The Vinux Development Blog

Guess who's back?

2011-11-23T22:56:00.003Z

Hello.

My name is Mobeen Iqbal or Mo for short, and I have recently taken on the roll of Vinux project manager. As many of you may already know, on the 8th of October 2011 Tony Sales, the founder of Vinux announced that he would no longer be able to continue his involvement and work on the Vinux project. Any voluntary project can take up a lot of someone's personal time. Though we are all extremely saddened by Tony's departure, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank Tony for all his hard work both in starting Vinux and developing and maintaining Vinux releases. The amount of work and dedication he has poured in to Vinux is admirable. We wish him all the best for the future and welcome him if he wants to continue work on the project at a later time.

I would also like to thank everyone for the over whelming amount of support and encouragement on and off the Vinux lists which I have received to take on the roll of project manager over the last 5 weeks.

Though at times our mailing lists have been some what quiet, I can assure you I have been making my way around the Vinux teams, users and familiarizing
Myself. Rob Whyte is currently working on Vinux development and taking on the roll Tony was filling in producing updated Vinux releases. However, we are looking to have our build process automated very soon; this should make life a lot easier for people working on the project. I'd like to say a big thanks to Rob for his time in producing updates to our current stable release of Vinux, liaising with developers to iron out bugs and helping out all teams in general. I'd also like to say a huge thanks to Luke Yelavich, our Lead Tech who is currently spending hours of his time working on getting our new build process up and running.

Vinux is continuing to improve and we have not lost any drive or determination. We still have a small core of dedicated contributors who work on Vinux in their own time.
We have been conducting team meetings and they have produced a lot of good ideas and we have started to implement them. Some of the changes we hope to make over the coming months include:

We intend to start a blueprint Vinux project on Launchpad.
This will be a place where people can start an idea and others can follow the progress or provide feedback/suggestions for improvement.

We now have a Vinux Ventrilo server which is push to talk voice chat.
We are implementing an open door policy on our Ventrilo server where Rob and I plan to be available two nights a week for people to drop in and chat with us.

We are taking another look at Vinux media, such as CD's and USB pen drives as well as the possibility of T-Shirts, caps, mugs even stickers and are hoping to setup some kind of distribution network across the world so people can purchase media in their country of residents. We are also in the process of implementing a global contact scheme for users who need on the ground Vinux support.

We are setting up a Vinux YouTube channel so look out for videos being uploaded soon.
If you have a topic that you feel has not been covered or needs revisiting we welcome your input. Also if you would like us to cover a specific topic or provide a walkthrough for a specific app in a video, please don't hesitate to get in touch and we will see what we can do.

We still need more people to be a part of our various Vinux teams, if you have some time let us know what area you would like to contribute in and please
join up.
Although there is no pay, there are many rewards and all contributions how ever large or small are welcome and much appreciated. So far our teams consist of web development, testing, documentation, public relations and the development team.

We are looking in to implementing a donations system on the website.

We are also in the process of updating our user manual and switching to a new wiki platform which should be more intuitive and easier to navigate.

Hopefully over the coming months, we will be demonstrating Vinux at various exhibitions’ across the world, please keep an eye on our news page or on the email lists just in case we're in your area.

You can also buy Vinux computers or laptops, or have Vinux installed on your machine or pen drive for you. Although these services are only available in the UK at present, we are looking in to providing them internationally.

So, where is Vinux going, glad you asked!

Vinux 4.0 is our next long term support release, or referred to as LTS. This will be based on Ubuntu 12.04, and will use the Unity desktop instead of the gnome desktop. Our very talented lead tech Luke Yelavich has been working tirelessly to build a Vinux build process such as the one used by Ubuntu. This offers us many new features that our previous manual build process did not allow, such as extra language support and WUBI support so you can install Vinux to your computer and boot from it without partitioning your hard drive.

For those who are really not sure of Unity we will be having a Vinux 3.3 development build in preparation for Vinux 4.0, this will be for testing
and staging for the next LTS.

We will also be releasing an update to Vinux 3.0.1 shortly, V3.0.2 which is still based on Ubuntu Lucid.

The next 12 months should be an exciting time for us all. I'd like to thank everyone for their help and support. Both the various teams and developers working behind the scenes to keep the project alive and producing releases, and of course you, the users. Its you that make Vinux what it is today. With your input, Vinux will hopefully continue for years to come. Let’s make Vinux the number one distribution for anyone with a disability and have a great time while we're at it!

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish...

2011-10-08T12:10:00.001+01:00

I regret to inform you that due to serious personal/family issues that I would rather not discuss publicly I will be unable to continue working on the Vinux Project (or any other development project) for the foreseeable future, if ever. I am very sorry for all of the problems and difficulties this might cause but I am sure there is now enough of a community of developers to continue with the project without my personal help or advice. I think there are already other members of the development team who already have admin status for most of the lists, repos and websites etc. If there are any other resources and/or passwords etc developers need from me please contact me personally and I will help with any hand-over to the best of my ability. I will be disabling the vinux.org.uk server in a few weeks time when the current contract runs out. Once again I am very sorry to be making this announcement and would like to thank all of the people who have contributed to the Vinux Project over the years without whom it would just not of been possible. I believe the Vinux project will continue for a long time and will go from strength to strength, until hopefully all mainstream distributions are fully accessible...

drbongo (signing off)

A Tale of Two CD's:

2011-07-09T17:07:00.006+01:00

I haven't posted anything on the blog for months! Not because of a lack of interest, but because I have been so busy preparing for the release of Vinux 3.2 and rather surprisingly the release of Vinux 3.2.1 just a week or so afterwards. It has taken a lot of effort to adapt the Vinux Build Scripts to work with Ubuntu 11.04 'Natty Narwhal' and we have introduced a number of new packages and scripts. Vinux 3.2 was a cutting edge release featuring the latest versions of Orca and Speech-Dispatcher from the daily build repositories available as CD and DVD in both 32 and 64 bit editions. The DVD version provided the same software as the CD but with the addition of libreoffice and some non-free multimedia codecs etc. The default desktop was Classic Gnome 2.x but Unity was also available from the GDM login screen if your video card supports 3D. This release included the Pico TTS voices for the first time in addition to Espeak, the Epiphany Internet Browser and new built-in keybindings to quickly organise multiple windows with x-tile. It also featured some new packages including Orca-Teacher and Talking Clock. This version also played a system bell when the isolinux boot screen appeared allowing you to select different boot options including an experimental 'toram' mode. There was also a Vinux 3.2 PLUS edition which features lots of extra packages for partially sighted users. I also managed to fit more text tools on the CD edition including: sox gpm screen, splitvt, figlet, cmatrix, txt2html, html2text, pdf2svg, pstotext, units mc, trash-cli, vrms, dict, sc, htop, linuxinfo, w3m, elinks-lite, urlview, finch, axel, calcurse and tdl. However, Vinux 3.2 had a few bugs including: Selecting the Cicero speech synth would crash Orca and you would have to run: orca -t to reset everything back to the way it was. The x-tile keybinding to 'quad tile' open windows was set to 'win+alt+v' by accident - to correct the user had open the keyboard shortcuts manager and re-assign it to 'win+alt+q' - then the 'vertical tile' option would work as well (win+alt+v). The most serious issue was that Pulseaudio still crashed after boot on a small number of soundcards.

So because of these issues we have now released Vinux 3.2.1 - the main difference between this and the recently released Vinux 3.2 is that by default it boots with Pulseaudio running in 'user' mode rather than 'system' mode. This prevents pulseaudio from crashing at boot on a small number of sound cards, but it means that speakup is not available from the live CD or immediately after installation. However, there are now two simple commands for switching Pulseaudio from user to system mode in conjunction with a reboot of the machine. To switch to system mode and enable speakup, simply run: sudo pulsesystem - in a terminal and to switch back to user mode, simply run: sudo pulseuser - in a terminal. This new release also includes an accessible Zenity front end for Unetbootin which allows users to install Vinux to a USB pendrive with persistent storage. Users who have already installed Vinux 3.2 can upgrade to this version by simply running the following three commands in a terminal:

wget http://www.vinux.org.uk/script/upgrade_script.tar.gz

tar -zxvf upgrade_script.tar.gz

sudo ./upgrade.sh

There are two new scripts included in Vinux 3.2.1, usbinstall and cdburn. These are accessible scripts for installing Vinux to a USB pendrive, and for burning a CD/DVD then checking the md5sum of the burnt CD/DVD. They are still prototype scripts with no error checking so I have not included them in the menus yet, they must be launched by pressing alt+f2 and then typing usbinstall or cdburn - then pressing enter.

USBinstall - Instructions.

1. After launching the usbinstall script a zenity file selection dialog will appear. Use this to select the ISO you want to install to the pen drive.

2. Next you will be asked to enter the name/path of the USB pen drive. this will usually be something like /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc - the default entry is /dev/sd - so all you have to do is type one letter 'b' or 'c; etc and press enter. However make sure you provide the correct letter as you could potentially wipe a partition or hard drive if you use for example /dev/sda. The easiest way to find the correct letter is to run 'df' in a terminal after inserting the pendrive - it will be the last one in the list.

3. Now you must enter the size of the persistent storage file in MB - the default value is 9999 which will just use all of the available space (up to 10GB) but you can use less if you want to.

4. Next you must decide how many seconds you want to set the notification for - this will pop up an alert when the build has (probably) finished. the default setting is 1200 (20 minutes) which is a safe setting - if you reduce this there is a chance that when the notification goes off the installation will not have finished. There is no way for us to detect when the installation is finished yet - so this is just a guess, most installations take between 10-15 minutes, so set it for longer if you want to be extra safe.

5. You then have to enter your password and then press enter for the process to start. Do not disconnect the pendrive or make any changes to it until the notification appears. When you are told the process has finished press enter to quit the program, and then remove the pendrive.

CDburn - instructions

1. When you launch the application a Zenity file selection dialog will appear, use this to select the ISO you want to burn. The application will then calculate the md5sum of the ISO file.

2. Next you have to enter the path to the cd/dvd burner, if you only have one optical drive/burner this will be /dev/cdrom (which is the default entry) otherwise you will have to add the appropriate number e.g. /dev/cdrom1 or /dev/cdrom2 etc. Make sure the blank disk is in the drive before you do this.

3. The CD/DVD will now be burned. when it is finished the draw will eject (in most cases) and you will be asked to reinsert the CD and click OK. make sure you close the draw and let the CD/DVD spin up before you click OK (although I have built in a 30 second delay).

4. The application will now calculate the md5sum of the burnt CD/DVD and tell you whether the burn was successful or a failure. When you click OK the CD/DVD will be ejected (in most cases). Close the draw and click OK to exit.

The Two Towers: Unity and the Gnome Shell!

2011-03-16T18:32:00.008Z

In the aftermath of the release of 3.0.1 there has now been time for the dust to settle and I have been surveying the way ahead (does this make me Aragon?). We have achieved a great deal over the last three releases and I think we have done pretty much everything it is possible to do given the number of people involved and our dependence on upstream projects we can do little to influence. Vinux 3.0.1 is probably the most stable and accessible release we have made, in spite of the small number of people who have had problems with lack of sound or having a Mandarin voice variant by default. One of the areas where the most work is needed is with the performance of Orca with Firefox. This is a complex issue and will take a lot of work to sort out. The vast majority of this work lies with the Orca team who are also doing a great job given the small number of (volunteer) developers involved. Another area where Vinux/Linux Accessibility could improve would be the availability of a wider variety of voices, although I think much of this is down to what you are used to rather than which is the best voice - a very subjective issue. Unfortunately these are the least of my worries at the moment because we face an assault on accessibility of epic proportions from two sources in the very near future. In April Ubuntu will switch to the Unity desktop and Gnome will switch to the Gnome Shell with the release of Ubuntu 11.04 (The Nasty Narwhal?) and Gnome 3.0 respectively. Both of these desktops rely heavily on 3D technology and at the moment accessibility seems to be almost non-existent. There has been talk about Ubuntu making the system fall back to Gnome if there was no 3D acceleration but it seems that both Ubuntu and Gnome are now creating special 2D versions of Unity (using QT) and the Gnome Shell. Now although accessibility will improve over time this effectively means that the Gnome 2.x desktop is now dead in the water. Most distros will switch to the Gnome Shell and support and development for the existing desktop will wither away. So from April onwards there will be a major obstacle to the continued development of Vinux. Firstly it is likely that most of the existing buildscripts will have to be completely rewritten to work with Unity and the Gnome Shell (if that is actually possible), people without 3D accelleration may have problems running the lower priority 2D backup versions and as usual accessibility will have been put backwards several years and be playing catch up again - because of changes to the graphical system which have no benefits at all for a visually impaired user. On top of this, whilst the appointment of team coordinators has taken a significant amount of responsibility off my shoulders, we still don't have enough core developers working on the build scripts and it is simply too much work for one person to do, in addition to holding down a full-time job and trying to have a 'normal' family life (whatever that means!).

So we need to come up with a strategy for dealing with these issues. In terms of core developers I can see a solution of sorts. I need to recruit some apprentices so I can teach them the ways of the force, I mean bash scripting and how the whole process works. That way in time the workload of the core development can be shared; either by taking turns to make a release, working on different sections of the build process or even making completely separate versions or flavours of Vinux. So with this in mind I intend to work on a set of tutorials to explain how the buildscripts work and how all the contents of the Vinuxscripts repository fit together to create the final version. Having read this people can then decide whether they are willing and able to become a Padawan and learn the ways of Bash. That is the easy bit. More difficult is which way to go in the future. Do we stick with Ubuntu and see what Unity has to offer? Do we try out the Gnome Shell and see if that is any more accessible than Unity is? Do we try to keep Gnome 2.x on a life support machine for as long as possible while Unity and the Gnome Shell evolve? Do we try out other desktop environments like LXDE and XFCE and try to make them accessible? Do we stick with Ubuntu or switch to Mint, Debian Mint or just pure Debian? Do we switch to a rolling release model or stick with a reinstall every year or two? I have to say, my gut feeling at the moment is to jump to Debian and start investigating XFCE and the possibility of a Debian based rolling release. So I would ask you to have a good think about all of these issues and we will have another Vinux Conference on IRC at the end of the month to try and make some decisions about the direction we go in.

Vinux 3.0.1 Released!

2011-03-13T17:06:00.003Z

The Vinux 3.0.1 release based on Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS is now available for download. This combines all of the accessibility of Vinux 3.1 with the stability of Vinux 3.0 as well as a few completely new features. In addition to the existing three screen-readers (Orca, Speakup and YASR) this release also includes Emacspeak 'The Complete Audio Desktop' pre-configured and ready to go out of the box. You can now create audio books from text-based files using our exclusive Audiobook Converter package, browse our new HTML based Vinux Manual to help get you started, install the latest version of Libre Office using an EasyInstall script, and customise your desktop experience with Ubuntu Tweak. It is initially available as a 32bit CD, a 64bit CD, a 32bit DVD version and a 64bit DVD version (which both comes with Libre Office and non-free multimedia codecs pre-installed). The VMWare virtual edition, and a 32bit USB version will be available shortly. An upgrade script has also been released that allows people to upgrade from Vinux 3.0 to 3.0.1:

In order to update run the following commands in a terminal:

git clone git://vinuxscripts.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/vinuxscripts/vinuxscripts

cd vinuxscripts

sudo make install

sudo buildvinux

This will start the interactive Vinux buildscript which runs in a terminal, it will beep when it expects input from the user. I have tested this script on Vinux 3.0 and it upgraded without any issues, but if you have installed software which I haven't I cannot guarantee that it won't mess that up, so make a backup of everything before you upgrade. I know that the script works, but I am not sure how usable it is at the moment because of the amount of data which will be read out. Most of the questions are straight-forward - when emacspeak is installed you will have to select 'espeak' and then 'none' for hardware synths. When the script has finished running you should restart the computer and try out your shiny new Vinux 3.0.1 - I would like feedback on the usability of the script - I have also uploaded a simplified non-interactive version of the script to the mailing list which just asks for your username and doesn't install emacspeak.

One or two people have found that after the installation of 3.0.1 Orca and Speakup start talking gibberish. In fact it is trying to read English text in Mandarin. We do not know why this has happened, but we suspect that it is to do with a corrupted ISO, CD or a unreliable CD drive. If this happens you can fix Orca by opening the Orca Preferences Manager and selecting another voice. We recommend selecting the English(en) voice if you want the default voice. However, to fix Speakup you will have to run:

sudo rm -f /usr/share/espeak-data/voices/zh

This will delete the Mandarin voice, or try replacing and renaming the 'zh' voice file with your preferred voice from the /usr/share/espeak-data/voices/en/ directory.

As always we do not recommend that users update any packages after installing Vinux unless they have a very good reason to do so. Installing unnecessary updates can break your system and it may be very difficult or impossible to repair if you lose speech without performing a complete re-installation. Although not invulnerable to viruses and hacking, Linux is significantly more secure than Windows and unless you are running a server with open ports and/or installing packages from untrusted third party sources, you are unlikely to have any major security issues (although we obviously can't guarantee this). If you are running a server with open ports then you should install security patches when they are available, and if you really want to try a new version of a specific package then only update that individual package, don't just install all of the available updates. If you do decide to install updates despite this warning then please make a backup of your files and/or installation before doing so.

I will now be having a break from Vinux Development for a few weeks, which will give me time to reflect on how the project is going and in what direction it should take next. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this release...

Vinux Conference a Success!

2011-01-23T20:32:00.008Z

I am pleased to say that the online meeting to discuss the future development of Vinux took place last night and we had about thirty participants on and off, although some people had a few teething problems using IRC for the first time. It was decided that Vinux would continue to be based on Ubuntu for the time being, but that we would look into the possibility of building upon Debian Mint and/or Squeeze in the meantime, just in case Ubuntu 11.04 and/or the new Unity desktop and the Wayland Display Server cause any unexpected accessibility issues. Ten members of the Vinux Support/Development List were also duly elected as Team Coordinators: BuildScripts - Tony Sales, Software Development - Don Marang, Testing - Nimer Jaber, Website - Mobeen Iqbal, Publicity - Storm Dragon, Fundraising - Arianna Sepulveda, Documentation is shared by Nimer Jaber, Krishnakant and Merrill Woolnough, and we accepted offers for Translated Versions of Vinux from Kris (Dutch), Ferdinand/Joey (German) , Cleverson/Rui (Portuguese) and Burt (Spanish).

Vinux IRC Meeting Agenda:

2011-01-16T19:31:00.003Z

Event: Vinux Development Meeting
Date: Saturday 22nd January
Time 21:00 GMT
Location: irc.blufudge.net #vinux

Agenda

1. Development Roles

As always the main problem faced by the Vinux Project is the relatively small number of people who are willing and able to contribute in some way. I would like to recruit more people to help with development and try to formalise the different roles. As I see it there are six distinct roles, which could assigned to an individual or shared between a small team, and of course there is nothing to stop one person performing more than one role if they wish. The six roles are:

A. Build Script Team - Writing and testing the build scripts then producing the final releases of Vinux.

B. Software Development Team - Writing and testing new packages then adding them to the Vinux repository.

C. Testing Team - Testing individually assigned packages in the alpha,beta and release candidates and passing the feedback to the build script and/or software development team.

