Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a blind student)

  • From: "Don Marang" <donald.marang@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:34:10 -0400

That's great news! I am not certain which packages this problem affected. I thought it was speech-dispatcher, and maybe a few others. Perhaps it has been resolved? Vinux is not perfect yet, but there is a growing number of of individuals working to get it closer! 


Don Marang
There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any real substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am working on things that matter. 
Dean Kamen


--------------------------------------------------
From: "DaShiell, Jude T.  CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" <jude.dashiell@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 1:51 PM
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for a blind student) 


Don,

I just got Vinux3.0 installed and operational and used aptitude to do
updates and upgrades and if what happened to me is any indication,
apparently aptitude honors apt-get's pins because the system after a
reboot once upgrades were done is still talking.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Marang
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 12:55
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for
a blind student)

I do not think you looked around enough on the vinux.org.uk site or any
of
it's mirrors.  The Libra live CD is just for those individuals and
institutions that have to worry about such licences.  Even if you choose
the
Libra edition, nothing stops you from checking multiverse and such in
the
Software Sources dialog and downloading any Ubuntu Lucid package.

If you look further down the download page, pastthe the first, download
link, you will find a few other editions.  There is the standard CD
sized
edition, which has EasyInstall icons on the desktop and in the menus for

installing groups of applications, like Graphics, Office, Multi-media,
and
OCR.  There is a special EasyInstall icon to for such Codecs.   I think
all
of the EasyInstall scripts are even available in the Libra edition,
possibly
with the exception of the Codecs script.

There is also a full featured DVD sized edition with all of those groups

installed plus some.  On the virtual site, there is also a
pre-configured
Virtual edition and an USB live edition with persistent storage.

Actually, the graphical update system should be avoided at this time.
There
aare a couple of packages that are pinned so they are prevented from
updating over a special stable version when using apt-get.  Currently,
the
graphical aptitude program does not honor these pinned packages and will

screw up the speech!  Therefore, stick to installing and updating with
'sudo
apt-get install package-name' until this gets figured out.

Don Marang

There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of any
real
substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I am
working
on things that matter.
Dean Kamen


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2010 9:40 AM
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions for
a
blind student)


Well, I tried to get it but never managed to get my pc to boot up with
it.  Tried using it on an old pc.  Heard you can install linux using a
serial cable and another pc as a terminal.  May try that some day.
Also, disturbingly, it seems someone has gone and made Vinux
completely strictly libra open source as in, won't download or install
anything not libra or open source.  Even edited the script file to
make it that much harder for you.  People have had a hard time doing
such mundane things as playing mp3 files with it because the media
player included only plays ogg files since they are open source and
mp3 is closed source.  This is making me want to stay away from vinux.
I want to be FREE yes, FREE, I said, to pick and choose whatever app
I want to install on my own machine.  If I want to, I'll install a
closed source, and if I want to, I'll install an open source.  I don't
want some system preventing me from exercising that freedom.  Perhaps
this is hearsay but if it's not, whoever implemented this policy is
just as bad as any closed source vendor they despise since they are
also restricting the end user's freedom in some way.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant that much.  I had to grab a dvd burning
software to open the iso file only to find out that it's probably not
all its cracked up to be.  This burning software appears to have
ruined my cd/dvd burner at home.  Stay away from img burn, btw.

Alex M

On 8/30/10, black ares <matematicianu2003@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

you can search for orca accessible applications.
There you will find the list.
Vinux is very beauty full, but still have the general linux problems,
problems that make me to stay away from it.
But, Vinux team has made a lot of efort to create a distro that is

very

suited for blind people.
Also it is a repaired one, more problems that I've encountered in the



grand
distros (fedora, ubuntu) disappeared from Vinux.
Mainly, the only problem I have with vinux is that, when I plug my

phones

on
to my laptop, the speakers don't get muted and I found no

configuration

to
do jack sense.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Midence" <alex.midence@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 12:35 AM
Subject: Re: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions

for

a
blind student)



I'd heard of Vinux but hadn't ever looked into it.  I'm enormously
intrigued.  I may create a live cd and try it out on an old pc I've
got in my tool closet just collecting dust.  Does there exist a
comprehensive list or, even a small one, of all the accessible apps
for Linux?  Any of them taht are just absolutely, in no way
accessible?  Any link would be appreciated.  Also, you are welcome

to

e-mail me privately so we don't spam the list with off topic stuff.
Thank for the link.

Alex M

On 8/30/10, Don Marang <donald.marang@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

If the only reason to install XP is to run SigWin, why not just

install

the
real thing?  Try Vinux, a blind friendly distribution of Ubuntu.

It

provides and configures several screen readers, like SpeakUp for

it's

consoles and Orca for the gnome GUI desktop.  It also has two
magnifiers.
The Vinux community is solving many of the Linux accessibility and
voice
stability issues.  It has a fully accessible installer that can

either

use
the entire internal drive or install side by side with Windows for

a

dual
boot configuration.  It can also run from a live disk, a USB pen

drive,

or a
Virtual Machine.

Check out
http://vinux.org.uk

I just added a bash script, speedy-ocr, to the Vinux repository

which

uses
the free tesseract or cuneiform OCR software to provide simplified
scanning
and performing OCR on any image file or files.

