Slashdot Mirror
Zip Up: New Linux Distribution Speaks To Users
LinuxNews.com Editor writes, "A new talking distribution makes Linux easy for visually impaired users to install." An amazing hybrid of a compact Slackware distro and a Linux speech synthesizer, this is an effort that deserves kudos not only because it helps blind and visually impaired users, but because it sounds like it could teach the big boys a few things about appropriate user interfaces. As a bonus, it's small and can run on relatively low-end hardware (though it requires a compatible speech synthesizer), and doesn't even require repartioning.
Also, the male/female thing will NOT SCALE beyond two users.
thank you
I wish I were blind so I could use this too. Um... or something.
</humor>
Why am I not surprised Slackware is involved? I don't use their distribution, but the more I read about them the more I consider switching.
True. Think of it this way. Linux is diffiult enough for people WITHOUT sensory impairments.
Ah, thank you for the correction. I generally consult on Windows systems since that is what most companies want for their mission-critcal enterprise solutions, and have only recently begun my research into Linux and the freeware phenomenon for a report I have been commisioned to write.
And as for the GPL, from what I have read about it, it seems like a crack lawyer could probably get around its provisions, although I'm not a lawyer myself, my company does have some good ones. Has it been tested in court? Thank you.
Here, here! Moist, gonadular lust cakes made from STEAMIN', BUTTERED, GRITS baby!
I mean, it's a really cool tool for hackers and nerds, but for normal use on the desktop it's not quite ready for prime time (I know some people will say this is FUD, but I truly believe this)
My worry as a big fan of Linux is that this early initiative may put people off using Linux. They should wait until Linux is more stable and mature before going after the domestic user. The visually impaired would be better off with Windows or whatever using the accessibility extentions.
Linux still has a long way to go.
This product is particularly cruel as it locks in people forever to an inferior technology, by exploting the fact that they need speech synthesis if they are to run Linux at all. Zipspeak should be forced to provide support for all speech synthesiser by writing the appropriate drivers, and should forfeit their FDA approval and the tax-deductibility of their product if they continue to tilt the playing field for synthesisers. It is wholly irresponsible of them to come into an orderly marketplace and shake things up like this. We never had these problems with Apple (a company which, IMO, really "gets it" with regard to open standards) and only a few with Microsoft. What a shame that the so-called "altruists" of the LinusX community couldn't be a bit more understanding.
Stephen Mundy
--Murrinco
As an IT consultant working in the software industry I read /. to do research on the "freeware" community as exemplified by the Linux operating system. My opinion on this new package is mixed, and I'll share my thoughts on the matter.
While this is a nice marketing move for Slackware and Speakup, obviously motivated by getting them "kudos" in the Linux-savvy crowd, I wonder if they've thought out some of the implications of this. I mean, if a blind Linux user running this package makes a mistake and formats their C drive, then who will they sue for damages? Slackware of course. The company could find itself on the end of a series of civil lawsuits by the visually impaired who were assured that this would be their "gateway" to the world of Linux.
Despite all this, I wish Slackware success in the marketplace, and I hope that this product successfully encourages the visually impaired to take up computing. Thank you.
Linux is a simple clean operating system that has an installed base of developers keeping it current
with comtemporary applications. The primary advantage for blind people is that it is easier to adapt applications. Even GUI work arounds are simpler to do in Linux for the do it yourselfer.
On the other hand if you are not a hacker and you are blind their are GUI work arounds for Windows that run for about $500 a pop including lots of handholding and training. As is the case with sighted people *nix is simply hackers choice.
'grep' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\>
Windows 98 comes with a screen magnifier that you can put in your startup group. It has a lot of limitations in terms of curser tracking, but is good for demoing windows to low vision people that are considering buying Windows. Many of the screen navigation techniques are similar to the pricier screen readers.
Also if you buy a good inexpensive 400+ DPI scanner bundled with 99.9 OCR (I suggest an HP with Calera), and have creative labs text assist speech you can make a pretty cool off the shelf talking book reader. I actually did this hack and the user can now read the fine print in the newspaper classified ads total cost about $200.