D. Translations Team - Creating Vinux isos in new languages once the build script is finalised and uploading them to the website and/or mirrors.

E. Website/Hosting Team - Maintaining the website, wiki, mirrors, mailing lists and publicity etc.

F. Documentation Team - Writing how-to articles for the Quickstart Guide and the Vinux Manual.

Initially we just need people to volunteer to be part of a team, and depending upon the number of responses we get, I would then like to appoint a member of each team as the coordinator of that team.

2. Which distribution should we base Vinux on?

This is another issue which crops up every year - should we stick with Ubuntu, or switch to another distro. Ubuntu offers many advantages such as hardware compatibility, but it has a very fast release cycle and is planning to make some major changes in its next release (Gnome>Unity and Xorg>Wayland) and we have no idea how this will effect accessibility. There are other distributions we could base Vinux on including: Debian, Linux Mint and PCLInuxOS - however the one that holds the most promise at the moment is Debian Mint. This offers the hardware detection of Ubuntu, with a rolling release based on Debian Squeeze, meaning once installed there shouldn't ever be a need to reinstall. So the question is: do we stick with Ubuntu, Switch to Debian Mint or develop both in parallel initially to see what happens. The answer to this will depend largely on whether we have enough people to support two versions or not, and of course whether people think this is a good idea or not.

3. Any Other Business

Captain's Log: Stardate 21122010

2010-12-21T18:50:00.004Z

We are at the end of another long year for the Vinux Project and we have managed to release Vinux 3.1 in all of its various forms before the new year. So now it is time to hang our developer's gloves up and have a good rest! So thanks to everyone who contributed to this release in whatever way they could, Vinux wouldn't be possible without a friendly, helpful community of people who all have the same goal: open-source accessibility for everyone. But as always, I am thinking about the future and trying to anticipate in which direction the project should go. So here are a few things for everyone to mull over during the holidays, which will roughly form the agenda for the online meeting I would like to hold in the new year, probably on our IRC channel.

Firstly, while the community has slowly grown over the last year, we are still painfully short of core developers who have the time and skill to keep the project going. Granted we now have lots of people who help out in a variety of peripheral ways such as; hosting vinux iso images, writing new packages, testing alpha and beta releases, answering queries on the support list etc. I am not going to name any names (in case I leave someone out) but you know who you are. However at the moment there are really only three core developers: Bill Cox, Mobeen Iqbal and myself who actually produce Vinux releases. Bill was the main driving force behind the Vinux 3.0 release, but due to health problems this year he has not been able to take a lead role in the latest release (although he still provided invaluable help and advice). Mobeen produces the VMWare Virtual Edition of Vinux and a special version of the USB Edition which can be installed to a pendrive from Windows, which are very popular with newbies who are afraid of messing up their Windows installations (with good reason). This means that I produce the final release of Vinux, create all of the different versions, upload them to the servers, update the website and then make announcements on the relevant mailing lists and forums etc. This may not sound like a lot, but given that I have a full-time teaching job and a family to look after, I can honestly say that I spend nearly all of my evenings, weekends and holidays working on Vinux to the exclusion of all other activities. Not that I am complaining or trying to be a martyr, I took on the responsibility when I started the project, but sometimes the pressure of having to work on Vinux instead of relaxing becomes overwhelming. So as always, here is my annual appeal for help!

There are lots of different ways in which people can help with the development of Vinux, irrespective of their skills and knowledge. I will now identify some roles that each and everyone of you can play in the Vinux project:

Testing - This basically means testing out alpha and beta versions of Vinux before the official release is made. Indeed many of you already provide feedback, but up to now it has been in a very haphazard way. We need to formalise the testing process with specific individuals identified to test specific packages and provide detailed feedback - not just X doesn't work. We will also need someone to coordinate the testing and feedback process, so we could do with a 'Testing Taj' to step foward...

Documentation - This is something that users of any level can do, you just have to document in detail how to use a particular package with Orca or Speakup etc. Again in the past this has also been fairly haphazard, but now that there is a specific repository for the Vinux Documentation Project this should become more coordinated, with individual users being asked to provide a guide to specific packages etc. Again we need someone to take responsibility for coordinating this, a 'Document Dictator' if you like...

Publicity - This means what it says on the can - making sure people find out about Vinux through mailing lists, forums, blogs and other websites etc, but without annoying everyone or being accused of spamming etc. The other important element to this role(s) is the need for realism. We can't make out that Vinux is the solution to everyone's computer needs - it offers advantages and disadvantages compared to other operating systems and we mustn't overblow our own trumpet as this will raise expectations, leading to inevitable disappointment for some users. Vinux isn't or probably won't ever be right for all VI computer users. So what we need is an 'Realist Reporter' to take on this role...

Mirrors - Providing mirrors on which to make Vinux available is of vital importance. Having mirrors around the world allows people to get Vinux from their nearest server, or at least provides options if one or other of the servers is down. We actually have a reasonable number of mirrors at the moment, but if you can host even one iso on server with reasonable bandwidth speeds (unlike mine) then drop us a line - we need more 'Mirror Mages'...

Website Management - This role(s) would require more technical competence than the previous two roles, as it would involve managing a website(s) and/or mailing lists etc making sure that all of the information is up to date and the iso images are available from the relevant mirrors. I would be happy to hand over this side of my responsibilities to other trusted members of the community as it would free me up to spend more time on the development side. So we need a 'Website Wizard' to step forward as well...

Package Development - There are already several people producing packages for Vinux and the wider Linux community, but this is an area were people can work relatively independently and produce packages which they think will be useful for themselves and others alike. The only communal element is uploading it to Launchpad, building the binaries and then providing technical support on the mailing list for users if required. If you have an idea for the next accessible application which will take the world by storm, then get coding. We need more 'Package Peasants'...

Distribution Development - This role probably involves the most responsibility and stress, but technically speaking it isn't as hard as you might first think. It requires a large amount of patience, determination, effort and time, but not that much intelligence - just a spattering of Bash scripting and a basic understanding of Ubuntu, the Gnome Desktop and the Accessibility software. So if you think you are a match for my determination and stupidity, then consider getting involved in this side of things. This is a role that can easily be split between different people, either taking turns to produce releases, or producing different versions of the same release. We need some 'Distribution Demons' as soon as possible...

Each if these roles could be taken on by a single individual or by a team of people, although each team would need a coordinator of some kind. So if you fancy playing a more active part in the development of Vinux please get in touch, privately if you prefer to discuss any concerns or anxieties you might have...

Now it's time to discuss the big issues which we have to face in the coming year:

The first issue is the proposed move from the Gnome Desktop to Unity in Ubuntu 11.04. This may or may not cause problems for screen-reader users. Luke Yelavich has been seconded onto the unity development team to make it accessible, which is a positive sign. But I feel Luke is always having to play catch up with decisions taken by Canonical in which accessibility isn't the highest priority. I suspect the motive behind switching to Unity is to give Ubuntu its own unique interface which will work well on netbooks and touchpads etc. So depending on how things develop we may have to adopt Unity and any limitations this has, or stay with the Gnome Desktop until Unity is usable.

Related to this is the question of whether we should stick with Ubuntu as the base for Vinux, switch to a different distro, or diversify and produce more than one version. Given the current lack of core developers, the third option seems unrealistic (unless some maverick decides to start producing their own version of Vinux) so that leaves us with the perennial 'Ubuntu or not' question. Ubuntu offers many advantages in terms of ease of use, hardware support and the size of the user community. On the other hand it has a very fast release cycle and I suspect it may have commercial motives in the long run and this may limit our freedom to release Vinux at some point in the future. There are other distros that offer similar features to Ubuntu e.g. Debian, Mint, Fedora etc, but they are also release based, meaning that the only safe way to upgrade is to install the latest version. On the other hand there are rolling release versions of Linux such as Arch, Aptosid and PCLinuxOS which can be kept permanently up to date without re-installation, but they are not easy to make accessible or remaster. The only viable option I could envisage using at the moment would be Mint Debian, which follows a rolling release based on Debian Testing, but also offers most of the features provided by Ubuntu, in addition to multimedia codecs etc.

Finally there is the issue of what features and packages we should and shouldn't include in Vinux. To some extent this is determined by the room on the iso image, but we could for example produce of lots of simple accessible tools using Zenity and Bash scripts (like Speedy-OCR) or plugins to existing applications (like Markup-Binder) that would make users live much easier - or should we encourage people to learn how to use the standard tools provided by Ubuntu or in the repositories?

Anyway this is just food for thought. Feel free to post your ideas and suggestions to the mailing list, we will have an online meeting sometime in the new year - probably towards the end of January when my student's examinations are all over!

Better Late Than Never!

2010-12-09T09:31:00.014Z

I am pleased to announce that Vinux 3.1 (Based on Ubuntu 10.10) is finally ready for download from the Vinux mirrors! It is currently available as a CD or DVD in both 32 and 64bit versions (USB and Virtual versions will follow shortly). It has been a long time coming, but hopefully it will be worth the wait. On top of all the usual accessibility software, new features include a Quick Start Guide for beginners (Ctrl+Alt+Q), Autokey-GTK which can insert text automatically as you type based on pre-defined abbreviations, the Parcellite Clipboard Manager which allows you paste text from the clipboard history, X-Tile which allows you to tile windows automatically, Gnome Media Player as an accessible front-end to VLC, Conkeror a keyboard controlled Web Browser, Pidgin the Internet Messenger (with all the plugins) and Gufw a simple but effective Firewall Manager.

Other additions include: Alarm Clock, a simple GUI for setting timed notifications, GtkHash an md5sum calculator, SearchMonkey an advanced search tool, Terminator which allows you to open multiple tiled terminals in one window, Tux Commander a dual-paned file manager with keyboard shortcuts, World Clock which allows you to monitor times in different locations around the world, Gcolor2 a simple GUI for selecting colours from anywhere on the screen, the Specimen Font Previewer, Dlume a simple address book manager, the ToDo List package, mhWaveEdit a simple sound recorder/editor GUI, Sound Juicer an audio CD ripper, FSlint a file system cleaner, Gtk-ChTheme a GTK theme previewer/changer, Scheduled Tasks a simple GUI front-end for cron and HardInfo a system profiler and system benchmarker.

There are also three new packages unique to Vinux available from the Vinux repository and/or the EasyInstall-Office and OCR scripts. These are: Markup-Binder written by Isaac Porat, which makes the creation of complex navigable documents a simple process (the new QuickStart Guide was created using this), another application is Speedy-OCR written by Don Marang, which is a simple GUI front end which allows you to scan in documents and convert then to text and/or speech. And last but not least is Monitor-Toggle written by Luke Yelavich which allows you to turn off your monitor to save battery power and maintain your privacy.

There are also some changes under the hood. We unfortunately had to remove YASR from this release as it was no longer working under Maverick, and in order to make room on the CD we also had to remove Samba (Windows File-sharing) and the Festival Speech Synthesiser, although these can easily be reinstalled after installation. The dynamic font-size/colour-theme changing scripts have been revamped so that the desktop background and desktop icons change colour as well, and we have gone with a dark theme by default, with the window controls in the traditional top-right corner position. In addition there are now both desktop icons and menu launchers to take users straight to the Vinux website and the support/development groups.

Now for the bad news. I have already found a small bug in the latest release - however it is unlikely to affect the majority of users and there is a very simple workaround for those who are affected. Because of a minor typing error in one of the build scripts (I used a lowercase 'u' instead of an uppercase 'U' - I was tired!) the keybinding (Shift+Windows+Alt+Up) which was supposed to modify the multimedia keybindings in the event of the sound card being muted wasn't enabled. The workaround is simply to press Alt+F2, type 'volume_keys' (without the speech marks) then press Enter, then press Alt+Y and Enter again. Now you can use Windows+Alt+Right to unmute and raise the system volume. Of course, I also managed to provide completely the wrong keybindings for the new multimedia volume controls in the keybindings.txt file as well, just to confuse matters (I did mention I was tired didn't I?). So to clarify, once you have activated the new multimedia keybindings (should you need to) you should use Windows+Alt+Right/Left to raise/lower the volume and Windows+Alt+Down to mute/unmute the volume. My OCD Demon is now muttering away about the fact that I should remaster Vinux 3.1 to eliminate this stupid error, otherwise the world will probably end. On the other shoulder my Sanity Angel is reminding me that I really need a good rest and if this is the only bug it has I should count my blessings and rejoice!

To be continued...

Vinux: The Third Generation!

2010-05-31T22:32:00.001+01:00

On behalf of the whole Vinux community I am happy to announce the 3rd release of Vinux - Linux for the Visually Impaired, based on Ubuntu 10.04 - Lucid Lynx. This version of Vinux provides three screen-readers, two full-screen magnifiers, dynamic font-size/colour-theme changing as well as support for USB Braille displays. Vinux is now available both as an installable live CD and as a .deb package which will automatically convert an existing installation of Ubuntu Lucid into an accessible Vinux system! In addition, we now have our own Vinux package repository (from which you can install our customised packages with apt-get/synaptic) and a dedicated Vinux IRC channel. In the very near future we will also be launching a Vinux Wiki and releasing special DVD, USB and Virtual Editions of Vinux 3.0!

The Day After Tomorrow!

2010-04-04T19:48:00.002+01:00

Unlike in the ecological disaster movie of the same title, the future for Vinux is looking very good! We are now approaching the release of the next version of Vinux, the third major release and there have been a whole host of bug fixes and new features included. The most significant change this time around is that the development is being led by Bill Cox instead of myself. This has been a positive move for two reasons: A. Bill's skills and knowledge of Bash Scripting, Gnome Accessibility and the inner workings of the Linux operating system far exceeds mine (I have never pretended to be anything other than an enthusiastic and dedicated amateur, who makes progress through trial and error - but mainly error!). And B. This means I have been able to sit on my fat arse and watch NCIS sometimes in the evenings instead of spending every waking moment hacking!

Bill has now sorted out most of the bugs that prevented us from using Ubuntu as the basis for Vinux in the 2nd series: i.e. the lack of responsiveness and stability when using Orca, and most of the problems which were caused when using packages which required root permissions. Bill has modified the PulseAudio sound server to run in system mode and channeled all of the speech software; Orca, Speakup and Yasr to use Speech-Dispatcher and Espeak, which provides a seamless user experience when shifting between the three screen-readers. He has also reintroduced Compiz magnification in addition to the Orca magnifier which was left out of the second series based on Debian. Apart from the improvements to the accessibility of Vinux, there are also some new features such as EasyInstall scripts - icons on the desktop and in the menus which allow a user to install suites of packages such as Open Office or the Non-Free Multimedia Codecs with one click! We are also toying with then idea of including the Pcmanfm file manager which offers a much more responsive performance than the default Nautilus file manager. This edition will also see the reintroduction of the core CLI applications and the customised Bash aliases that were introduced in the Vinux 2.1 CLI editions. Of course the main advantage of switching back to Ubuntu is the improved hardware compatibility it offers especially for wireless connectivity which was always a problem with the Debian based 2nd series. While Bill has done most of the hard work other members of the mailing list have of course helped and supported Bill by submitting scripts or ideas, testing the alpha and beta editions or just providing moral support. So thanks to everyone who has contributed, I am not going to mention individuals in case I miss someone out.

Apart from the forthcoming release itself there have also been other significant developments. We have now been offered several more mirrors to host Vinux Iso images on, and we plan to launch a new Vinux Wiki, Forum and IRC Chat channel alongside the release of Vinux 3.0 - so a special thanks to everyone involved in this process, taking on these responsibilities allows Bill and myself to concentrate on the development process. Perhaps the most significant development is the creation of a more mature Vinux Build Script and a Vinux package repository on Launchpad which allows anyone to turn a standard install of Ubuntu Lucid into a Vinux-like system. David Knight created the first Vinux build script, and this simplified the process somewhat, I then mutilated David's scripts to create the first CLI editions of Vinux, but Bill has taken this to a whole new level. Instead of being a single script with a few data files, Bill has created four separate scripts, three of which are used to turn an installed system into Vinux, the fourth to remaster the installed system and create a new Iso image. This means that nearly anyone can have a fully accessible system, without having to download and install Vinux, as long as they start with a default Ubuntu Lucid installation. The scripts are now hosted on SourceForge using Git so that other developers can get involved in the process. I managed to get the hang of it in a few hours (with a little coaching from Bill) so it can't be that hard - but you do have to know what you are doing if you don't want to destroy all of Bill's hard work!

Ubuntu will be releasing the 2nd Beta version of Lucid on Thursday and a Release Candidate on the 22nd April, The final release of Ubuntu 10.04 is planned for the 29th April and unless there are any unforeseen catastrophic bugs Vinux 3.0 should be released in the 1st week of May.

The Future's Bright - The Future's Orange!

2010-02-16T22:33:00.001Z

Over the last few weeks Bill Cox has made significant progress on fixing the problems caused by PulseAudio in Ubuntu. Some of these fixes have actually been ported back into the development of Ubuntu and at the moment it looks like this will provide a very responsive and stable accessibility experience. Although it is not quite as snappy as Orca with Alsa on Debian, it is very close and Ubuntu of course offers much better hardware compatibility. Coupled with the fact that Remastersys doesn't yet support Squeeze and it is very likely that the final release of Squeeze may be delayed even further, it looks like we will initially be going with an Ubuntu-only version for Vinux 3.0! This will also provide a simpler installation process, a USB installer and WUBI support. I have spent the last few days working out how to built up the iso from scratch starting with the mini.iso, so that it contains all of the necessary files but still fits on a CD. If there are no nasty surprises ahead then this will become the first LTS version of Vinux with three years support and updates. Bill has also created a Vinux repository so we will be able to provide patches, updates and Vinux specific packages through synaptic and/or apt-get. There will also hopefully be a DVD sized 'Leviathan' edition which will contain lots of extra packages, but it may not be possible to provide a pure CLI version as the Ubuntu version of Remastersys requires a GUI to work. The main release will however come with speakup and a basic range of CLI applications pre-installed. So I would like to thank Bill for all of the hard work he has done, as well as everyone else who has contributed to the development process by submitting fixes, suggestions and/or feedback.

New Year's Resolution: 2010x365!

2010-01-10T14:45:00.000Z

So what does the new year hold for Vinux? Well I have just started work on version 2.0 of the Vinux build script which will allow the user to create a CLI, GUI or HYB(rid) version of Vinux from a standard Debian installation. It will allow you to choose between nine pre-configured builds or create your own unique customised version. The pre-configured builds include CLI, GUI and HYB versions of the 'dna', 'std' and 'max' editions. The main release of Vinux will be based on the HYB 'std' version providing a basic range of both CLI and GUI applications. Obviously the 'max' edition of the GUI and HYB versions will be DVD sized images, the HYB version containing all of the required, recommended and additional packages in the Vinux suite. The next release will be Vinux 2.2, which will probably be the last version of Vinux based on Debian Lenny (5.03). Once Vinux 2.2 is released and any bugs fixed I plan to start working on the Debian Squeeze version (Vinux 3.0) using the same scripts which will provide better hardware support and new versions of Gnome, Orca and Open Office etc. There is a lot of work to do and I estimate it will take me at least a month to get the script into a state were I can start making test builds - I hope to have Vinux 2.2 out by Easter if possible.