Don Marang

There is just so much stuff in the world that, to me, is devoid of

any

real
substance, value, and content that I just try to make sure that I

am

working
on things that matter.
Dean Kamen


--------------------------------------------------
From: "DaShiell, Jude T.  CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26"
<jude.dashiell@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 7:50 AM
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: programming on Windows (was RE: Any

support/suggestions

for
a
blind student)


Thank you very much for these resources, they may be useful at

home if

I
can end up installing Windows XP myself using screen narrator.

None

of
these resources will be useful at work since we work in a locked

down

software environment.  Anything not already approved for use costs
dollars and takes a year to get approved if everyone does

everything

right all along the line for the software approval.  That doesn't
always
happen either.  Screen readers for Linux do exist and the Mac has
VoiceOver but Linux has http://www.linuxspeakup.org/ and
http://speakupmodified.org/ among others to examine.  Screen

readers

are
like Center Fielders with catching gloves on both hands.  If right



field
is input and left field is output and center field are

peripherals,

and
interaction in that system is considered the ball, the interaction
between keyboard and computer is caught translated and spoken as

is

the
text going from computer to screen.  Sometimes done with sound

cards

and
hardware speech synthesizers any more these days once there was a

time

when the Screen Rover did it differently.  A camera was set up so

it

could capture the screen and O.C.R. was done on camera input which

was

converted to computer ascii and that ascii was then sent to a

hardware

screen reader.  Unfortunately screen rover went off the market

since

if
it hadn't blind people probably would been lots more effective

reading

more sites and not having to deal with all of these accessibility
issues.  The reason for me to install windows xp on a home

computer at

all is to perhaps install cygwin and/or mingw and djgpp utilities

and

see what type of unix-like development I can do successfully on

that

platform.  Since I can't do this at work, I'm willing to

experiment

with
a computer at home.

-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
arachna@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 17:45
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: programming on Windows (was RE: Any support/suggestions

for a

blind student)

I ran across the following post in the list archives by accident

when

searching for something with Google and it piqued my curiousity:
"DaShiell, Jude T. CIV NAVAIR 1490, 1, 26" wrote on 16 March 2010:

As I see it, Microsoft made two mistakes with Windows which until

they're corrected the best software for those
of us with no memory of vision to program for will be Linux in its
varied forms.

First, the command line interface was made into a very poorly

equipped

environment for software development.

Second, if someone does console-based development of software

within

Windows to my knowledge to date no xenity equivalents yet exist

for

any
supported software development package now running on Windows; I

would

love to be
corrected on this point if at all possible even if packages under
active
development are all that can be offered as suggestions.


Would dialog be a decent replacement for zenity on Windows?  I

have a

how-to on building dialog for OpenWatcom here:
http://www.openwatcom.org/index.php/Dialog_howto
It's very similar to build it on mingw and msys.  There are just a

few

less places to patches.  I can put together the mingw patch if

someone

needs it.

By the way, did a quick search of zenity and win32 to check if

someone

had ported it yet and ran across this:
http://www.placella.com/software/zenity/

I've been experimenting with the idea of using dialog with bash or



v8cgi
to create menus that will work in or out of X Windows on FreeBSD

and

Linux.  Since I like to program cross-platform, the menus would

work

on
Windows just as well.

There are at least 3 versions of bash I know of for Windows.

Cygwin,

djgpp and msys all have one.
Here's a stand-alone package based on Cygwin:
http://www.steve.org.uk/Software/bash/

The other tool I've been looking at for cross-platform scripting

that

I'm really starting to like is v8cgi:
http://code.google.com/p/v8cgi/
Syntax will be more familiar to C/C++ programmers than bash is.

Since I'm not a blind user, I've been wondering just how the

visually

impaired use console based tools.  Does the terminal emulator or

some

such software read the information out loud, because the programs
themselves usually don't add speech capability?  Read an example

on

the
INX list where someone used tee and sent the information to espeak

as

well as the menu.  I was wondering how hard it would be to add an
option
to dialog that sent the information it drew out to another program



like
espeak.  However, if a screen reader program already exists and

works

fine with dialog and other software, that would be a more general
purpose solution.

The other option I've been checking into is using the browser and
Javascript for the programming environment, but the one thing

still

lacking is being able to shell out to other local programs and use

the

results.  There are some work-arounds for this specific to

browsers,

but
I'm waiting to find out if a more portable solution becomes

available.

What I'd really like is a merge of a Javascript server side

language

like v8cgi with the ability to create an interface like a browser

can.

Of course, since it could do local file access, the Internet

access

part
should probably be shut off for security reasons.  The other

drawback

to
the browser approach is that relatively few console based or light
weight browsers fully support Javascript and css standards.

Would be curious to know what's lacking in the Windows console
environment for software development that's available in other
environments like Linux.  I use mingw and msys all the time for

quick

console development.  I use the DOS command prompt and have

customized

it to a way I'm comfortable with, but other options like Console 2

are

available and I believe Cygwin has a limited port of rxvt.  There

are

a
number of good compilers that work from console mode, including

mingw,

djgpp and OpenWatcom.  There are also some decent shell script
languages
such as bash if batch files aren't enough.  I haven't found any
information on ncurses working on Windows, but you do have

pdcurses.

I
also I read about a Windows port of vifm to Windows, so I would

guess

that means s-lang is available as well.

Couldn't resist discussing this topic even though the original

post

was
from some time ago.  I've been very interested in some of the

subjects

and would enjoy hearing other programmers viewpoints on them as

well.


Sincerely,
Laura
http://www.distasis.com/cpp
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