbytes.com: more are appearing all the time.
For a blind user, these are just as good as the $49.00 "boxed sets" from
distributors like Redhat and Caldera: the main advantage of the later is
that they include a paper manual and installation support, which can be had
for free on the internet. The RedHat installation manual is available in
electronic format, right on the CD (in HTML format), and on the web: others
may be as well. --L. C. Robinson

That's all I have for now. Thanks to K.C. Habib for coming up with a
workable outline for this thing, and to Nicholas Pitre and L. C. Robinson
for making contributions.

--Michael Gorse <mgorse wpi edu>>
[End draft Blinux FAQ]