However that is only part of the story. There are of course other members of the Vinux Development Group who are working on their own sub-projects. Bill Cox is now working on a version of Vinux based on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. He is trying to resolve the latency and stability issues caused by the PulseAudio sound system and seems to be making very good progress. This means that there will hopefully be two versions of Vinux 3.0 - a Debian based version and an Ubuntu based version which will provide users with a choice between stability and cutting edge packages/features. Mobeen will keep producing the VMWare virtual editions of Vinux, and is considering setting up his own website/hosting platform and a Vinux User Forum to differentiate between the needs of users and developers. David Ring will hopefully be producing USB versions of Vinux and possibly a special CLI version based on INX. Don Raikes is working on some scripts with dialog front-ends to ease the process of partitioning, formatting and imaging hard drives, as well as a Vinux installer and possibly a specialised forensics version of Vinux. I am also hoping that David Knight will be able to contribute to the Vinux build script again once his work and family responsibilities allow him to. I hope I haven't missed anything or anyone out!

Linux Distro Review 2009!

2009-11-28T15:11:00.001Z

I have spent the last week trying out ten of the most popular Linux distros both as live CD's and as installed systems on both desktop and laptop computers. Here is a brief summary of my findings so far:

The distribution with the best accessibility out of the box was without doubt Adriane Knoppix 6.2 which is a special edition of Knoppix aimed at visually impaired users. It provides a simple menu driven console session by default using the espeak voices with the SBL console screenreader. This provides a choice of popular activities such as internet browsing, sending e-mails and file-management etc. If the user wants to use standard GUI tools then they can start an LXDE desktop session using Orca. You are then able to navigate the menus and use most of the GTK based applications and Compiz can be used as a screen magnifier if your video card supports 3D. However, if you know what you are doing Fedora, Open Solaris, OpenSuse and Ubuntu all offer Orca, Magnification and Braille support as long as you are able to enable and configure it yourself.

The best looking distribution was a close call between Fedora, Mandriva and Open Solaris, which all had very eye-catching, modern looking desktop and window colour schemes. I felt that Fedora 12 just pipped the others as everything just seemed to work together really well: the icons, window borders and the wallpaper etc. This is of course the most subjective judgement and isn't really of much interest to visually impaired users.

The best distribution for beginners is still Ubuntu 9.10, although Fedora, Mandriva and OpenSuse are all catching up very quickly. The killer feature is Ubuntu's hardware detection and compatibility which just seems to be able to handle any hardware I can throw at it. It also offers to download multimedia codecs for you if you try to play an unsupported format, which seems to be one of the hardest things for beginners to get their head around.

Puppy Linux 4.31 came top in three different categories: best live distribution, best performance on old computers and best distribution for netbooks. Puppy is a very small distro (about 100MB) that runs entirely in the ram. It provides a wide range of desktop tools and works on a wide range of hardware. As a live distribution it is much faster than any other distro, and it allows you to remove the CD once booted, which allows you to burn CD's or play DVD's etc. Puppy supports all popular multimedia formats out of the box and even plays commercial DVD's. Because it runs in the ram it is also excellent on old computers and netbooks where system resources are minimal. It supports most popular netbook models out of the box and is the only distro I would ever consider using on a netbook. If it was accessible it would also have been the best overall distribution and my favourite distribution.

The distribution which wins the title of worst all-round distribution is GnuSense 2.3 , although this is primarily because it only includes open-source software that is free in the strictest sense of the word. This means that you get very few hardware drivers and no restricted multimedia codecs either installed or provided in the repositories. While this may be the purest distribution around it means in practise there will be many things you cannot do without a lot of fiddling.

OpenSuse 11.2 takes the title for best distribution for power-users and best all-round distribution. Without doubt this distribution has the best selection of tools installed by default, very good accessibility support once installed and configured and its most impressive feature is it compatibility with Microsoft networks which would make it the only choice for someone wanting to integrate fully with a Windows network. OpenSuse has come on a long way since last time I tried it and it would have also been my personal favourite but for one feature it doesn't currently offer.

So my personal favourite (as a sighted user) is Ubuntu 9.10! It provides a very easy to use system, a good selection of desktop packages out of the box and of course excellent hardware detection and support. However it does not provide the number of tool and packages that OpenSuse provides by default and the single feature that makes it my favourite over OpenSuse is that you can easily remaster Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Customisation Kit or Remastersys, while OpenSuse only offers an online distribution build service which you are not allowed to distribute without removing all the logos etc. For me, being able to remaster a distribution, either for your own use or for public distribution is absolutely essential. This is because I don't want to have to install a system on multiple computers and have to configure them each manually, and it is the easiest and most efficient way to create a new distro. If you don't want to do this i would strongly suggest you consider using OpenSuse 11.2!

I haven't compared these distribution to Vinux or Debian, because I don't want to be accused of bias, but if anyone would like compare what Vinux and/or Debian have to offer then please post your reviews to the mailing list.

Last minute addition!

I have just had a look at the latest Linux Mint 8.0 which is based on Ubuntu 9.10 - obviously it uses pulseaudio and has the same kind of problems as Ubuntu 9.10 as regards accessibility - although I am planning to do an experiment and see if remastering from the live CD with pulseaudio disabled allows me to make a remaster which uses alsa by default. I will let everyone know if this works - or whether this causes other problems - the only problem I have noticed so far is the master volume control doesn't work - but alsamixer does anyway. Apart from that Linux Mint has two distinct advantages over Ubuntu - firstly it comes with all of the restricted codecs installed by default so mp3, flash and wma files etc should just play (I don't think it will play encrypted DVD's) and secondly its cool minty theme of black and green just looks so good it makes a mac look plain! So if you want to recommend Linux to any sighted friends or relatives I would recommend Linux Mint 8.0 as a real showcase for linux - the hardware just works, you can play all your existing multimedia files and it looks amazing! I have just installed it on a machine at work with a dual monitor setup and everything just worked out of the box and it just looks so cool.

To be or not to be?

2009-11-19T18:59:00.000Z

On the 28th November Vinux will be one year old! We have made it through the most difficult period as many projects fail within the first 3 to 6 months. I think we have made reasonable progress in this time although there is still a long way to go before we have a stable, easy to use product. However, as always I like to evaluate everything I do and try to identify strengths and weaknesses, in order to improve things. The first few releases of Vinux (Vibuntu) were very easy to install and configure, but the speech was unstable and unresponsive. When we moved to Debian the stablility and responsiveness of the speech improved but at the cost of less hardware compatibility and a more complex installation process. More recently the release of a CLI editon brought even more stability and responsiveness in the form of speakup, although this was aimed more at intermediate and advanced users. I am hoping that the switch to Debian live-helper from remastersys will bring us improvements to the installation process and the performance of the live CD in the near future. So for me this is a time to step back from the development process and try to get an overview of what we have achieved and where we are going.

The first question has to be is there really a need for Vinux, and if so how well does Vinux meet those needs in comparison with other solutions? So do we really need a distribution aimed at visually impaired users, or should we be encouraging the big developers to make their distributions accessible to all? I personally think that it would be better for everyone if the big distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse did take the accessibility issues more seriously, but the reality is that like their commercial counterparts their main market is the sighted mainsteam user. So at least in the short term it seems a Vinux type distribution is required especially for new users. I suspect when and if Linux gets into the education system, then they will be forced to cater for students with a variety of disabilities and the support contracts will make it worth their while to meet these needs. Of course the strongest argument for an open source solution is the extortionate price of accessibility software for a group who are generally economically disadvantaged, even more so in the third world.

So assuming that a specialist open source distribution is needed at least in the short term, then how does Vinux compare with other solutions. Well there aren't really many distributions that are targeted at VI users, the only active project that springs to mind is Adrianne Knoppix, the Oralux project was abandoned although there are one or two localised distributions for example 'Blindbuntu' which is a Czech language distribution. However Adrianne Knoppix takes a very different approach to Vinux. The last time I checked it provided a menu driven console interface, a little bit like INX and GRML. This provides a series of choices for sending e-mails, editing text or surfing the internet. In fact I think the LinuxSpeaks project takes a similar approach. I have tried to avoid this approach with the CLI edition because although I want it to be as easy as possible to use, I want users to learn to use the console by typing commands and navigating ncurses interfaces etc, Similarly in the GUI edition I want everything to work out of the box, but I want the user to learn how to use Linux in the process. Once they are confident with how Vinux works, ideally they should be able to move onto any Gnome based distribution and configure it to their tastes. So I expect Vinux users to be tourists who will use Vinux to get their feet wet, and open the doors to the wider Linux world.

So now comes the difficult question: Just how many people have tried Vinux and how many people are actually using it? It seems that quite a lot of people have tried Vinux if the web statistics are to be believed. There have been approaching 4000 downloads of Vinux through the Softpedia portal and several thousand through the officail website. However many of these downloads will be the same people downloading the new versions as they are released. So for the sake of argument let's say that at least 1000 people have tried Vinux. Of those many, say 50% will find it too difficult to use and go back to Windows. Lets say another 25% manage to get it working but wouldn't consider installing it to their hard drive, but maybe use it as a live CD or USB recovery stick etc occasionally. Of the remaining 25% I imagine half of them (12.5%) tried to install it but ran into problems of some sort - either difficultly partitioning the drive(s) or hardware incompatibility e.g. unsupported wifi chipset.

This leaves us with 12.5% who might have been able to install it to their computers without any difficultly or hardware problems. Of which I imagine at least half would only see it as a backup system or novelty learning tool, not a primary working system. So there may be 6.25% who do consider Vinux to be a serious working as an alternate or additional tool, of which maybe a fifth may actually ditch Windows and use Vinux and/or Linux as their primary operating system, in other words about 1.25% of the original estimated 1000 users: Twelve and a half people in the world actually using Vinux as their main OS. (This only makes sense of course if we assume one of these users is either a midget or extremely fat). Ironically I am both short and fat, so perhaps that accounts for the mathematical anomaly. Which only leaves eleven.

So based on those purely theoretical and fairly conservative estimates is it worth while me putting in all of the energy and time it takes to make Vinux? Sometimes I feel like I am doing this for an imaginary audience, and no one is really interested in Vinux or Linux for that matter. In the UK and the USA it seems that Microsoft rules supreme and no-one outside of a Star Trek convention has ever heard of Linux let alone tried it. I also get frustrated at my own lack of knowledge and skills: I am self-taught, as you can probably tell and make progress by just trying things and seeing if they work. More often that not it doesn't but when it does I get a great sense of achievement. However, because of my lack of knowledge I can't solve the really big problems like the stability of speech-dispatcher or the inaccessibility of some applications etc. So sometimes I get very frustrated when I just can't seem to make any progress. It is at times like this that I sometimes question why I am doing this. My life would be a lot simpler and more relaxing if I didn't make Vinux. I could just use whichever distro I fancied, or make my own customised distro for myself, or even a mainstream distribution for sighted users - that would be so easy to do, because putting together a distribution without having to take account of accessibility would be a walk in the park! On the other hand then it would just be another distribution amongst many and there is no reason why mine would be any more attractive than anyone elses. Of course I could get really lazy and just use a distro out of the box, install what ever applications I wanted and configure it and leave it at that, but I do like to twiddle, and it was frustration at having to reconfigure a system everytime you upgraded or tried a new distribution that got me into making remasters in the first place. The first remaster ever made was a bumper edition of Ubuntu using the Ubuntu Customisation Kit, and the first one I released to the public was DingoPlus, a version of Puppy Linux 4.0 modified for use on the Asus Eeepc 701 - which I am still using today!

So it is over to you - how many people are actually using Vinux as a serious operating system? Am I wasting my time? Do we really need Vinux? What is the best alternative currently? How does Vinux compare to Windows and Mac? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life and was there a third shooter on the grassy knoll? I am planning to have a break from Vinux development this weekend and have a play with lots of different distributions and then write a review of their pros and cons from both a sighted and VI perspective. A penny for your thoughts!

Debian Live Helper v Remastersys!

2009-11-15T20:15:00.000Z

I have spent this weekend trying out the Debian live-helper package this weekend. It is the official package for creating Debian live CD's and is used to produce all of the different versions: Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Lxde and several CLI versions. It can provide a standard Debian installer or a Live CD installer which copies the live system to the hard drive. This tool provides a lot of options not available with remastersys such as a choice of syslinux or grub (on the CD), several pre-defined package lists for a Gnome desktop or KDE desktop etc. It allows you to pretty much change any aspect of the Live CD. The one thing is does not allow you to do easily is to change the user settings, to provide accessibility out of the box. In order to do this you have to boot the iso, make the changes manually and then copy the user area to /etc/skel, which is what I already have to do with remastersys. So in this sense there is no advantage over remastersys, as the changes either have to be done manually or by a script anyway. So on the one hand the Debian Live helper offers a lot more options than remastersys, but still requires a manual configuration. So the easy option would be to stick with remastersys because the script is already well developed and relatively simple to use. However in the long run, once the config files are created for Debian Live Helper it would become a lot easier to use and offer many improvements in functionality etc. This is a tough one! On the one hand I really want to go with the simplest option, but if I could get the Debian Live Helper configuration sorted out this would give a more powerful and sustainable solution. Maybe I will persevere with Live Helper for a few more days and see if I can get the user settings sorted out...

Vinux 2.1 Leviathan Edition!

2009-11-09T14:43:00.003Z

I am happy to announce the release of Vinux 2.1 Leviathan! This is a monstrous hybrid of the Vinux CLI max edition, the standard GUI edition and a wide range of additional applications including Open Office 3.0, the Evolution mail client, the Inkscape vector graphics package, the Scribus desktop publishing tools, the Bluefish webpage editor, the Gambas 2 IDE as well as much more. Obviously not all of these extra tools are accessible to speech/braille users, but partially sighted users can access them with the screen magnifier. This is a very large iso (1.7GB) so you will need a reasonably fast broadband connection to download it. The URL's are:

http://vinux.org.uk/iso/Vinux-GUI-leviathan-2.1.iso
http://vinux.org.uk/iso/Vinux-GUI-leviathan-2.1.iso.md5.txt

I didn't originally intend to release this for public use, it started out as an attempt to create a personalised version of Vinux for my own use. Then as it came together I began to think that other people may want to use it as well! I created it using a hastily modified version of the CLI build script which starts with the standard 2.0 GUI version, adds all of the CLI tools and utilities included in the CLI 'max' version and well as a large number of useful GUI applications that I use on a regular basis. I then had to do a little manual configuration before remastering it to DVD. It turned out to be an interesting little project that I managed to complete in one weekend. Now the hard bit - merging the CLI and GUI build scripts so that it is possible to make either version or even a hybrid GUI/CLI edition using the same script...

Vinux 2.0 CLI Edition Categorised Package List!

2009-10-25T17:16:00.003Z

This document contain a categorised list of packages included in the Vinux 2.0 CLI Edition. There are nine main categories and thirty eight sub-categories containing five hundred and sixty eight packages in total. This is not an exhaustive list: there are one thousand three hundred and seventy nine packages on the disk in total, five hundred of which are library files. The packages listed here are the command line applications which perform common desktop functions.

1. Console Tools

a. Accessibility

brltty Access software for a blind person using a braille display
espeak A multi-lingual software speech synthesizer
gtypist A simple ncurses touch typing tutor
speakup-modules-2.6.26-2-686 speakup modules for Linux
speakup-source Source of the speakup kernel modules

b. Screen Utilities

away A terminal locking program
conspy Remote control of Linux virtual consoles
dvtm Tiling window management for the console
fbgrab Framebuffer grabber
screenie a small and lightweight GNU screen(1) wrapper
screen terminal multiplexor with VT100/ANSI terminal emulation
scrot command line screen capture utility
splitvt run two programs in a split screen
ttyrec Terminal interaction recorder and player (for tty)
vlock Virtual Console locking program
xvfb Virtual Framebuffer fake' X server

c. Shells

bash The GNU Bourne Again SHell
dash POSIX-compliant shell
ksh The real, AT&T version of the Korn shell
python An interactive high-level object-oriented language
sash Stand-alone shell
zsh A shell with lots of features

2. Editors

a. Emacs

apel portable library for emacsen
artist Emacs Lisp drawing package
dictem Dict client for emacs
edb database program for GNU Emacs
elscreen Screen for Emacsen
emacs-goodies-el Miscellaneous add-ons for Emacs
emacs The GNU Emacs editor (metapackage)
emms The Emacs MultiMedia System
erc an IRC client for Emacs
nethack-el Emacs major-mode for playing NetHack

b. Misc Editors

aee An easy to use screen-based editor
diakonos Customizable, usable console-based text editor
e3 A very small editor
ed The classic unix line editor
elvis-console powerful clone of the vi/ex text editor (without X11 support)
hexcurse A ncurses-based hex editor with many features
hnb hierarchical notebook
info Standalone GNU Info documentation browser
jed editor for programmers (textmode version)
joe user friendly full screen text editor
less Pager program similar to more
lv Powerful Multilingual File Viewer
most Pager program similar to more and less
nano free Pico clone with some new features
ne Nice Editor, an easy-to-use and powerful editor
tweak an efficient hex editor
vile VI Like Emacs - vi work-alike
wordgrinder a simple word processor that runs in a terminal
zile very small Emacs-subset editor

c. Vim

vim-addon-manager manager of addons for the Vim editor
vim-scripts plugins for vim, adding bells and whistles
vim-tiny Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor - compact version
vim Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor

