Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

djringjr · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 156

Due to loosing sight, I've been interested in incorporating Emacs, Emacspeak, Festival (voice engine and voices) into Puppy. I don't know that this needs X, but it works with it.

I've gotten Emacs and Emacspeak to work, and I've downloaded the Festival.pup - but there is an additional driver needed to allow Emacspeak to drive the Festival screen reader engine. I've not found out how to do this.

I went out of X to the command line and ran emacspeak, and lo and behold, it came up outside of X, but revealed the error - "no driver found for Festival" - which seems to say that a blind person could run a command line Puppy - which is perfect for the blind.

If anyone wants to tackle a "Seeing Eye Puppy" for the blind and visually impaired, it would be such a wonderful thing - especially because without X, it would work on a really "slim" computer, and with Puppy, it would work on a fairly slim computer (with enough RAM to run X).

Hopefully yours,

djringjr

Caneri · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1569 Location: Canada

I also think this would be a mighty project for Puppy.

If anyone has a nack for doing a Puppy for the blind I will gladly host it and promote it to CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind).

So the gloves are off and the challenge has been made.. Wink

Eric

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4839 Location: Manila

There has been some discussion of Puppy for the blind here:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=19533

As to using the clipboard, xcut has been discussed by Barry.

Caneri · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1569 Location: Canada

I started to collect files for a Puppy for those with diminished eyesight or other limitations.

They are here http://puppylinux.ca/members/Pupspeak/

If someone finds more .pets/.pups or whatever let me know and I'll put them with the other files.

Thanks Raffy for the link to start from.

amigo · Joined: 02 Apr 2007 Posts: 2641

I found a fairly simple program for running commands using the voice. It's called cvoicecontrol. I don't have a .pet for it but you can get a Slackware package for it here:
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/amigolinux/download/Utils/cvoicecontrol-0.9/cvoicecontrol-0.9-i486-1.tgz

It's pretty simple to use and doesn't need X.

djringjr · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 156

Hello Eric - and others,

I'm using 3.01 right now. It would be amazing if someone could do the command line puppy with speech - that would mean that even a 486 with small ram could get on internet, read mail using a text or even telnet etc. If your blackness blind, you don't need an X server.

Thanks

David

Lobster · Posted: Mon 17 Dec 2007, 04:00 Post subject:

Sadly this was last released in 2004
but might offer some tips . . . Talking Linux for the Blind
http://www.ipsis.hr/gls/

djringjr · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 156

Lobster Thermometer on toast points, John you got me to a great page with links - and they have an alpha version with an iso that's still there.

http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_blind.html

Scroll down and you'll see the list of links.

Most of the distros have a cryptic message "Development Stopped!" -(

Oralux has an alpha CD iso image:
http://oralux.org/

You frisky shellfish, go man go!

David

Lobster · Posted: Mon 17 Dec 2007, 12:59 Post subject:

check out this virtual magnifier that might come in useful . . .
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=92466&search_id=2117377773#92466

Trobin · Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 975 Location: BC Canada

Jupter Speech Systems has an ISO that can be downloaded and run from a CD.

http://www.eklhad.net/linux/jupiter/

muggins · Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 6747 Location: hobart

http://swik.net/Orca

I wonder how easy it would be to port this, and whether it has gnome dependencies?

djringjr · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 156

Orca is the best of the bunch. It has synthesizers for English, German, Russian, Spanish - and more that I don't remember.

It should be simplified.One of the pages Lobster gave has a screen shot that you can either TAB down or cursor up/down.

Here is the link:
http://www.ipsis.hr/gls/demo/TLB_Demonstration.htm

It is simple -

WEB
MAIL
PLAY AUDIO
PODCASTS
EDITOR
COMMAND LINE
PREFERENCES
ADVANCED (emacspeak and other stuff ?)
QUIT SEEING EYE PUPPY

Orka has a command line ICQ.

Emacspeak is probably excellent - but the command list is very very long.

I can see a programmer using that, but not Mr. and Mrs. Computer User.

I tried to use LYNKS (text web browser) to access web http mail - won't work.

I like eLINKS which is in Puppy better.

What would be nice is to boot like ORCA does, then come to a very simple menu as the other distro had.

The user selects, WEB or MAIL and goes to a dialog:
PRESS 1 IF YOU WANT TO READ MAIL
PRESS 2 IF YOU WANT TO COMPOSE MAIL
PRESS ESC IF YOU WANT TO GO TO MAIN MENU

Have a script see if there is any unsent mail when ESC is pressed, and say: DO YOU WANT TO SEND YOUR UNSENT MAIL NOW? PRESS ENTER TO SEND ANY OTHER KEY TO EXIT.

Then have a "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO EXIT, PRESS RETURN TO EXIT ANY OTHER KEY TO GO TO MAIL MENU.

A blind user could slip the CD in, it would boot up with synthesizer, go to the simple menu.

They could navigate by keys.

It would be so excellent if it were simple.

Blind people could read google news (or other).

If there was a script when you selected WEB that asked "Do you want graphics browser or text browser" - you could incorporate DILLO or some lightweight browser.

If that were done, this version could easily be used by a six year old sighted or blind child - or an adult.

I don't have the training to execute a design - but I think what I have suggested here has a lot of possibilities for good for many people.

Be well,;

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA
Radio Officer, US Merchant Marine (Ret.)
Green Harbor, MA
USA
=30=
++++[url][/url]

Trobin · Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 975 Location: BC Canada

Tis project might be worth keeping an eye on.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4839 Location: Manila

orca screen reader source seems to be widely available. Anyone willing to compile this in Puppy? Must be a good gift. Smile

djringjr · Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 156

Hi Raffy,

I mentioned the ORCA screen reader above - it is really good - but it is very complicated to use. The easiest desktop to navigate is the "SPEAKEASY" desktop. The EMACSPEAK desktop is the most capable - but the commands are very very very complicated.

See my post above that mentions the ORCA iso - and below it I mention a simple screen - this is what has to be done.

It gives the new user a list to "tab down" or try different positions on the screen to find with a mouse.

One word command scripts should also be provided so the user can just type. web mail mp3 read edit radio skype icq.

Each command can go to the "next step" - like enter URL (must be spaced to speak it as U R L" otherwise it says EARL. Or for "mail" "press one for get mail" "press two for compose mail"

That's the way it has to go - maybe with the option of using X for Opera or Firefox - both can magnify text and pictures for poor sighted.

Thanks for the post.

Best
David