The problem is that by making computing "easier" and more "accessible" we are enabling people to use computers who perhaps should not be using them in the first place. Don't get me wrong, this is not about the visually impaired. I am talking about the "point-and-click" morons. These days anyone fresh out of college can land an extremely highly paid job as CTO of an organisation, simply by flashing an MCSE at the HR dept. Is this fair ? Is it reasonable ? I don't think so.
In short, the Linux community must grow up, and produce a "LCSE" certification programme and then Linux guys can get these high-powered jobs.
thank you
One has to feel sorry for the visually impaired user who not only has to suffer the insane complexity of Linux, but also the arcane and bloated Emacs. As if visual impairment was not punishment enough for whatever sins he/she had comitted in a past life.
calm down. The link is useful cause the actual story's link is broken.
cat: fuck you: No such file or directory
There already are Linux cert programs, and they are a lot harder than MCSE. Before you tell someone to "grow up" get your fucking facts straight.
if www.createyourownlinuxdistro.com is still available... would be an AWESOME idea for a startup that will raise a tremendous amount of money at it's IPO: a site where you can create your own linux distribution.
Now, don't steal this idea from me, you hear! not untill I've registered this domain at NIS... wait... it doesn't allow names with 'linux' in it...
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
So what good would it do for someone who is blind to be on a computer anyways? Computers are most widely used for Pornography. What good does that do you unless you have eyes to see the titties with? You can read the stories that some sites have posted, but what good does that do unless you have visuals to go along? Now, if there were some sort of technology to create braile on a surface that replaces a monitor (and titties if necessary) I would look into that if I were blind.
if my cock had a speech synthesizer, it would always say, "hey you, pour another bowl of hot grits down your pants." thank you.
You create an emmebedded device with this distro you might have winner maybe as a helper robot that you can call on certain commands or anything else think about some the possibiloties here we are all a creative bunch here lets come up with some ideas here
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
BWAHAHAHAH!
I have no idea why, but on that last line, I had a vision of Sam Kinison screaming: "Fuck you kernel! Remove Slash! AWW AUUUUGH!!!"
:-)
Oh well. Gotta lay off the Excedrin.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
My mother-in-law's eyes are failing, so I've been sensitive to the needs of the partially-sighted. Most "blind" people do have partial sight, and can often use a computer screen if the picture is modified for them.
This is one area that the microsoft windows crowd have an advantage in - from my research the partially sighted find it easier to use a split screen to use the computer, the top half shows a normal view, which is good enough for seeing if something is flashing or a new window has popped up and the bottom half shows a magnified view area taken from the top.
My opinion is that since so much content is produced for the sighted by the sighted it is often impossible to make a meaningful audio version of what is going on on screen.
With respect to this article, audio prompts for the partially sighted on OS installation is probably not as useful as buying a pre-installed machine from VA or Dell which can also include support.
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
I'm all for more features for Linux but Installation? Isn't that one of the more complex things to do with Linux? I mean, I know some fully sighted people who can't do it.
Maybe my point is if I was blind or had a seeing problem, either I would get a sighted friend to read to me what was going on or get a computer which had Linux and disablility software already installed.
Of course, if you can do it, then hats off!
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
A few years back I worked on a system being developed for use specifically by blind and sight-impaired people. We also installed some off-the-shelf software. To say that I learned a lot would be an understatement. I spent quite a bit of time running software with my monitor turned off, trying to navigate using screenreader software and a voice-synthesizer. It's not easy. It's not easy even when you are using an app that you are familiar with. When faced with unfamiliar "screens" and applications, I would almost tear my hair out in frustration. I recall one application that required you to lookup records by clicking on a green field title. Doing that without being able to "see" was certainly a challenge.
I've been told that the transition from command-line systems (DOS) to Windows was very difficult for blind people. I can understand why. I've also been told (but I havn't experienced) that Win 98 was an improvement over Win 95 because Microsoft put effort into accessibility technology. If someone wants to do the same thing with Linux, more power to them.
Timothy's summary of the article refers to Speakup as a "Linux speech synthesizer". Actually, it's a screen reader. A screen reader looks at the contents of the screen and sends them as text to the speech synthesizer. And Speakup only supports hardware speech synthesizers at the moment, so you can't use Speakup (and therefore ZipSpeak) with just a sound card.