3. Entertainment

a. Audio

abcde A Better CD Encoder
alsaplayer-text PCM player designed for ALSA (text version)
beep advanced pc-speaker beeper
bplay Buffered audio file player/recorder
cdda2wav Dummy transition package for icedax
cdparanoia audio extraction tool for sampling CDs
cmus lightweight ncurses audio player
cplay A front-end for various audio players
cutmp3 a small and fast command line MP3 editor
cw Command-line frontend to unixcw
cwcp Ncurses frontend to unixcw
flac Free Lossless Audio Codec - command line tools
icedax Creates WAV files from audio CDs
id3ed Another id3 tag v1 editor
id3v2 A command line id3v2 tag editor
madplay MPEG audio player in fixed point
morse Morse Classic' is a morse-code training program
mp3blaster Full-screen console mp3 and Ogg Vorbis player
mp3c MP3Creator - Creator for MP3/OGG-files
mp3rename Rename mp3 files based on id3tags
mp3report Script to create an HTML report of MP3 files in a directory
mp3splt Splits MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files without reencoding
mp3val A program for MPEG audio stream validation
mp3wrap Utility for MP3 wrapping (rolling multiple MP3s into one)
mpg123 MPEG layer 37653 audio player
mpg321 mpg123 clone that doesn't use floating point
normalize-audio adjusts the volume of WAV, MP3 and OGG files
pmidi A command line midi player for ALSA
vlc-nox multimedia player and streamer (without X support)
vorbis-tools several Ogg Vorbis tools
yatm Command line audio file player with time stretching capabilities

b. Games

angband A single-player, text-based, dungeon simulation game.
asciijump Small and funny ASCII-art game about ski jumping
bsdgames a collection of classic textual unix games
bsdgames-nonfree rogue, the classic dungeon exploration game
crawl Dungeon Crawl, a text-based roguelike game
dosemu The Linux DOS Emulator
empire the war game of the century
fortune-mod provides fortune cookies on demand
freesweep text-based minesweeper
frotz interpreter of Z-code story-files
megahal conversation simulator that can learn as you talk to it
nethack-console Text-based overhead view D&D-style adventure game
nethack-spoilers Spoiler files for the Nethack adventure game
ninvaders A space invaders-like game using ncurses
omega-rpg A text-based roguelike game
sillypoker A poker game
slashem A variant of Nethack
sudoku console based sudoku
tome A single-player, text-based, dungeon simulation game.
zangband A single-player, text-based, roguelike game

c. Graphics

aewan ASCII-art Editor Without A Name
aview A high quality ASCII art image viewer and video player
bb ASCII-art demo based on AAlib
boxes Textmode box- and comment drawing filter
caca-utils text mode graphics utilities
cadubi Creative ASCII Drawing Utility By Ian
cmatrix simulates the display from "The Matrix"
cowsay A configurable talking cow
dialog Displays user-friendly dialog boxes from shell scripts
figlet Frank, Ian & Glenn's Letters
francine feature rich ansi console login engine
grc generic colouriser for everything
linuxlogo Color ANSI System Logo
tetradraw ANSI drawing and viewing utility
textdraw Tool to draw/modify/move geometric figures & text for ASCII art
ticker configurable text scroller
toilet display large colourful characters in text mode
toilet-fonts collection of TOIlet fonts
tpp text presentation program
welcome2l Linux ANSI boot logo
whiptail Displays user-friendly dialog boxes from shell scripts

4. Files

a. Archiving Tools

atool A tool for managing file archives of various types
bzip2 high-quality block-sorting file compressor - utilities
cabextract a program to extract Microsoft Cabinet files
cpio GNU cpio -- a program to manage archives of files
gzip The GNU compression utility
gzrt gzip recovery toolkit
lzma Compression method of 7z format in 7-Zip program
lzop fast compression program
makeself utility to generate self-extractable archives
mscompress Microsoft compress.exe/expand.exe compatible compressor
ncompress Original Lempel-Ziv compress/uncompress programs
p7zip-full 7z and 7za file archivers with high compression ratio
p7zip-rar non-free rar module for p7zip
pbzip2 parallel bzip2 implementation
rar Archiver for .rar files
rzip compression program for large files
tar GNU version of the tar archiving utility
unp unpack (almost) everything with one command
unrar Unarchiver for .rar files (non-free version)
unzip De-archiver for .zip files
zip Archiver for .zip files

b. Backup Utilities

backup-manager command-line backup tool
hdup Filesystem duplicator and backup
multicd Backup your data to CD-R/CD-RW
storebackup fancy compressing managing checksumming hard-linking cp
uswsusp tools to use userspace software suspend provided by Linux

c. Burning Tools

cd5 Compute checksum of individual track on CD-ROMS
cdck verifies the quality of written CDs/DVDs
cdrdao records CDs in Disk-At-Once (DAO) mode
cdrecord Dummy transition package for wodim
cdrskin command line CD/DVD writing tool
cdw Tool for burning CD's - console version
dvdrtools DVD writing program
dvd+rw-tools DVD+-RW/R tools
genisoimage Creates ISO-9660 CD-ROM filesystem images
mkisofs Dummy transition package for genisoimage
mp3roaster A Perl hack for burning audio CDs out of MP3/OGG/FLAC/WAV
mybashburn Burn data and create songs with interactive dialog box
pcopy multithreaded (raw) disk copying program
wodim command line CD/DVD writing tool

d. Conversion Tools

a2ps GNU a2ps - Anything to PostScript' converter and pretty-printer
abiword efficient, featureful word processor with collaboration
antiword Converts MS Word files to text and ps
ascii2binary Convert between ASCII, hexadecimal and binary files
atp text to PostScript converter with some C syntax highlighting
catdoc MS-Word to TeX or plain text converter
clit Decompiler for Microsoft's .lit ebook format
e2ps Convert plain text into PostScript
gnome-u2ps tool to convert UTF-8 text to PostScript
gnumeric spreadsheet application for GNOME - main program
halibut yet another free document preparation system
html2ps HTML to PostScript converter
html2text advanced HTML to text converter
mtools Tools for manipulating MSDOS files
netpbm Graphics conversion tools
odt2txt simple converter from OpenDocument Text to plain text
pdf2svg converts PDF documents to SVG files (one per page)
poppler-utils PDF utilitites (based on libpoppler)
pstotext Extract text from PostScript and PDF files
recode Character set conversion utility
tofrodos Converts DOS <-> Unix text files, alias tofromdos
txt2html Text to HTML converter
unhtml Remove the markup tags from an HTML file
uni2ascii UTF-8 to 7-bit ASCII and vice versa converter
units converts between different systems of units
wp2x WordPerfect 5.6712962962963e-05 documents to whatever converter
wv Programs for accessing Microsoft Word documents

e. File Management

cdargs bookmarks and browsing for the cd command
chase Follow a symlink and print out its target file
clex command line file manager which uses the ncurses library
cruft Find any cruft built up on your system
detox utility to replace problematic characters in filenames
diff File comparison utilities
docdiff Compares two files word by word / char by char
dog Enhanced replacement for cat
fdupes identifies duplicate files within given directories
fhist File history, comparison and merge utilities
file Determines file type using magic numbers
lfm a simple but powerful file manager for the UNIX console
limo lists files in a custom way
lsof List open files
makedev creates device files in /dev
mc midnight commander - a powerful file manager
mktemp tool for creating temporary files
mrename A tool for easy and automatic renaming of many files
ncdt Display directory tree
pdmenu simple console menu program
pilot Simple file browser from Alpine, a text-based email client
safe-rm wrapper around the rm command to prevent accidental deletions
sed The GNU sed stream editor
ssed The super sed stream editor
symlinks scan/change symbolic links
trash-cli command line trashcan utility
tree displays directory tree, in color
vfu A versatile text-based filemanager
vifm a ncurses based file manager with vi like keybindings
wcd saves time typing when you want to change directories
wdiff Compares two files word by word
ytree A file manager for terminals

f. Package Management

alien convert and install rpm and other packages
apt Advanced front-end for dpkg
apt-dpkg-ref APT, Dpkg Quick Reference sheet
aptitude terminal-based package manager
apt-utils APT utility programs
configure-debian configuration program for packages using debconf
dctrl-tools Command-line tools to process Debian package information
debconf Debian configuration management system
deborphan program that can find unused packages, e.g. libraries
debsums verification of installed package files against MD5 checksums
diffstat produces graph of changes introduced by a diff file
dlocate fast alternative to dpkg -L and dpkg -S
dpatch patch maintenance system for Debian source packages
dpkg-awk Gawk script to parse /var/lib/dpkg/{status,available}
dpkg Debian package management system
dpkg-dev Debian package development tools
dpkg-ftp Ftp method for dselect
dpkg-multicd Installation methods for multiple binary CDs
dpkg-repack puts an unpacked .deb file back together
dselect Debian package management front-end
patch Apply a diff file to an original
patchutils Utilities to work with patches
popularity-contest Vote for your favourite packages automatically
reportbug reports bugs in the Debian distribution
reprepro Debian package repository producer
rpm2html Generate HTML index from directories of RPMs
rpm Red Hat package manager
smxi advanced update, upgrade and installation manager
subversion Advanced version control system
tasksel Tool for selecting tasks for installation on Debian systems
ucf Update Configuration File: preserve user changes to config files
vrms virtual Richard M. Stallman
wajig simplified Debian package management front end

g. Remastering and Installation Tools

cdebootstrap Bootstrap a Debian system
debian-cd Tools for building (Official) Debian CD set
debootstrap Bootstrap a basic Debian system
dfsbuild Build Debian From Scratch CD/DVD images
remastersys Debian system remaster
remastersys-installer install live CD to disk
simple-cdd create custom debian-installer CDs

h. Search Utilities

agrep text search tool with support for approximate patterns
findutils utilities for finding files--find, xargs
gawk GNU awk, a pattern scanning and processing language
grep GNU grep, egrep and fgrep
locate maintain and query an index of a directory tree
lookup interactive utility to search text files quickly
mawk a pattern scanning and text processing language
mlocate quickly find files on the filesystem based on their name
rpl intelligent recursive search/replace utility
sfind improved version of the find utility
sgrep tool to search a file for structured pattern
strigi-utils command-line tools for Strigi Desktop Search
whichman Fault tolerant search utilities: whichman, ftff, ftwhich

5. Hardware

a. Ethernet Drivers

atl2-modules-2.6.26-2-686 Atheros L2 Ethernet Adapter driver for Linux
atl2-source Linux Base Driver for the Atheros(R) L2 Fast Ethernet Adapter
bcm5700-source module source for Broadcom's bcm5700 ethernet driver
et131x-modules-2.6.26-2-686 et131x Ethernet Adapter driver for Linux
et131x-source Source for et131x Ethernet Controller driver from Agere

b. Misc Tools

acpitool command line ACPI client
cpufrequtils utilities to deal with the cpufreq Linux kernel feature
cpulimit limits the cpu usage of a process
discover hardware identification system
eject ejects CDs and operates CD-Changers under Linux
gpm General Purpose Mouse interface
hdparm tune hard disk parameters for high performance
hibernate smartly puts your computer to sleep (suspend to RAM or disk)
hwdata hardware identification / configuration data
joystick set of testing and calibration tools for joysticks
lm-sensors utilities to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors
lshw information about hardware configuration
memtest86 thorough real-mode memory tester
memtest86+ thorough real-mode memory tester
nvclock Allows you to overclock your nVidia card under GNU/Linux
pciutils Linux PCI Utilities
pm-utils utilities and scripts for power management
sdparm Output and modify SCSI device parameters
sensord hardware sensor information logging daemon
setcd Control the behaviour of your cdrom device
tpconfig configure touchpad devices
x86info Display diagnostic information about i386 compatible CPUs

c. Laptop Utilities

laptop-detect attempt to detect a laptop
laptop-mode-tools Scripts to spin down hard drive and save power
laptop-net Automatically adapt laptop Ethernet
powertop Linux tool to find out what is using power on a laptop
radeontool utility to control ATI Radeon backlight functions on laptops
spicctrl Sony Vaio controller program to set LCD backlight brightness
toshset Access much of the Toshiba laptop hardware interface
whereami Automatically reconfigure your (laptop) system for a new location

d. Partitioning Tools

cramfsprogs Tools for CramFs (Compressed ROM File System)
disktype detection of content format of a disk or disk image
dosfstools utilities for making and checking MS-DOS FAT filesystems
e2fsprogs ext2/ext3/ext4 file system utilities
e2tools utilities for manipulating files in an ext2/ext3 filesystem
fatresize FAT16/FAT32 filesystem resizer
fatsort utility for sorting FAT directory structures
gnu-fdisk Linux fdisk replacement based on libparted
gpart Guess PC disk partition table, find lost partitions
hfsplus Tools to access HFS+ formatted volumes
hfsprogs mkfs and fsck for HFS and HFS+ file systems
hfsutils Tools for reading and writing Macintosh volumes
mountpy script for quick mounting of removable devices
mount Tools for mounting and manipulating filesystems
ntfs-3g read-write NTFS driver for FUSE
ntfsprogs tools for doing neat things in NTFS partitions from Linux
os-prober utility to detect other OSes on a set of drives
parted The GNU Parted disk partition resizing program
partimage backup partitions into a compressed image file
reiserfsprogs User-level tools for ReiserFS filesystems
sdd File duplication and conversion tool, similar to dd'
sformat SCSI disk format and repair tool

c. Printer Utilities

cups Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - server
djtools Tools for HP DeskJet printer
ink tool for checking the ink level of your local printer
lpr BSD lpr/lpd line printer spooling system
mpage print multiple pages per sheet on PostScript printer
pconf-detect Small printer auto-detect command-line tool
poster Create large posters out of PostScript pages
psutils A collection of PostScript document handling utilities
system-config-printer graphical interface to configure the printing system

d. Wireless Drivers

acerhk-source Source for the acerhk driver
acx100-source ACX100/ACX111 wireless network drivers source
atmel-firmware Firmware for Atmel at76c50x wireless networking chips.
firmware-bnx2 Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtremeII
firmware-bnx2x Binary firmware for Broadcom NetXtremeII 10Gb
firmware-ipw2x00 Binary firmware for Intel Pro Wireless 2100, 2200 + 2915
firmware-iwlwifi Binary firmware for Intel Wireless 3945 and 4965
firmware-linux Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel
firmware-ralink Binary firmware for Ralink RT2561, RT2571, RT2661/71
linux-wlan-ng-firmware firmware files used by the linux-wlan-ng driver
linux-wlan-ng-source linux-wlan-ng driver
linux-wlan-ng utilities for wireless prism2 cards
madwifi-source source for the Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi
madwifi-tools tools for the Multiband Atheros Driver for WiFi
rt2400-source source for rt2400 wireless network driver
rt2500-source source for rt2500 wireless network driver
rt2570-source source for rt2570 wireless network driver
rt73-common RT73(RT2571W) Wireless Lan Linux Driver - common files
rt73-modules-2.6.26-2-686 Driver for Ralink RT73 wireless network card
rt73-source RT73(RT2571W) Wireless Lan Linux Driver - kernel module
wpasupplicant Client support for WPA and WPA2 (IEEE 802.11i)

6. Information

a. Database Utilities

gadfly Server and interactive shell for Gadfly SQL database
nosql a Relational Database Management System for Unix
sqlite command line interface for SQLite

b. Dictionaries and Thesaurusi

aiksaurus an English-language thesaurus (utility)
aspell-en English dictionary for GNU Aspell
aspell GNU Aspell spell-checker
dictd Dictionary Server
dict-devil The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
dict Dictionary Client
dict-elements Data regarding the Elements
dictfmt Utility to format a file for use by the dictd server
dict-foldoc FOLDOC dictionary database
dict-gcide A Comprehensive English Dictionary
dict-jargon Jargon File 38081
dict-vera Dictionary of computer related acronyms -- dict format
dict-wn electronic lexical database of English language for dict
iamerican An American English dictionary for ispell
ibritish A British English dictionary for ispell
ispell International Ispell (an interactive spelling corrector)
link-grammar-dictionaries-en Carnegie Mellon University's link grammar
myspell-en-us English_american dictionary for myspell
vera Dictionary of computer related acronyms -- info format
wamerican American English dictionary words for /usr/share/dict
wbritish British English dictionary words for /usr/share/dict

c. Documentation

abs-guide The Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide
anarchism An exhaustive exploration of Anarchist theory and practice
angband-doc Documentation for the roguelike game Angband.
aptitude-doc-en English manual for aptitude, a package manager
ascii interactive ASCII name and synonym chart
asr-manpages alt.sysadmin.recovery manual pages
backup-manager-doc documentation package for Backup Manager
bash-doc Documentation and examples for The GNU Bourne Again SHell
cfi-en Copyright does not exist, book about hacker culture
clamav-docs anti-virus utility for Unix - documentation
debconf-doc debconf documentation
debian-faq The Debian FAQ
debian-history A Short History of the Debian Project
debian-reference-en Debian system administration guide, English original
doc-debian Debian Project documentation and other documents
doc-linux-nonfree-text Linux HOWTOs in ASCII format (non-free)
doc-linux-text Linux HOWTOs and FAQs in ASCII format
elinks-doc advanced text-mode WWW browser - documentation
fortunes-debian-hints Debian Hints for fortune
funny-manpages more funny manpages
jargon-text The definitive compendium of hacker slang
jargon the definitive compendium of hacker slang
linux-wlan-ng-doc documentation for wlan-ng
man-db on-line manual pager
manpages Manual pages about using a GNU/Linux system
miscfiles Dictionaries and other interesting files
newbiedoc Debian for newbies by newbies (and not-so-newbies)
parted-doc The GNU Parted disk partition resizing program documentation
partimage-doc Partition Image User Documentation
perl-doc Perl documentation
rutebook Linux: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition, an online book
speakup-doc Documentation for speakup kernel modules
sysadmin-guide The Linux System Administrators' Guide
tar-doc documentation for the tar package
vim-doc Vi IMproved - HTML documentation
zsh-doc zsh documentation - info/HTML format

d. Maths Utilities

bc The GNU bc arbitrary precision calculator language
concalc console calculator
dc The GNU dc arbitrary precision reverse-polish calculator
sc Text-based spreadsheet with VI-like keybindings
wcalc A flexible command-line scientific calculator

e. Monitoring Tools

atop Monitor for system resources and process activity
atsar system activity reporter
di advanced df like disk information utility
discus pretty version of df(1) command
fam File Alteration Monitor
gt5 shell program to display visual disk usage with navigation
hddtemp hard drive temperature monitoring utility
htop interactive processes viewer
iftop displays bandwidth usage information on an network interface
iotop simple top-like I/O monitor
iptraf Interactive Colorful IP LAN Monitor
linuxinfo Displays extended system information
memstat Identify what's using up virtual memory
ncdu ncurses disk usage viewer
nload A realtime console network usage monitor
procinfo Displays system information from /proc
pydf colourised df(1)-clone
time The GNU time program for measuring cpu resource usage
xtail like "tail -f" but works on truncated files, directories, more
yacpi ncurses based acpi monitor for text mode

7. Internet

a. Browsers

elinks advanced text-mode WWW browser
links Web browser running in text mode
lynx-cur Text-mode WWW Browser with NLS support (development version)
lynx Text-mode WWW Browser (transitional package)
netrik text mode WWW browser with vi like keybindings
newsbeuter text mode rss feed reader with podcast support
nrss A ncurses-based RSS reader
snownews Text mode RSS newsreader
urlview Extracts URLs from text
w3m WWW browsable pager with excellent tables/frames support

b. Chat

finch text-based multi-protocol instant messaging client
irssi terminal based IRC client
linphone-nox SIP softphone - console-only client
naim A console client for AOL Instant Messenger and IRC
weechat-curses Fast, light and extensible IRC client

c. Download Managers

aria2 High speed download utility
axel light download accelerator - console version
bittorrent Original BitTorent client - console tools
clive Video extraction utility for YouTube, Google Video and other videos
ctorrent BitTorrent Client written in C++
curl Get a file from an HTTP, HTTPS or FTP server
ftp The FTP client
hpodder Tool to scan and download podcasts (podcatcher)
ncftp A user-friendly and well-featured FTP client
podracer podcast aggregator/downloader
rtorrent ncurses BitTorrent client based on LibTorrent
wget retrieves files from the web

d. E-Mail

alpine Text-based email client, friendly for novices but powerful
bsd-mailx A simple mail user agent
cone COnsole Newsreader and Emailer
elmo text-based mail-reader supporting SMTP and POP3
mutt text-based mailreader supporting MIME, GPG, PGP and threading
procmail Versatile e-mail processor

e. Network Tools

bluez-utils Bluetooth tools and daemons
cnetworkmanager command line interface for network manager
giftcurs text-based interface to the giFT file-sharing system
hostname utility to set/show the host name or domain name
ifupdown high level tools to configure network interfaces
iproute networking and traffic control tools
netcat-traditional TCP/IP swiss army knife
network-manager network management framework daemon
openbsd-inetd The OpenBSD Internet Superserver
openssh-client secure shell client, an rlogin/rsh/rcp replacement
openssh-server secure shell server, an rshd replacement
rsync fast remote file copy program (like rcp)
samba a LanManager-like file and printer server for Unix
smbclient a LanManager-like simple client for Unix
smbc samba-commander - curses based samba network browser
ssh secure shell client and server (metapackage)
telnet The telnet client
traceroute Traces the route taken by packets over an IPv4/IPv6 network
vpnc Cisco-compatible VPN client
whois an intelligent whois client
wireless-tools Tools for manipulating Linux Wireless Extensions

8. Security

a. Forensic and Recovery Tool

autopsy graphical interface to SleuthKit
dares rescue files from damaged CDs and DVDs (ncurses-interface)
dcfldd enhanced version of dd for forensics and security
ext3grep Tool to help recover deleted files on ext3 filesystems
foremost Forensics application to recover data
magicrescue recovers files by looking for magic bytes
myrescue rescue data from damaged harddisks
rdd a forensic copy program
recoverjpeg Recover jpeg pictures from a filesystem image
recover Undelete files on ext2 partitions
scalpel A Frugal, High Performance File Carver
scrounge-ntfs Data recovery program for NTFS filesystems
secure-delete tools to wipe files, free disk space, swap and memory
sleuthkit Tools for forensics analysis
testdisk Partition scanner and disk recovery tool
wipe Secure file deletion

b. User Management

adduser add and remove users and groups
calife Provides super user privileges to specific users
fakeroot Gives a fake root environment
finger user information lookup program
john active password cracking tool
makepasswd Generate and encrypt passwords
passwd change and administer password and group data
pwgen Automatic Password generation
rig Random identity generator
sudo Provide limited super user privileges to specific users
user-setup Set up initial user and password

c. Anti-Virus and Encryption

ccrypt secure encryption and decryption of files and streams
chkrootkit rootkit detector
clamav anti-virus utility for Unix - command-line interface
clamav-freshclam anti-virus utility for Unix - virus database update utility
clamfs An user-space anti-virus protected file system
fileschanged command-line utility that reports when files have been altered
iptables administration tools for packet filtering and NAT
mcrypt Replacement for old unix crypt(1)
tiger Report system security vulnerabilities

9. Time

a. Calendar Utilities

abook text-based ncurses address book application
birthday Display information about pending events on login
calcurse text-based calendar and todo manager
ccal Colorised calendar utility
devtodo hierarchical, prioritised todo list manager
gcalcli Google Calendar Command Line Interface
gcal Prints calendars
hodie prints the date in latin
leave Reminds you when you have to leave
note small program managing notes from commandline
pal command-line calendar program that can keep track of events
pcal generate Postscript calendars without X
remind a sophisticated reminder service
tdl To-do list manager
tina A curses personal information manager.
tudu Command line hierarchical ToDo list
when tiny personal calendar
worklog Keep Track of Time worked on Projects
wyrd text-based calendar applicatio

b. Scheduling Tools

anacron cron-like program that doesn't go by time
and Auto Nice Daemon
at Delayed job execution and batch processing
cron management of regular background processing
loadwatch Run a program using only idle cycles
rcconf Debian Runlevel configuration tool
sysv-rc-conf SysV init runlevel configuration tool for the terminal
timeout Run a command with a time limit.

Back to the Future!

2009-10-23T22:11:00.000+01:00

I have finally got round to releasing the first CLI edition of Vinux 2.0 after several weeks of experimenting and tweaking. There are still a few things to do, but the law of diminishing returns was starting to kick in so I decided to release and be damned. Things to do include providing a USB installation option and the inclusion of emacspeak and festival etc, which I haven't managed to get working yet. The CLI edition comes in the form of an installable live CD which provides a console only version of Debian Lenny 5.03 with Speakup installed and enabled by default. This editon is aimed at intermediate and advanced users and perhaps beginners who want an easy introduction to the command line interface. It was inspired by GRML, but is aimed specifically at VI desktop users rather than sighted sysadmins. It comes with over a thousand packages installed covering all of the main catagories: editors, browsers, mail clients, text-based games and lots of utilities etc. It also features over 60 single character command aliases for all of the most common commands e.g. 'm' for menu, 'i' for internet, 'e' for editor etc. To see a full list just type 'h' to view the help file or 'a' to see a list of all of the alias commands.

This editon of Vinux is the first one to be produced using the new build script created by David Knight and then mutilated with a chainsaw by me in the garden shed to create a CLI version. The next stage will be to create a hybrid GUI/CLI version of the build script which will allow anyone to create a customised version of Vinux containing just the features and packages they want e.g. a very basic CLI version or a feature filled GUI distro with all the trimmings. This also means that it is possible to create a new version of Vinux in under an hour so it will now be possible to produce a variety of Vinux editions with different sets of features: a very basic CLI version with Speakup installed and nothing else, a fully featured CLI version, a standard GUI version and a even a DVD version featuring the best of CLI and GUI applications.

The process of creating the build script and creating a viable CLI version has been both interesting and challenging. For a start I don't usually use the command line unless I have to, so I had to learn how to navigate and edit files etc and after four weeks on nothing but CLI every evening and weekend I have become quite proficient and am starting to find the mouse frustrating in GUI mode and missing the simplicity and power of the command line. I have also been trying out lots of new CLI applications and have been impressed with both the wide range of applications and how easy they are to use. Highlights include the pdmenu package which allows you to navigate Debian menus using speakup, the aptitude ncurses package manager, splitvt which allows you to split the screen into two consoles and jump between them using ctrl+w and screenie which allows you to open multiple console windows, give them names and then jump between them from a simple menu. I have included a wide variety of packages which cover all the main desktop catagories and were possible I have provided three or four different packages that do the same job so you can use the one you find most suitable. I have also included hundreds of Linux utilities and as much documentation on how to use the command line I could find in the standard Debian repositories. I have only included three third party packages: remastersys - used to create Vinux and install it to hard disk, cnetworkmanager - a command line application to control and configure network manager, and smxi - an advanced package to manage updates and upgrades to new versions (use with caution).

Next on the agenda is to start merging the CLI and GUI versions of the build scripts, create a range of Vinux 2.1 releases and then to work on producing a Vinux Handbook which will contain user guides on how to use and install Vinux. I am hoping that members of the Vinux community will contribute to the Handbook and that it can be kept up to date as new versions are released. This is one area were anyone can make a contibution to the project no matter what their technical knowledge and skills. I will produce a list of what topics needs covering soon and it might also be worth creating audio and video guides as well.

The Future of Vinux!

2009-08-30T22:29:00.000+01:00

The Vinux project will be one year old on the 28th November 2009, a year to the day when I first released Vibuntu 1.0 which was based on Ubuntu 8.10! I have just released Vinux 2.0 which is based on Debian Lenny and this is the most stable and responsive version of Vinux to date. So where does Vinux go from here? I suppose the next logical step would be to start building it from Debian Squeeze which would provide access to newer versions of the included software packages. However, there are several important issues I feel we need to discuss as a community.

1. My Role in the Development of Vinux.

I have spent nearly all of my spare time over the last year working on Vinux and while I have learnt a great deal and found it very rewarding I don't think I can continue developing Vinux on my own. There are three reasons for this; Firstly if I continue to try and develop Vinux, hold down a full-time teaching job and have a meaningful family life I am going to burn out! I am mentally and physically exhausted from spending so much time on Vinux. The only time I can work on Vinux is in the evenings, weekends and holidays and thus I get very little rest and recuperation and have recently developed neck and shoulder problems because of the amount of time I have been spending at my computer. The second reason is that I also feel that I have reached the limits of my knowledge and skills with Vinux 2.0! In other words I don't feel I can improve significantly on what I have already achieved on my own. Finally, there are two or three Linux distributions that are in effect 'one man shows' like Vinux. The problem with this is that when the main developer is ill or takes a sabbatical from the development things can go down the pan very quickly as happened in the case of Puppy Linux and PCLinuxOS recently. Don't get me wrong, I still believe in the need for a specialist version of Linux for the visually impaired, and I still want to be involved in its development and production. It is just that I believe that in order for Vinux to be sustainable and progressive we need a small team of core developers who can share some of the work load.

2. Possible Development Models.

There are several different ways in which Vinux can be developed: The simplest model is to continue with one lead developer who actually puts the final distribution together after other members of the development team have submitted their individual contributions. This could be me or another more able member of the development team. We could adopt a rotation system in which different developers take turns to release the next version of Vinux, with contributions from other developers, or we could adopt the Puppy Linux development model, in which a variety of different releases are made by different developers. The most complicated option is for everyone to work on the same version using an online repository using Git or Subversion so each developer could submit their own contributions to a community version, but this option is way beyond my own knowledge and skills to set up and manage. So there are many ways the development of Vinux could progress and I would like to know what other people think about these options.

3. Different Development Roles.

No matter which model we adopt there are a wide variety of different roles that people can take on no matter what level their skills and knowledge are. These include (in no particular order):

Bash Scripting - Writing scripts which add functionality and/or automate the build process e.g. if someone could automate the whole build process this would significantly reduce the amount of work involved in building Vinux.

Writing Accessible GUI Applications - If you are a competent programmer you may be able to create new applications or GUI front ends for existing text-based applications. This may involve using Zenity to create simple dialogue boxes or writing fully blown GTK applications.

Testing and Feedback - If you don't have any programming skills you can still help by testing out Vinux in different scenarios on different machines and then giving detailed feedback to the core developers.

Writing How-To's and Guides - Creating text and/or audio based guides on how use and install Vinux, perform specific tasks or use particular applications.

Creating the Actual Distribution - This is currently the most demanding task which involves modifying an installed system and then remastering it to a Live CD. This is currently done with Remastersys but there are other ways to do this.

Translating Vinux - Creating a version of Vinux in your own native language using the step by step instructions provided and then making it available to other people in your own country.

Create Graphics - Create new icons, logos, wallpaper and graphical themes for Vinux which would give us an original look and feel and our own visual identity.

Create Sounds - Record music, sound icons or other audio materials that can assist accessibility and/or give us our own auditory identity.

Managing the Website - Updating and managing the Vinux website where users can download the iso images of the different versions of Vinux and find information. Osvaldo la Rosa is currently in this role and I hope he is willing to continue doing this.

Running a Forum - We already have a mailing list, but not a full blown forum. It would be great if someone was able and willing to set up and manage a Vinux forum.

Mailing List - We already have an active mailing list which I am currently managing, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few more people administrating and moderating the list so that things don't get out of hand when I am unavailable.

Running a Wiki - I think it would be a good idea to have a Vinux wiki which members of the community could modify and contribute to independently. e.g. people could post feedback, tips and how-to's etc. This would obviously need to be moderated and managed by someone.

Producing a Virtual Edition - The virtual edition has proven very popular with users who are uncomfortable partitioning their hard drives and would prefer to use Vinux as a guest operating system within Windows. This role is currently filled by Mobeen Iqbal and I hope he will continue to do so.

Hosting Space - We are running short of hosting space and this shortage has been made worse by the fact that I no longer gave access to the College file server where I stored old versions of Vinux. Sebastien Naudet has already generously provided us with another 8GB of hosting space but extra storage space is always very welcome.

Promoting, Demonstrating and Teaching Vinux - If you don't have the time and/or skills to help in any other way you can tell other VI users about Vinux, demonstrate it to colleagues and friends and teach people how to use it in person or on the forums and/or mailing lists etc.

4. What next? I would like to hear peoples views on the issues I have raised in this message. If you are willing and able to contribute to the Vinux project in any way at all then please let us know. I don't want anyone to commit to anything they aren't able or willing to do, but I would ideally want to be able to put peoples names to specific roles to formalise the development team. There is no reason why one person cannot take on more than one role or more than one person can perform the same role as far as I am concerned. This will of course require someone to coordinate or lead the whole project, which I am of course willing to do, but I wouldn't object if someone with more time and ability wanted to take on the role of lead developer. I await your responses with interest!

Roll Your Own Vinux 2.0!

2009-08-30T21:39:00.000+01:00

1. Download and Install Debian

Download the latest Debian Lenny Installation CD from here: http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.2/i386/iso-cd/debian-502-i386-CD-1.iso

Burn the iso to a blank CDR, reboot the computer and install Debian to the hard disk selecting the desktop, laptop and standard system options, do not use a Network Mirror when asked and use 'vinux' in lowercase for all usernames and passwords etc.

2. Modify the Apt-Get Sources List

Once the computer reboots open a terminal, switch to root by typing 'su' enter your root password and then type 'gedit /etc/apt/sources.list'. Select and delete all existing entries and then either copy and paste, or type the following list exactly as written into the file:

# Vinux 2.0 /etc/apt/source.list

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free

deb http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile/ lenny/volatile main contrib non-free
deb-src http://volatile.debian.org/debian-volatile/ lenny/volatile main contrib non-free

deb http://debian-multimedia.fx-services.com/ stable main
deb-src http://debian-multimedia.fx-services.com/ stable main

deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ lenny-backports main contrib non-free

deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository/ debian/
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/remastersys/repository/ remastersys-lxde

3. Update the Apt-Get Package Lists

Save the file and then run 'apt-get update' as root, this assumes of course that you already have a working internet connection. There should be no problem if you are using an ethernet connection. If you are using an unsupported wireless card then download this firmware tarball which contains drivers for common chipsets: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/firmware/lenny current/firmware.tar.gz - To install one - extract the files, 'cd' to the relevant directory as root and then type 'dpkg -i . Then install the keyrings for debian multimedia and backports by typing: apt-get install debian-backports-keyring debian-multimedia-keyring

4. Install and Configure Speakup

Open a terminal and as root type the following commands:

apt-get install git-core libespeak-dev speakup-source
git clone git://hubbs.homedns.org/speakup.git
cd speakup
cd contrib
bunzip2 espeakup, tab
tar -xvf espeakup, tab
cd espeakup, tab
make
make install
module-assistant prepare
module-assistant auto-install speakup

To test that the installation has worked type:

modprobe speakup_soft start=1
espeakup

Then press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to console mode, login to test it and then Ctrl+Alt+F7 to switch back to Gnome.

To make speakup start automatically:

Add 'speakup_soft' to /etc/modules and '/usr/bin/espeakup' to /etc/rc.local as root using gedit to edit them.

5. Install and Configure Orca.

Install speech-dispatcher python-speechd and espeak by opening a terminal switching to root and then typing 'apt-get install gnome-orca speech-dispatcher python-speechd espeak', switch back to user and type 'orca' to setup Orca, select speech-dispatcher and the desktop layout, then accept all of the other defaults except 'turn on braille monitor' which should be left disabled. Then run 'spd-conf' accepting all of the defaults except the port number which should be 6560. Then restart the computer and after logging back in open the Assistive Technologies manager, click preferred applications, accessibility then check run at start.

6. Enable Orca support for Admin Applications (Launched from terminal).

Firstly Type visudo into a terminal as root, find the line which reads Defaults env_reset and then add the line Defaults env_keep+="GTK_MODULES" underneath it. Press Ctrl+X then Y to save and exit. Next create an .orbitrc file for the root account by typing the following four lines exactly as they are written into a terminal one at a time:

cat> ~/.orbitrc << EOF
ORBIIOPIPv4="1"
ORBIIPUNIX="0"
EOF

Finally start Orca and check the 'Disable gksu keyboard grab' option.

7. Install/Remove Applications.

Type 'apt-get install remastersys synaptic gnome-app-install system-config-printer xterm acpi-support hotkey-setup network-manager mousetweaks gnome-accessibility gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-themes-extras flashplayer-mozilla gstreamer0.10-esd gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mpegdemux gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mpegmux gstreamer0.10-lame gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly libdvdcss2 soundconverter rhythmbox lynx urlview joe mc irssi alpine tpp ncftp units e3 mpg123 pdmenu partimage sound-icons xzoom vlock testdisk sysv-rc-conf sc alsa-oss aumix autopsy dcfldd foremost scalpel sleuthkit gddrescue wipe ddrescue gnome-audio laptop-mode-tools dnsmasq gedit-plugins ntfs-3g ntfsprogs serpentine tsclient icedove iceowl-extension brltty brltty-x11 gtk-recordmydesktop gwget abiword gnumeric gimp acerhk-source acx100-source aptoncd bum gftp hostap-utils isomaster libgtk2-gladexml-perl linux-wlan-ng rt2400-source rt2500-source rt2570-source rt73-common rt73-modules-2.6.26-2-686 rt73-source atl2-modules-2.6.26-2-686 atl2-source bcm5700-source et131x-modules-2.6.26-2-686 et131x-source samba foomatic-db pitivi audacity bbrun bbtime fbpager fluxbox fluxconf ndisgtk conky iceowl firmware-bnx2 firmware-bnx2x firmware-ipw2x00 firmware-iwlwifi firmware-linux firmware-ralink remastersys-lxde-control-panel nautilus-open-terminal' into a terminal as root.

You can also install any updates at this stage if you want to. Including updating network manager by typing 'apt-get install -t lenny-backports network-manager network-manager-gnome' as root. If asked to update policykit configuration enter 'y'.( if you do this you must also open /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf and change [ifupdown] managed=false to managed=true)

The type 'apt-get remove ekiga cheese epiphany-browser epiphany-browser-data vinagre vino evolution evolution-common evolution-data-server festival freepats'

You can also remove any residual config files listed in synaptic.

8. Enable Orca support for Admin Applications (Launched from the menus)

Simply open the Main Menu manager from the preferences menu and modify all of the entries on the admin menu and the 'system log' manager so that they open as an 'application in terminal' and add 'sudo' in front of the existing commands, removing gksu or su-as-root etc if present.

Then type 'dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/sudo.orig --rename /usr/bin/sudo' as root, and then create a file called 'sudo' in /usr/bin/ and type the following code into it:

!#/bin/bash

if [ -d "/live" ]; then
sudo.orig "$@"
else
su -c "$@"
fi

exit 0

Finally make the new /usr/bin/sudo file executable. This will then check whether you are running from the Live CD or an installed system and then use 'sudo' on the Live CD and 'su -c' on the installed system accordingly.