I also have a friend who uses Emacspeak and loves it, but as someone else has mentioned, there's a lot of learning involved. For someone who's already familiar with an MS-DOS screen reader, Speakup is a lot more familiar than Emacspeak. I know some people are coming over to Linux from DOS, and they want to run PINE, Lynx, and whatever else they used on their shell account at their ISP. While Emacs has a terminal emulator, Emacspeak has poor support for it in my opinion, so if you're going to use Emacspeak exclusively, it's much better to learn to use VM (the mail reader), W3 (the Web browser), and so on under Emacs. So for people who are laready comfortable with a DOS screen reader and a Unix shell account, Speakup would be the best option, in my opinion. Also, you can't run Emacspeak on a Linux boot/root disk, so unless a blind person has a screen reader like Speakup, they need someone who can see to help them with the installation. The same thing applies if something goes wrong in the boot process and they can't get to a login prompt.
I was tempted initially to flame you or ignore you, but you have a point, not about the Emacs interface, but about the fact that they are stuck with it. I like Emacs. I've been using it for well over a decade and it is comfortable and automatic for me. And I recognize that there are people who prefer other interfaces. As my boss put it, "Editing text is not my job. Writing code is." Emacs provides a lots of power, at the expense of a long (not necessarily steep) learning curve. I would rather not present it to anyone as their only choice. That is just a quick way to make enemies.
As for editor holy wars, part of what I love about free software is the number of good choices I have for various kinds of tools. They adhere to published standards and they interoperate. In order to use LaTeX or groff, I am not stuck with the editor that comes with either of them. I can use what I like. For that, I am thankful for the diversity, even the tools I would hate to use myself. They help to enforce open standards in free software by ensuring that they continue to be necessary.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I've heard there are several out there working on it. Now, that this has in the media, I'll at least pose the first of several extensions to this, you can expect to see within a year: digital voice identification and, of course, the corrolary; speech to text.
All of the pieces have been in the public domain for ages. It's only natural that an easily customisable OS would allow creative sorts to assemble the pieces correctly.
Much, much more to come. Not evn vaporware.
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
Wouldn't it be great if Linux could recognise what YOU were saying? hmmm...I just realised something, if you keep talking to your Linux box, wouldn't be a higher chance of buffer overrunning?
/dev/firstpost double right bracket www.slashdot.org"
me:"cat
Linux:LAMER ACCESS DENIED
me:"flame newbie-disto lovers on slashdot"
Linux: "Are you sure? Yes/No."
me:"yes"
Linux: "LAMER ACCESS DENIED. Now flaming localhost. Reason: you are too lazy to use bash.Therefore you are Lamer."
me:"cat 'fuck you' >> kernel; rm hyphen rf slash"
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
Tommy
Forget the blind people for a sec. What about an in car linux box? No need to work a keyboard when you're hurling down the interstate at excessive speeds!
Now if someone would hook this up to text mode quake we could really have some fun!
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
...how this distribution of Linux compares to Wintendo or other platforms as a usable interface for blind people.
Linux is often criticised for its lack of usability for the average man-on-the-street; is it likely to suffer the same criticisms from the blind..?
From what I understand, it's that the concept of having an ``area'' .. your desktop area where things are arranged in different places... isn't the most native way to interface with things for the blind. Having a stream of sound, and then sending input, and getting more audio feedback is much more natural. It's the way that they interface with most other things in real life.
A lot of clunky windows solutions exist for reading different parts of the screen. For the most part, they're horrible. Because they have to try to figure out how to deal with areas. I mean, I'm looking at this posting window right now, and if I was a program trying to read the screen, I'd have to figure out the difference between the stuff in the boxes on the left frame and the stuff on the right. Not to mention I'd have to figure out that the left hand parts of the main table were labels for the text boxes on the right hand part. Things like that. It's much easier when it's a stream of text.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
You may find the following more useful... http://linuxmall.com/news/feature s/000322zipspeak
-- Don't believe everything you read, hear or think
I have a blind friend using Emacspeak who absolutely loves it. I have heard it myself. It is not merely a screen-reader. And it doesn't require special hardware. She has an ordinary sound card. I think it's great that the free software community is giving attention to blind users. I can't say that I'm surprised. Free software as a development model is clearly superior in serving smaller niche markets.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.