9. Create and Enable Accessible Login Messages

Firstly create the login and success wav files by typing the following in a terminal as root: espeak -w /usr/share/sounds/login.wav "Welcome to Vinux - Please enter your username and password" and espeak -w /usr/share/sounds/success.wav "Username and Password Recognised - Launching Desktop"

Then type 'gedit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf and add the following lines in the
relevant sections:

[daemon]

SoundProgram=/usr/bin/aplay

[greeter]

SoundOnLogin=true
SoundOnLoginSuccess=true

SoundOnLoginFile=/usr/share/sounds/login.wav
SoundOnLoginSuccessFile=/usr/share/sounds/success.wav

Then save the file and restart the computer to test the login sounds.

10. Set Keyboard Defaults

Open the Keyboard Manager and set the following:

Default Layout: UK (Add Spanish, French and German)
Repeat Keys: Delay = Long
Repeat Keys: Speed = Slow

11. Add keystrokes to control Orca

Open the Orca Preferences Manager and set the following keyboard commands in the keybindings tab.

Increase Voice Rate: insert+right
Decrease Voice Rate: insert+left
Increase Voice Pitch: insert+up
Decrease Voice Pitch: Insert+down

Toggle Magnification On/Off: insert+m
Increase Magnification: insert+equals
Decrease Magnification: insert+minus
Invert Colours: insert+i
Toggle Next Magnifier Position: insert+n
Toggle Cursor Enhancements: insert+c

12. Add Storm Dragon's Orca Customisations script.

Navigate to http://www.stormdragon.us/orca-customizations/ and fill in the online form to create the following keyboard commands.

Read Time: insert+t
Read Date: insert+d
Read Battery Power: insert+p
Read Weather: insert+w

Check for Updates: insert+u
Import Updates: insert+shift+U

When you create the script a copy will be downloaded into your home directory. Copy this into the hidden .orca folder in your home directory and restart Orca to test them.

13. Add Gnome keybindings

Open the Keyboard Shortcuts manager from the Preferences Menu and enter the following keybindings:

Open Terminal: ctrl+shift+t
Open Home Folder: ctrl+shift+h

Volume Up: ctrl+shift+up
Volume Down: ctrl+shift+down

Toggle Maximise Horizontally: ctrl+shift+x
Toggle Maximise Vertically: ctrl+shift+y
Toggle Maximise Window: ctrl+shift+z
Toggle Fullscreen Mode: ctrl+shift+w

14. Add Gconf Keybindings

Open the Gconf-Editor in the System Tools menu and navigate to Apps > Metacity and then use the Global_Keybindings and the Keybinding_Commands windows to set the following keybindings.

Iceweasel: ctrl+shift+i
gnome-appearance-properties: ctrl+shift+a
gconf-editor: ctrl+shift+g
gnome-keyboard-properties: ctrl+shift+k
gnome-dictionary: ctrl+shift+d
gnome-power-preferences: ctrl+shift+p
gnome-screensaver-preferences: ctrl+shift+s
gedit: ctrl+shift+e
nautilus-file-management-properties: ctrl+shift+f
gnome-display-properties: ctrl+shift+r
gnome-mouse-properties: ctrl+shift+m

/usr/bin/live: ctrl+shift+o

Then create two scripts, make them executable and place them in /usr/bin.

Script #1: This will decide whether you are running from the Live CD and then kill and restart Orca and Speech-Dispatcher.

#!/bin/bash

if [ -d "/live" ];then

killall orca
sudo killall speech-dispatcher
speech-dispatcher
orca

else

gnome-terminal -e /usr/bin/inst
speech-dispatcher
orca

fi

exit=0

Script #2: This script is only called if you are on an installed system. If you are running from an installed system you will have to enter your admin password and press enter without speech!

#!/bin/bash

killall orca
sudo "killall speech-dispatcher"

exit=0

15. Set File Browser Behaviour

Open the File Manager window and set the following defaults:

Always open in Browser Window: Checked
Preview: Set all to Never apart from Number of Items

16. Set Mouse Defaults

Open Mouse Preferences and enable Show position of Pointer when the Control Key is pressed.(doesn't work well with magnifier)

17. Adjust volume settings: Set Master, PCM, Front and Speaker volume settings to maximum, set line and mic input volumes to 50% and mute them.

18. Enable all of the extra plugins for gedit and add the accessibility and textise plugins for Firefox. Set Firefox homepage to http://google.co.uk and add bookmarks to Vinux websites and create a Downloads folder etc.

19. Edit menus: Hide - Archive Manager, Password and Encryption Keys, Root Terminal, Floppy Formatter, New Login, New Login in a Window, Network Tools, Power Statistics, System Log, About Me, Network Proxy, Preferred Application and Windows. Show - Orca.

20. Open gconf-editor, navigate to Apps > Nautilus > Desktop and hide the three icons which are shown.

21. Change appearances: Change theme to Crux, change purple to dark grey, change background image to Tentacles, the background colour to black, all fonts to size 12 bold and adjust for best contrast, change cursor to a DMZ White and Large and then save as 'Vinux'.

22. Move both panels to the left hand side of the screen and add a third. Make the width 60, show the hide buttons and add whatever items you want from the panel applets menu and the main menu. Then rename panels using gconf.

23. Download and install the UIE-Dark-Eloquence GDM theme from Gnome-Look. Copy any GDM customisations you have made from /etc/gdm/gdm.conf into /usr/share/gdm/defaults.conf otherwise they won't be used.

24. Edit /etc/remastersys/isolinux/isolinux.txt.debian so that it includes an (Ascii 7) character at the end of each title line. Delete the two splash image files in the grub folder and remove the splash image path from menu.lst.debian file as well.

25. Edit /usr/bin/remastersys-installer and replace 'xterm -e dpkg-reconfigure tzdata' with 'time-admin'.

26. Download cnetworkmanager from the following URL http://vidner.net/martin/software/cnetworkmanager/cnetworkmanager-0.21.1.tar.gz extract the files, navigate to the directory and then type './setup.py install'.

27. Empty the trash, delete all entries from the .bash_history file and save it and then delete the Recent Documents list.

28. Copy everything from the home directory including hidden files into /etc/skel and change ownership to root.

29. Open remastersys, modify the settings as required and create a remaster: and after about 20-30 minutes or so your new live CD image called Vinux-2.0.iso will be waiting for you in the /home/remastersys/remastersys directory.

Vinux 2.0 Release Notes!

2009-08-30T21:15:00.001+01:00

Vinux is a specialist version of Linux optimised for visually impaired users. It is now based on Debian Lenny which currently provides a more stable platform to build an accessible distribution on than Ubuntu does. If you plan to try Vinux I recommend that you read all of the following information very carefully.

1. What features does Vinux offer? Vinux provides a screen-reader, full screen magnification and support for Braille displays out of the box. It can be run from the Live CD without making any changes to your hard drive. If you like it you can install it to a USB thumbdrive or to your hard drive either alongside Windows or as a complete replacement for it. There is also a virtual version available which can run Vinux as a guest operating system using VMWare Player on Windows. The main screen-reader/magnifier is called Orca and the Braille display is supported by Brltty. There is also a secondary screen-reader installed called Speakup, which is a console based screen-reader. This is aimed at more advanced users but can also provide a useful backup in the event of any problems. Vinux provides a wide range of open source software including an internet browser, a file manager, a text editor and various multimedia applications. Vinux is designed to be a completely secure modern desktop system for all the family, visually impaired and sighted alike.

2. How do I download and Burn Vinux? In order to try Vinux you need to download the iso image from the website and burn it to a CDR using an application that supports writing iso images to CD. An iso image cannot just be copied to a CD like an ordinary file. It is a complete image of CD and must be burnt with a suitable tool like Nero, Roxio, DeepBurner on Windows or with the file manager of any modern Linux distribution. Once burnt you place the CD in the drive and reboot your computer. Most computers are set to boot from a CD drive by default. If not you may have to modify the bios or press a key after powering on the computer. If for any reason the CD won't boot you should check the md5sum of the iso image you downloaded and the CD itself to make sure it wasn't corrupted during the download or burning process.

3. Why is the Live CD slower than an installed system? The Live CD does not perform as well as an installed system and this is partly due to the fact that Debian is not really designed to be run from a live CD. This means that the system will be a lot more responsive and stable once installed to your hard drive.

4. What should I do if Orca crashes? If Orca crashes at anytime you can restart it by pressing ctrl+shift+o. Once the system is installed it is unlikely that Orca will crash, but if it does you must enter your admin password and press enter after pressing ctrl+shift+o.

5. How do I use the magnification? You can start or stop full screen magnification at any time by pressing insert+m while Orca is running. You can turn the Orca speech on or off by pressing insert+s and the colour inversion and cross hairs can be turned on or off by pressing insert+i and insert+c respectively. The magnification may be a little jerky on older computers in which case you may find using keystrokes to navigate produces a smoother response than using the mouse.

6. How do I use Braille? Brltty should start automatically when Vinux is booted. However Vinux currently only supports Grade 1 Braille on USB displays, which is fine for installing and navigating menus and applications etc but not ideal for reading at any length. I hope to add support for Grade 2 Braille and Serial Braille displays in a future version.

7. How do I launch applications? You can launch applications in one of three ways: You can press alt+F1 to open the main menu and then navigate the menus and sub-menus using the cursor keys. When you find the application you want press enter to launch it. You can press alt+F2, type the name of the application you want to launch then press enter, or you can open a terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+t, typing the command you want to run and press enter.

8. How do I change the default language and keyboard layout? The default language on the Live CD and the installed system is English. If you want a different language then you can start the installer from a terminal using 'sudo remastersys-installer gui intl' and this will allow you to choose a different language. You will of course need a working internet connection to download the new language packs. Alternatively you can modify the language settings manually after installation.

9. How do I run applications with root permissions? You can run administration applications from the menus with Orca support, but you will be asked to enter the administration password once the system is installed. However while you can run administration commands from the terminal on both the Live CD and an installed system using the 'sudo' command, in reality once the system is installed the 'sudo' command is actually being intercepted and being replaced with 'su -c'. This means that that you must enter the administration password when asked rather than your user password. You must also enclose any commands that require arguments in addition to the command itself in double speech marks if you use the 'sudo' command. I recommend that once you have installed the system you use 'su' to switch to root user rather than using 'sudo' to avoid confusion. This provides a higher level of security than adding an ordinary user to the sudoers file.

10. Why do some applications not work once Vinux is installed? As a consequence of the difference syntax required by 'sudo' and 'su -c' there are two items on the menus/panels which will only work on the Live CD and not the installed system. These are the 'Install Vinux to Hard Drive' and 'Restore Bootloader' launchers. I could fix this, but there isn't really any legitimate reason for running these on an installed system, because it is already installed and if it is running the bootloader doesn't need restoring either.

11. Does Vinux contain any non-free software? This version of Vinux contains some restricted multimedia codecs and non-free wireless firmware which may not be legal to download or distribute in countries in which software patents are enforceable.

12. Should I install updates when they are available? I have added and enabled the Debian Multimedia, Backports and Proposed Updates repositories which means you can install restricted multimedia codecs and newer versions of some packages if required. There are some newer versions of the installed wireless firmware drivers available, but I would not recommend installing any of these unless your existing setup doesn't work as when I installed these I lost access to the existing working wireless connection and could not restore it. Generally I would not advise you to update applications unless you are having problems or require specific new facilities etc as this will keep the system as stable as possible.

13. How do I use console mode? To switch to console mode and use Speakup you have to press ctrl+alt+F1 from the running Gnome session or the GDM login screen. You can then use Speakup to input commands from the console and read back any output generated. If you are running the Live CD you can start using Speakup straight away, if you do this from an installed system you need to login in the normal way. To switch back to the graphical desktop press alt+F7 or alt+F2-F6 to open more console sessions. Speakup is much faster and more stable than Orca and Speech-Dispatcher but it requires an indepth knowledge on the Linux command line to be used effectively.

14. What Keybindings does Vinux use? There are full lists of keystrokes for Vinux, Orca and Speakup in the Vinux folder in the Home directory. The Vinux keystrokes are only functional while running the Gnome Desktop, the Orca keystrokes are only functional while Orca is running and the Speakup keystrokes are only functional while in console mode. The Vinux keystrokes enable you to open various applications for example: A terminal with ctrl+shift+t, the Home directory with ctrl+shift+h and the internet browser with ctrl+shift+i. The Orca keystrokes enable you to control the accessibility settings for example: insert+right/left to increase/decrease the voice rate, insert+plus/minus to increase/decrease the magnification and insert+d/t to get the date/time. The Speakup keystrokes allow you to navigate the virtual terminal and control what is read while in console mode.

15. How do I boot and/or login to Vinux? When the Live CD starts to boot you will hear three audio beeps played by the system bell (if you have one). This means that the boot prompt is ready and you can either press enter to start the Live CD, or enter 'xforcevesa' for safe graphics mode or 'hd' to boot from the first hard drive instead. Once you have installed Vinux you will hear Espeak greet you when the GDM login screen is ready. This is not an interactive screen-reader, just a recording of Espeak, so it will not echo what you type. If you enter a legitimate username and password you will be told that the desktop is starting. If not you will be asked to enter your username and password again. When the desktop starts Orca will greet you with 'Welcome to Orca'.

16. Why is the desktop layout different from other Linux distributions? If you are partially sighted you will notice that Vinux has a radically different desktop layout to most other distributions. The panels are all on the left side of the screen instead of the top and bottom, and there are three panels not two. These three panels with extra large icons provide simple one click access to the most commonly used applications and computer settings etc. They also allow users to make the best use of the available screen space on modern wide screen displays by providing the full depth of the screen for applications at all times. You can hide these panels by clicking on the buttons at the top and bottom, or use the full screen by pressing ctrl+alt+w in any application that supports full screen mode.

17. Why are some applications inaccessible? Vinux includes some programs that are inaccessible to speech users but are accessible to partially sighted users with the aid of magnification. For example Abiword (a word processing application) and Gnumeric (a spreadsheet application) are not really supported by Orca but they can be used with magnification, and in fact it is possible for someone using Orca to use them to open a Microsoft Office document and copy and paste it into Gedit (a text editor) for reading and editing. However the vast majority of applications included are fully accessible with Orca and/or Speakup.

18. Why are some applications missing? In order to fit Vinux on a single CD I have had to remove a large number of programs which are included in a standard Debian installation or Live CD. The most notable of these are Open Office; which provides a full office suite including word processing, spreadsheets, slide-shows, databases and graphics etc., and Evolution which provides a fully featured e-mail client. These applications and many others can easily be reinstalled once you have installed Vinux to your hard drive.

19. How do I install new software? There are three different ways to install new applications on your Vinux system. You can use the terminal, the Add/Remove Programs application or the Synaptic Package Manager. If you know the name of the application you want to install, the terminal is the easiest option. Open a terminal, switch to root by typing 'su' followed by your admin password and then type 'apt-get update' to update the available packages list. In order to install a new application just type e.g. 'apt-get install audacity'. To remove an application just type e.g. 'apt-get remove audacity'. If you don't know the name of the application or just want to see what is available you can use one of the other two GUI based applications. The Add/Remove Programs application offers a simple list of the most popular applications sorted by category. The Synaptic Package Manager lists all available applications (25,000+) and has a lot more options etc., but it can be a bit overwhelming for people new to Linux.

20. How did you create Vinux? There is a full step by step guide to building Vinux 2.0 from a standard Debian installation CD in the Vinux folder in the Home folder called "Roll Your Own Vinux.txt". By following these steps you can convert an existing Debian Lenny installation to Vinux. If you attempt to build your own version I recommend you follow the instructions in the order they are written otherwise some steps may not work. It takes approximately one full working day to complete all of the steps, test it and remaster to a Live CD presuming that nothing goes wrong. In practice things will inevitably go wrong and you may have to start all over again if you can't fix it - so proceed with caution and test everything as you go along.

21. What extra command line applications are included? There are a large number of useful text based tools installed on the CD for more advanced users which are not shown in the menus and have to be launched from the terminal. These include: Forensics Tools - testdisk, autopsy, dcfldd, foremost, scalpel, sleuthkit, gddrescue, wipe and ddrescue. Internet Based - lynx, urlview, irssi, alpine and ncftp. Miscellaneous Applications - units e3 mpg123 pdmenu partimage xzoom vlock sysv-rc-conf sc aumix joe mc tpp. If you want to learn how to use these applications type e.g. lynx --help' into a terminal to get a list of commands or e.g. 'man lynx' to read the manual.

22. How do I connect to a wireless network? Although you can launch all of the installed applications from the menus and/or a terminal you may want to navigate to the network manager applet on Panel 1 to view the list of available wireless connections and choose one to connect to. In order to do this you should press and hold ctrl+alt and then press tab until you hear Panel 1 and release the keys. You can then use the tab key or the cursor keys to find the network applet icon which is called 'icon'. there maybe two icons called 'icon' in the system tray, one is the battery and the other is the network manager applet. When you find the correct icon press enter and then use the cursor keys to browse the available networks. When you find the one you want press enter and then input the wireless network key if required. If you are comfortable using the command line then you can manage your network connections by using cnetworkmanager. Type 'cnetworkmanager --help' for a list of commands and arguments.

23. How do I install Vinux? There are two different ways to install Vinux. It can be installed to a standard hard drive either as a dual boot system or a stand alone system, or it can be installed and run from a USB thumbdrive. The 'Install Vinux to Hard Drive' launcher will allow you to partition your hard drive and install Vinux to it. You will need at least one Ext3 partition and one Swap partition to complete the installation. but you can have a separate Home partition if you want to. Installing Vinux to a computer as the only operating system is the easiest to do and involves the least risk. If you attempt a dual boot install and make a mistake you may lose your existing data, operating system and software, so make sure you have a backup of anything important before you try this. If you are not confident that you understand the process thoroughly then don't attempt this. It is easier and safer to install Vinux to an old computer or second hard drive to begin with, if you like it you can always install it to your main computer later on. The 'Install Vinux to USB' launcher allows you to install it to a USB thumbdrive. There are several stages to this process which must be followed in order. You have to pick the thumbdrive, format it with at least one FAT32 partition for the operating system and one Ext3 partition called 'live-rw' for persistent storage. You must also set the FAT32 partition flag to bootable. You can then copy the necessary files to the thumbdrive and activate the persistent storage. You may have to press a key or modify the bios settings if your computer doesn't automatically detect and boot from bootable USB drives if present.

24. Why does the Live CD take so long to boot and/or shut down? The Live CD takes quite a long time to boot and sometimes appears to be frozen, but it isn't, it will finish booting eventually. The Live CD also sometimes gets stuck when shutting down the computer after the CD draw pops out and you are asked to press enter. When you press enter the computer will sometimes lock up, this is caused by Speakup locking up and I haven't yet found a solution. If this happens then simply press and hold the power button to turn the computer off. If the Live CD ever locks up completely and won't respond to any input press and hold alt+PrintScreen then press s,u and then b in that order to reboot the computer.

25. Why is the console mode sometimes unavailable? I have noticed that after running the Live CD for a long time that sometimes I am unable to switch to console mode by pressing ctrl+alt+F1. If this happens simply press ctrl+alt+backspace to restart the GDM login screen and then press ctrl+alt+F1 again and you should then find yourself in console mode.

26. Why are there some icons misplaced or missing? Depending upon the resolution of your display some of the icons on the side panels maybe be out of position or even missing. These can be repositioned by right clicking on them, unchecking the 'lock to panel' box and then moving them back into position. If there are any missing icons you can replace them by right clicking on the relevant panel and selecting 'Add to Panel' and then selecting the missing icon.

27. Why is the screen resolution detected incorrectly? On some laptops you may find that the screen resolution in not correctly detected initially and you only get a slightly smaller display area in one corner of the screen. If this happens you will probably not be able to set the correct resolution while running from the Live CD, but I have found that after installation the resolution is then correctly detected and configured.

28. Do I need to use an anti-virus package? No, Linux is built in a completely different way from Windows, and each Linux distribution is different so in practise there are no Linux viruses in the wild and therefore you generally down't have to worry about computer viruses. This doesn't mean that you won't download viruses, just that they won't have any effect on your system. However you can pass them on to Windows users if you exchange files. You can of course still be hacked if you are not protected by a firewall so you should not be complacent but as the root password is required to make any significant changes to the system you are very well protected. In fact if you only download and install software from the official Debian repositories you are extremely unlikely to download any malware. If you are particularly paranoid you can download and install clamtk which will allow you to detect and isolate any potential viruses or malware. Of course if you are running the Live CD then you are totally secure because as soon as you switch the computer off it goes back to the way it was before you booted Vinux.

29. Why doesn't the clock show the correct time? There is a bug in the system clock which prevents you from changing the time manually, and installing the Network Time Protocol package does not fix this either. I suspect it is caused by a Daylight Savings Time configuration error but I haven't been able to fix it yet. If it bothers you I suggest that you simple delete it from the panel for now until a fix is found.

30. Why doesn't the Keyring Manager accept my password? I have set the default login keyring manager password to 'vinux' on the Live CD and this will be retained once it is installed. However the default keyring will only be loaded automatically if the password is the same as your login password. You can easily change the keyring manager password by opening the Encryption and Keyrings manager and changing the unlock password.

Vinux 2.0 Beta 1 Released!

2009-08-17T19:04:00.002+01:00

I am happy to announce the release of the 1st Beta version of Vinux 2.0! There are a great many differences between this release and the earlier versions based on Ubuntu, and there are significant differences between this release and the existing alpha versions so if you are planning to try it out then please read the following information very carefully to avoid unnecessary frustration and/or confusion.

This version is based on Debian Lenny 5.02 and although there are many differences between Debian and Ubuntu the most significant one is that although you can use 'sudo' on the live CD, once installed you must use 'su' and then enter your administrator password to run commands with root priveleges from the terminal. This provides an extra layer of security over that offered by Ubuntu. An unusual consequence of this is that I have had to decide which admin applications you are likely to use on the Live CD and which ones you are more likely to use once installed. Thus on the Live CD the only admin apps that you can launch from the menus are the installer, the partition editor and the restore bootloader application. Once installed you will be able to launch all of the other admins apps apart from these three. Of course you can launch any admin application at any time from the terminal using 'sudo' on the Live CD and 'su' on an installed system. I hope to fix this by the final release.

For those of you who are partially sighted you will notice that the desktop layout has changed considerably since the last version. This layout is designed to be friendly to partially sighted users by offering them one click access to all of the most commonly used applications at any time. It also maximises the available space on widescreen displays by placing the three panels on the left hand side, thus allowing you to use the full depth of the screen at all times. The only difference that this will make to Orca users will be that when you open the main menu you need to cursor down to find the places and system menus rather than cursoring right. Orca users can navigate to the panels in the usual way by pressing ctrl+alt+tab.

In order to fit everything onto the CD I have had to remove many applications, including Open Office and Evolution, which can of course easily be reinstalled. In their place I have provided Icedove, Abiword and Gnumeric which are not accessible with Orca, but are accessible to people using magnification and Orca users can of course use them to open up Microsoft Office documents and then save them in different formats or even copy and paste them into the text editor etc. You may also notice that the GIMP graphics package is installed, again this is for the benefit of partially sighted users.

I have now added the audio beeps to the Live CD and the spoken welcome messages on the GDM login window. When you boot from the live CD you should hear three beeps, which means the boot prompt is ready, you can then type in a cheat code, press enter or wait for thirty seconds. Once Vinux has booted you will hear Orca say "Welcome to Orca". Once you have installed the system you will be greeted by the GDM login screen, which will ask you to type in your username and password. If at any time you switch to console mode Speakup will take over, but as it uses Espeak you won't really notice the difference.

I have added lots of custom keystrokes to Vinux. Many of them are the same as on previous versions, but there are several new ones and as Compiz is no longer installed many of the original keystrokes are missing. There is a full list of Vinux, Orca and Speakup keybindings in the Vinux folder inside you Home folder. This is a beta version, so while I am confident that most of the applications and accessibility features are working there are several specific things which I would like people to test over the next week:

A. Wireless and Ethernet Connections

B. Braille support

C. Installation onto a hard drive as single and dual boot system

D. Installation of Open Office 2.4 and the Java Access Bridge

E. Installation of Open Office 3.0 and the Java Access Bridge from Debian Backports

F. Installation of Firefox 3.0 from Debian Backports

G. Installation of Thunderbird 3.0 from Debian Backports

F. Installation of Evolution

I suspect that most of the problems encountered will be to do with hardware compatibility rather than software issues. It is vital that you let me know if a specific piece of hardware is not supported and how it can be fixed if possible. It would be equally useful to know what models do work, especially laptops. I do not intend to add any more applications to the final version, but I have left plenty of space to add hardware drivers etc.

Sight Village 2009!

2009-07-19T15:51:00.000+01:00

I publically launched Vinux at the Sight-Village Exhibition in Birmingham last week, this is the biggest VI event of the year in the UK attending by thousands of people over three days. All of the main hardware and software manufacturers attend as well as VI orientated institutions and educational providers etc. I managed to distribute about 150 Vinux 1.52 CD's over the three days and although people were a little sceptical at first about the idea of a free, open-source, Linux based operating system, most were pleasantly surprised when they came and had a play with it. I purposely took the oldest laptops I could find to demonstrate it on, so that people would not be disappointed with the performance when they tried it on their own computers at home. It was also great to finally meet a few people off the mailing list: David Knight, Dennis Freedman and Georgina Joyce all managed to make the trip from the North of England, and I also bumped into Digital Darragh from Ireland who recorded an short interview with me which he will post on his website. On the Friday after Sight-Village, I presented two workshops on Vinux to members of the BCAB (British Computer Association for the Blind) each attended by 6-12 people. The BCAB provided six laptops with a dual boot setup (Vinux and Vista) and we didn't run into any major problems although speech-dispatcher did crash a few times while online. I think everyone enjoyed the sessions, and were pleasantly surprised as apparently the last time they looked at Linux it was a complete disaster! They made me feel very welcome and I really enjoyed running the sessions. They are a very friendly bunch and I would heartily recommend anyone who is living in the UK and is not already a member to sign-up!

2nd Alpha of Vinux 2.0 Uploaded!

2009-06-21T21:19:00.000+01:00

I have just uploaded the 2nd Alpha of Vinux 2.0! This release sees the installation of Speakup and Espeakup, providing console based screen reading as well as Orca with the Gnome desktop. You can switch to a terminal session by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1. Both Orca and Speakup use Espeak so there is no difference in voice quality or performance between Orca and Speakup. I have also added two audio beeps which sound when the Live CD boot prompt is ready, and an audio signal when the GDM login window is ready, which is retained after installation. Again I would like to get feedback on the new features and any other bugs and/or suggestions you might have.

Brave New World: Vinux 2.0 Alpha 1 Released!

2009-06-18T19:04:00.000+01:00

I have just uploaded the first alpha release of Vinux-2.0 - it is a very basic release which does not yet have many of the features that Vinux usually has. It is based on Debian Lenny and all I have done for now is to create an Installable Live CD with Orca enabled and configured by default using Alsa and Speech-Dispatcher. I have also made the standard Orca SysAdmin changes so users will be able to run admin apps, but I have not modified the menu launchers so you will have to launch admin applications from the terminal by entering 'su' followed by your password and then type the relevant command.

The primary purpose of this release is for people to test the basic screen-reading performance of Orca with Alsa and Speech-Dispatcher. There are still many things to do and some things I tried to do but could not get to work. The main priority at the moment is to get Orca running and enable ethernet/wireless access, because once you have speech and an internet connection you are then able to sort out most issues yourself.

I have been unable to get YASR working at all, with Eflite, Festival or Speech-Dispatcher, and festival doesn't work with Orca either so I have removed both applications for now. I have installed Brltty and enabled Braille in Orca but I was unable to find the usual /etc/defaults/brltty file which starts Brltty at boot.

I would therefore like feedback on both the performance and stability of Orca and information on whether the wireless connections worked out of the box. If so please let me know the laptop and wifi card details if possible; and if wireless doesn't work or you manage to get it working yourself please let me know how you got it working and I will incorporate this into the next next alpha release. If anyone is brave enough to try installing it then I would like feedback on the accessibility of the new installer - remastersys-installer. This should be launched from the terminal if you require speech, just type 'remastersys-installer' after switching to su, or type 'remastersys-installer intl' if you want to choose a language other than English. This installer uses cfdisk for formatting purposes so you can either use the existing partitions or create/modify the partitions before or during the installation process.

Accessibility v Functionality: On the Horns of a Dilemma!

2009-06-17T12:02:00.000+01:00

I have spent the last few weeks trying out lots of different distros as possible foundations upon which to build Vinux. I have looked at Ubuntu 9.04, Mint 7.0 (based on 9.04), Debian Lenny 5.0, Dream Linux 3.5, Fedora 11 and OpenSuse 11. The conclusion I have come to is that I am going to have to choose between accessibility and functionality. Ubuntu and Mint offer the greatest functionality in terms of ease of use and hardware detection etc. In fact Mint is better than Ubuntu in this regard as it has a lot of extra features and multimedia codecs etc., and I am now using a remastered version of Mint 7.0 on my main workstations which do not require any accessibility software. However the performance of accessibility software on both Ubuntu and Mint is poor. The speech is slow and jerky and more often than not locks up at some point. This is likely to be caused by PuleAudio and compounded by a cutting edge version of Xorg. Debian on the other hand, while it doesn't provide accessibility in terms of speech or magnification out of the box (Braille support is available) allows me to set up Orca with Alsa and Speech-Dispatcher and produce a very responsive screen-reader. The down side is that Debian doesn't support anywhere near the amount of hardware Ubuntu and Mint do, especially when it comes to restricted or non-free drivers and codecs etc. So this is the dilemma I face! Do I provide good accessibility at the cost of functionality, or functionality at the cost of accessibility? After wrestling with this problem for several weeks I have come to the conclusion that I have to give priority to accessibility. I can certainly improve the functionality of Debian to some extent by installing wireless drivers and some multimedia codecs etc., and as long as Vinux is accessible users can can then either get support in resolving hardware issues or work out solutions themselves as long as they have a functioning screen-reader etc. The main advantage of Debian is that it still uses the Alsa sound system, which works a lot better with Orca and Speech-Dispatcher than PulseAudio. So I am hoping to offer users a very stable and accessible distribution, but it is not going to be very cutting edge or support as wide a variety of hardware as Ubuntu and/or Mint can. I will still be monitoring the most popular distros to see if the issues caused by PulseAudio etc., have been resolved and if they have then of course I will then have the option to switch back to Ubuntu or Mint etc. The rumours are that in Gnome 3.0 Speech-Dispatcher will become the default speech server for Orca and hopefully then the issues with PulseAudio will eventually be resolved, and maybe one day one of the major distros will actually get off their arses and produce a fully accessible distro (hears faint oinking in the distance as vast herds of pigs fly south for the winter).

Vinux 1.5 Plus: Frankenstein's Monster!

2009-05-25T00:28:00.000+01:00

I am just in the process of uploading Vinux 1.5 Plus to the website. This is an experimental release exclusively for members of the Vinux Development Group, and will not be announced anywhere else. It contains lots of new experimental features which are bound to cause problems, so I would not advise anyone to try and use it as their primary OS! I would however like you to try it out and provide feedback on some of the new features. These include:

The Emacspeak complete audio desktop, which provides a text based interface in a terminal window or in console mode for advanced users. This can be launched from the Accessibility sub-menu or by pressing 'ctrl+shift+e' after stopping Orca and/or Speech-Dispatcher.

The LinuxSpeaks audio desktop, which also provides a simple menu driven text based interface in a terminal window or in console mode for beginners and intermediate users. This can be launched from the Accessibility sub-menu or by pressing 'ctrl+shift+l' after stopping Orca and/or Speech-Dispatcher.

Support for five more languages: Spanish, French. German, Dutch and Flemish. This can be started by typing a two letter code 'es', 'fr', 'de', 'nl' or 'fl' at the boot prompt. This will change the display language, but you will need to change the Orca voice and the keyboard layout manually for now.

I have installed Ubuntu Restricted Extras and some other non-free applications and codecs from the Medibuntu repository. This means that this version of Vinux will play MP3 files and encrypted DVD's out of the box, but be aware that this may contravene local patent/copyright laws in some countries. If this is the case then please do not download or redistribute it.

I have reinstalled all of the packages I removed from the original Ubuntu 8.10 in order to make room on the CD and I have installed all of the latest updates from Canonical as of today. Not all of these applications are accessible to someone using a screen-reader but they are accessible for someone using a screen-magnifier or high contrast themes.

I will post the URL when I have finished uploading it and tested the md5sum, which probably won't be until tomorrow afternoon. Please don't try to download this version until it I supply the URL as trying to download the temporary file might disrupt the upload.

Once again, this is a very experimental version which will probably have lots of bugs, but the feedback I get on some of these new features will help me to build the next version of Vinux which will in all probability be based on Debian.

Vinux 1.5: Better Late Than Never!

2009-05-24T12:23:00.000+01:00

Vinux 1.5 is now available for download and testing by members of the Vinux Development Forum. If no serious bugs are found in the next few days then I will post a public release announcement on other mailing lists etc. New features include: Speech-Dispatcher as the default speech server, YASR configured to use the Festival speech synthesiser, New shortcuts to start/kill Speech-Dispatcher (ctrl+shift+s and ctrl+shift+k), Orca weather keystroke (insert+w) set to Birmingham UK (UKXX0018), Larger fonts and higher contrast theme by default, Installation of the Firefox Accessibar plugin, Mousekeys enabled by default, Gedit's advanced plugins enabled by default and the Medibuntu repository enabled by default. I have not yet implemented all of the features I wanted to include in this release. I have fitted as many features as I could on a CD sized image, but I could not fit on Emacspeak, LinuxSpeaks or support for foreign languages etc., in a 700MB image. I hope to release a 'Vinux 1.5 Plus' edition shortly which will contain both of these extra accessibility packages, support for foreign languages and some more multimedia codecs etc. However this will obviously be larger than 700MB and will have to be burnt on to a DVD. Vinux 1.5 will probably be the last release of Vinux based on Ubuntu as there are too many bugs in the latest release and their rapid and cutting edge release cycle means that it is not really a suitable base for creating a stable accessible distribution. So once I have released 'Vinux 1.5 Plus' I am planning to switch to Debian as a base. I believe this will provide a much more stable platform in the long term.

A Freudian Slap!

2009-05-16T19:08:00.000+01:00

As some of you may have noticed I haven't been very active on the mailing list for the last few weeks and haven't made any real progress with the next release of Vinux. This is because at the beginning of the month I was informed that myself and eleven of my colleagues in the R&D Team were being made redundant in an effort cut costs at the College. So I have spent the last few weeks concentrating on trying to find myself a new job and put Vinux on the shelf temporarily. I have now been offered a teaching position at the same College, which is what I have done for most of my working life. However, I will no longer be teaching ICT but Critical Thinking, Sociology and Psychology (hence the Freudian slap). This may at first glance appear to be a rather radical shift, but in fact I started out as a Philosophy Lecturer after completing a degree and PhD in Philosophy, so it is more of a return to my academic roots than it might first appear. I will of course still be working with visually impaired learners and continuing with the development of Vinux in my spare time! It will still probably be a few weeks before I have wrapped everything up and made the transition to the new post. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

The Jerky Jackalope and Other Tales.

2009-05-07T21:45:00.000+01:00

Its been a few weeks now since the release of Ubuntu 9.04 and the overwhelming impression is one of a bug ridden disaster comparable to the first Men in Black Movie. There are serious problems with the new version of Xorg 1.6 , the installer and the new Ext4 file system. It's like 7.04 and 7.10 all over again, and if history repeats itself it is unlikely any of this damage will be put right until the release of 9.10 or maybe even 10.04! So for now I will be basing the next release of Vinux on the relatively stable Intrepid Ibex. 8.10 is supported with updates and security patches for another year which will take us to the next LTS release which will be supported for three years. I have come to the conclusion that it is not going to be practical to follow Ubuntu's six month cycle, as it takes a few months to get Vinux stable and bug free. So the options are to base Vinux on the long term service releases and/or switch to Debian as the base. Both options would offer the benefit of stability at the cost of cutting edge features. In terms of ethics and open-source principles Debian would be preferable as it is dedicated to the open-source philosophy, while Ubuntu include non-free packages and drivers etc. I also suspect that at some point in the future Ubuntu will go commercial once it has a big enough user-base, and go on to become the Microsoft of the Linux world. So once I have built Vinux 1.5 I will be experimenting with Debian Lenny which remastersys also supports, and from what I have read has more features than the Ubuntu version including a text based installer which should be more accessible than Ubiquity. Watch this space!

Vinux 1.5 - The Manifesto!

2009-04-15T22:47:00.000+01:00

I have now had time to reflect on all of the changes I plan to introduce in Vinux 1.5 and they broadly fall into five categories: Screen-Readers and Speech Synthesis, Fonts, Colours and Layouts, Language and Keyboard Layouts, Help and Guidance and the Remastering Process itself.

Firstly, there will be significant improvements and additions to the screen-reading and speech synthesizers provided by Vinux. I intend to install and configure speech-dispatcher to be the default speech service in conjunction with Orca and Espeak, which should provide a much more responsive screen-reading experience. I will reconfigure YASR to use the Festival speech synthesizer by default, which will provide a much higher quality console based screen-reader in the event of any problems with Orca. I will also be installing both the Emacspeak and LinuxSpeaks text based audio desktops, which use the eflite and espeak speech synthesizers respectively. By providing a choice of four different screen-readers and four speech synthesizers I am hoping that you will always be able to access your computer even if you encounter problems with your preferred screen-reader and voice. In addition I hope to include keystroke commands for starting and/or restarting each of these screen-readers so you should never be left in the lurch!

Secondly, I plan to make changes to the appearance of Vinux to improve its visual accessibility for partially sighted users. This will include increasing the default font and icon size, improving the contrast of the desktop and application windows, increasing the size and layout of the top and bottom panels, changing the desktop background and providing a wider choice of accessibility themes and icons. I will also be installing Firefox accessibility toolbars and plugins which allow the user to tweak the fonts, colours and layouts displayed in their browser on the fly and provide a choice of terminals with large font sizes and high contrast colour schemes. In addition I will be installing xcalib which will allow a user to invert the screen colours and change its contrast and brightness with keystrokes without having to use Orca and/or Compiz. Finally, mousekeys will be enabled by default, which will allow more accurate control over the mouse pointer and I am going to reorganise the main menus so that there are separate sub-menus for purely console based applications.

Thirdly, I am hoping to include support for several European languages and keyboard layouts by default including: Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Flemish. This will help to overcome the additional linguistic barriers many people face when trying to use a distribution that is not in their native language.

Fourthly, I plan to introduce a whole host of help and guidance features that will make peoples transition into Linux that little bit easier. This will include an autorun.inf file and a HTML guide to booting and installing Vinux for people who are still using Windows computers, the addition of bookmarks to lots of useful Linux accessibility related websites and resources in Firefox, Lynx and Netrik; and some audio/video guides to the accessibility features offered by Vinux. I also hope to include a list of useful terminal commands stored in the bash history file, which will allow beginners to access complex commands by pressing the cursor up key, as well as providing a series of simple Zenity GUI interfaces to useful command line applications that require the correct arguments and syntax, which a beginner is unlikely to know. Finally in this section I will be pre-enabling all of the Ubuntu repositories including those which contain restricted packages as well as enabling useful plugins in applications like Gedit etc.

Fifthly, I will be incorporating some applications which are not included for the benefit of the end user at all, but to help facilitate the creation of Vinux itself. These are programs such as AptonCD, Isomaster, gFTP and Gambas2 that are not particularly accessible but I use to create Vinux and/or accessible applications and having them included on the CD/DVD will make my life a lot easier as I will hopefully be able to create a new version of Vinux without having to install a different distribution or lots of extra packages.

Did Nostradamus Predict the Release of Vinux 1.5?

2009-04-10T20:52:00.000+01:00

No he didn't! But if he had he might have predicted some of the following features for the next version of your favourite accessible open-source operating system: The installation and configuration of Speech-Dispatcher as the default speech system for Orca and Espeak without the loss of multi-channel sound facilities. The addition of LinuxSpeaks and Emacspeak as two alternative x-terminal or purely console based audio desktops for the beginner and advanced user respectively. The reconfiguration of YASR to use the Festival speech synthesizer by default to provide a higher quality emergency backup screen-reader for the x-terminal or the console. The installation of accessibility toolbars and plugins for Firefox which allow the user to tweak the layout, fonts and colours of the internet on the fly. The installation of xcalib and configuration of xbindkeys to provide colour inversion as well as the ability to change the brightness, contrast and RGB colours of the x display without using Orca or Compiz. A larger font and higher contrast theme for the Gnome desktop by default as well as the inclusion of extra accessibility themes and icons. Support for the Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Flemish languages and keyboard layouts out of the box. Mousekeys will be enabled out of the box which will allow a user to control the mouse pointer using the numpad arrow keys. The addition of an autorun.inf file to load a html guide on booting and installing Vinux if placed in a Windows machine. The addition of NVDA, Firefox and a few other windows based open-source applications for Windows users to try out. The enabling of all of the advanced text editing plugins for Gedit by default. If possible the replacement of the default Ubuntu usplash, boot splash and GDM login theme with more accessible alternatives. A choice of gnome-terminal with more accessible colour schemes and larger font sizes. The inclusion of more simple document converter scripts like antiword and pdftotext etc to enable the conversion of proprietary document formats into plain text. The reorganisation of the Vinux menus so that there are separate menus for console based applications instead of integrating them into the existing menus. The creation of zenity dialogue boxes to enable a simple gui interface to terminal scripts that require user input and/or arguments to run. The inclusion of bookmarks for useful Linux/Accessibility websites and services in Firefox, Lynx and Netrik by default. The enabling of all supported Ubuntu repositories including those which contain non-free and/or restricted packages, although none of these will be included on the CD/DVD. A list of useful terminal commands provided by default in the bash history file to make it easier for beginners to start exploring the Linux terminal. An update to StormDragon's latest version of the Orca customisations.py script which makes the time, date, battery and weather information available from Orca. In the very distant future I am also planning to experiment with making Vinux based on Xubuntu with the light but GTK enabled XFCE desktop and Debian Lenny 5.0 to see what advantages or disadvantages can be gained. That's All Folks!

Speech-Dispatcher Returns from the Dead!

2009-04-08T20:43:00.000+01:00

I am very happy to tell you that I have now managed to get speech-dispatcher to work on Vinux without losing the multi-channel sound capabilities. The final peice of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place when I was experimenting with Debian Lenny and managed to get speech-dispatcher working properly. I realised that I hadn't been doing anything wrong at all but I hadn't really understood the difference between speech-dispatcher running in user mode and as a system service. What caused this was an error which seems to have crept into spd-conf and my failure to understand the difference between the two modes. For some reason the spd-conf supplied in the Ubuntu 8.10 repositories set the syntheziser port to 6561 for user mode and 6560 for running as a service, and it should be the other way around. Because I didn't understand the difference between the two modes I had been setting up speech-dispatcher in user mode but then using init.d to start it as a service instead of using the speech-dispatcher -d command. Given these two school boy errors I was never going to get it to work! So for anyone who wants to try this at home here is a step by step guide to getting speech-dispatcher working on Ubuntu 8.10 with multi-channel sound support.

1. Run 'sudo apt-get install speech-dispatcher python-speechd' in a terminal

2. Once installed run 'spd-conf' in the same terminal.

3. Accept all of the default options except type 'pulse' for the sound server and '6560' for the synthesizer port.

4. Speech-dispatcher should then speak if everything is going to plan!

5. Use the 'speech-dispatcher -d' command to start up speech-dispatcher as a daemon'

6. Open the Orca preferences window and select speech-dispatcher as the speech synthesizer and click apply.

7. Orca should now be a lot more snappy and responsive.

8. Finally open the Session Manager from the preferences menu, create a new entry called speech-dispatcher and type 'speech-dispatcher -d' as the command, then reboot and enjoy your new snappier speech!

9. If you want to use espeak with YASR, you can then edit the /etc/yasr/yasr.conf file by commenting out the default Eflite synthesizer and uncomment the speech-dispatcher and corresponding synthesizer port entries.

Through the Looking Glass with Debian Lenny!

2009-04-07T16:32:00.000+01:00

This week I have been experimenting with the latest Debian 5.0 release, code-named Lenny after the talking, walking binoculars in the Pixar animation Toy Story. I began by installing the full desktop version of Lenny onto one of my desktop PC's and found that Orca was not installed by default. So after enabling all of the repositories in the software sources list I downloaded Orca and once configured it ran with no problems. I then installed YASR and Festival but could not get YASR to run with Eflite or Festival, and had no luck getting Orca to use Festival either. No error messages, just silence! Then I got a bit more adventurous and decided to install and configure speech-dispatcher in user mode, something I have not been able to get working using Ubuntu 8.10 without losing multi-channel sound support. And low and behold it worked first time, very responsive speech and multi-channel sound simultaneously! This is probably because Debian Lenny doesn't use PulseAudio like Ubuntu and speech-dispatcher works much better with Alsa. However I couldn't get it to work with Festival of Flite either. Not the end of the world though, if I have Orca, Speech-Dispatcher and Espeak all working nicely out of the box it is less likely that people will want to use YASR or Festival anyway (and I think YASR can be set to use speech-dispatcher as well). So I hope to create an experimental version of Vinux based on Debian 5.0 in the near future and then let members of the Vinux Development Forum have a play with it. It will have most of the same features and setup as the Ubuntu version with the exception of no USB pendrive installer as yet, but with the addition of Speech-Dispatcher out of the box and the Remastersys text based installer.

A Tale of Three Synthesizers and Five Languages!

2009-04-05T00:20:00.000+01:00

The next release of Vinux will hopefully support several European languages including Spanish, French, German and Dutch/Flemish and will therefore be called Vinux.eu! The user will be able to choose what language they want to use on the Live CD by entering a short cheatcode at the boot prompt and/or a specific username and password at the login screen. This depends upon whether or not I can let the user choose a language, keyboard layout and Orca voice by entering a cheatcode at the boot prompt or whether I am going to have to create either a different user account for each language or even a different iso image. This is because at the moment, while I can get the display language to change I cannot get the keyboard layout or Orca voice to change via cheatcodes. Although, these can easily be changed via the keyboard and Orca preferences windows after boot the system defaults to English after an install and requires you to change the language and keyboard settings manually again. If I can't resolve this though cheatcodes then I will experiment with creating multiple user accounts, although that might not be possible using the Remastersys 'dist' mode which would mean forcing users to change the password manually after an install! Other new features that I hope to include are the Emacspeak Audio Desktop using the lightweight Eflite speech synthesier for more experienced users, the LinuxSpeaks menu based console screen-reader using the Espeak speech synthesiser for beginners and the reconfiguration of YASR to use the Festival speech synthesizer, thus providing a higher quality console based screen-reading experience.

Vinux 1.4 Released!

2009-03-26T20:12:00.000Z

I have just released the new edition of Vinux. It contains several significant improvements over previous releases. These include improved security: Unlike previous versions Vinux 1.4 has been built from scratch using the Ubuntu 'mini.iso' 10MB network installation which means it contains all of the latest packages and security patches as of the day of release. The addition of an Audible Boot Prompt: The Live CD now sounds the system bell three times when the boot prompt appears on the screen, which then gives you thirty seconds to type in any cheatcodes or boot options you require. e.g. typing 'textonly' will boot into console only mode, you can then type 'yasr' to start a console based screen-reader. Support for serial Braille displays: The Live CD now supports a wide variety of serial Braille displays in edition to the automatic detection of USB Braille displays. In order to use a serial Braille display or a USB Braille display with a different language table you simply have to type in a short code at the boot prompt. e.g. 'alde' for an Alva Serial display using the German language table, or 'alude' for an Alva USB display using the German language table. There is a full list of cheatcodes included in the 'cheatcodes_braille_displays.txt' on the CD. By default Vinux supports USB Braille displays using the en_uk language table. A talking login screen: Once installed espeak will now ask you to enter your username and password when the login screen is loaded providing you do not enable autologin during the installation process. It will not however echo what you type, but if you enter the wrong username and/or password you will be asked to enter them again. It is important that you should not enable autologin if you are using a wifi connection as the keyring manager workaround detailed below depends upon a manual login to work! A workaround for the Keyring Manager bug: Vinux now includes a workaround of sorts for the keyring manager which is currently inaccessible with Orca. We have set up a pre-configured keyring password 'vinux' which is retained on both the Live CD and an full install. This means that when you try to connect to a wifi network Orca stops speaking when the keyring manager password dialog box opens. Now you simply have to type 'vinux' into this box and as long as autologin is not enabled you will never have to enter the keyring password again. A fix for the Lynx startup bug: Lynx, Netrik and Firefox now use a local copy of the vinux.org.uk homepage as their starting URL's by default which means that you can open the broswers without problems whether you have an active internet connection or not. And finally I have added menu entries for some of the new Console Applications: This is to enable beginners who may not know the names of these applications or their way around the console to find and experiment with them more easily.

Building Vinux from Scratch!

2009-03-15T20:51:00.000Z

This weekend I have been experimenting with building Vinux from scratch, starting with the Ubuntu Minimal Install ISO which weighs in at just under 10Mb! This provides an internet based install of a very basic text based system which can be used as a platform upon which to build a full graphical desktop etc. I thought at first that I was going to be able to produce a very small and fast console based distribution using YASR and a selection of text based applications. However, by default Remastersys requires Ubiquity in order to run, and this has a large amount of GUI based dependencies. It would be possible to edit the Remastersys script to remove this dependency, but then it would not have an installer. I suppose I could use the Remastersys-installer script to do this, although it has been dropped from the latest version on Remastersys (at least temporarily). Anyway, I installed the Gnome Desktop Environment, Ubiquity and Orca and once remastered it came in at a very trim 350Mb! However this is without the inclusion of Open Office and Evolution, to which I hope to find smaller accessible counterparts. It also didn't require the inclusion of PulseAudio which may provide a solution to the problem of not being able to get Orca to use Speech-Dispatcher without losing multi-channel sound capabilities. I think this discovery is very promising as one of the biggest restraints on the development of Vinux so far has been trying to fit everything onto a CD rather than moving to a larger DVD sized image. I hope to try and build the next version of Vinux next weekend and I am planning to try this new approach and just hope it doesn't hold any nasty surprises in store!

New Boot Options and Languages!

2009-03-01T16:59:00.001Z

The next stage in the development of Vinux, will not to be to add any new applications, but to add some new boot options such as a three beeps when the boot prompt is ready, a text-only mode, support for serial Braille displays as well as a few new versions in the most common European languages such as Spanish, French and German of the current 1.31 version. These will most probably be released as 1.32. However, while I am able to make foreign language versions I am unable to test them properly other than make sure they boot and start speaking because I can only just about manage read and write English properly. So I am going to need native speakers of these languages to thoroughly test them out. If you would like to test them or know someone who might be able to help please get in touch. I think I have colleagues at work who can probably test the French and German language versions (but not the Braille). The next significant release will be version 2.0 which will hopefully be based on Ubuntu 9.04 presuming there are not any serious accessibility issues with it, otherwise I might have to stick with 8.10 for a little longer.

The Knobson - the guitar with knobs on!

2009-02-28T13:05:00.000Z

I will be taking a short break from Vinux development over the next four weeks, although I will still be experimenting and offering support and advice. This is because I have invented a Tactile Acoustic Guitar, which has a series of tactile markers on the rear of the neck to allow blind and partially sighted users to know which fret their fingers are on! It is aimed at beginners and is tuned to an open G chord or 'Spanish tuning' to allow for a very fast learning curve which allows people to learn and play chords and scales in a matter of hours, songs and melodies in a few days or weeks! I have already made four of the guitars and had a very positive response from people who have tried them. Over the next four weeks I will be writing and recording an instructional CD and an accompanying large print and braille manual which will be supplied with the guitar. This is a purely commercial venture which the college I work for wants me to pursue and I may have to do a bit of travelling to do workshops and demonstrations. If it is successful we may also release an electric version at sometime in the future! This temporary change of focus will also be very theraputic after spending many weeks preparing the 1.3 and 1.31 releases. In the meantime I hope you have fun with Vinux and keep me up to date with any problems or solutions you discover.

The Law of Diminishing Returns!

2009-02-23T20:55:00.000Z

So I have finally released Vinux 1.3 - it took a lot longer than I thought to complete, and in the end I decided I just had to release it whether or not it was perfect! I have managed to solve some significant problems and added new features but there are still some things I need to sort out in future versions. You can now choose your own username and password during the install process and install Vinux straight to a USB pendrive from the live CD or the ISO after installation. I have added lots of useful console applications and the yasr screen-reader, and also incorporated several forensic/recovery tools so that it could be used as a portable recovery tool by more experienced users. I have not been able to fix the cups server issue: it works from the live CD and/or USB pendrive but not once installed to a hard drive. This is a known issue when using remastersys with Ubuntu 8.10, but there is a simple fix which is available from the vinux.org.uk website. The feature I really wanted to include but just couldn't get to work was speech-dispatcher with alsa. I could get it to work, but only at the cost of losing multi-channel sound, so I have installed it but not enabled or configured it yet. So even though it isn't perfect I felt obliged to release it because of the law of diminishing returns - I was spending longer and longer make smaller and smaller improvements. I have to say I feel a lot better now I have released it, it is a great weight off my mind, as I have now spent nearly two months remastering it again and again in what little spare time I have. I will now try to relax for a few weeks and provide technical support for anyone who needs it before starting on another release. I may experiment with a few things in the meantime. The biggest dilemma is whether I should move to 9.04 when it is released in April, or stick with 8.10 until the release of 9.10?

Bash Scripting 101!

2009-02-16T20:48:00.000Z

After spending several weeks now working in the Vinux 1.3 release I am gradually coming to the conclusion that I am going to have to write a bash script which automates the whole process. This is because it is taking me several hours to do the whole remastering process from start to finish, and when things go wrong or I want to change something I often have to go back to the beginning and start again. Given that I have a full time job and a family I just don't have the time or the energy to keep putting myself through this, while on the other hand I am not prepared to release something I am not happy with. So the only practical solution is for me to automate the whole process with a bash script, so I can just start it off and come back in a few hours and burn the iso. Some parts of this process are simple, such as installing or removing packages, and some of the configuration is straight forward such modifying a line in a config file. My concern is the configuration of the Orca screen-reader/magnifier and the Compiz 3D effects settings which both seem to have a very large number of configuration files and plugins etc. So I will have to do a bit of detective work to locate where all of the relevant settings are stored and then get out my Bash Scripting Bible and start sweating it out with the command line. In the short term this is going to delay the release of version 1.3, but will mean that in future I will be able to create new releases with a few simple changes to the bash script. In principle the script is very simple, it will just remove any unnecessary packages, install some new ones, configure the accessibility settings etc and then run remastersys to create the new iso. Sounds easy doesn't it? But I bet it isn't as straight-forward as it seems. If I get stuck I will post specific questions on the development forums etc., in the hope that some bash scripting Yoda will bestow his Jedi wisdom upon me. May the force be with me.

To GUI or CLI, that is the question!

2009-02-15T22:21:00.000Z

My primary goal in creating Vinux was originally to provide a simple GUI interface that both visually impaired and sighted users could both access easily, which I feel is the best solution in an educational scenario. However, after receiving feedback and suggestions from the online VI community, it seems that there are scenarios where a command line interface is more appropriate and effective. There are of course two different ways of implementing an accessible CLI: A standard terminal session with a screen-reader, or a more user friendly menu driven system such as Adriane Knoppix or LinuxSpeaks. After playing with the latest edition of Knoppix and GRML I can see the advantages of having both a GUI and a CLI interface in Vinux so that it is not only suitable for beginners with no experience of Linux but alsothe more experienced hacker types. So rather than rush out another version of Vinux straight away (I have got most of the GUI elements working satisfactorily) I want to try to incorporate a decent selection of CLI applications, which won't take up too much room on the CD but will add a lot of extra functionality. I will then probably add a new entry to the main menu called 'Console Applications' so that beginners can also access these applications without having to know the names of the applications or the appropriate options/arguments etc. Thus providing an easy introduction to the command line without being dropped in at the deep end. I don't want to lose the momentum the project has gained by delaying the release of Vinux 1.3 for too long, but I think the benefits of adding a coherent selection of CLI applications will be worth the wait. I want to try and find an equivalent CLI application for all of the standard GUI applications that the standard Ubuntu install provides. I could do with two or three weeks being locked away with a computer an Ubuntu 8.10 live CD and an internet connection. Although, I can't think of a crime off the top of my head which would result in such a specific custodial sentence!

Building Vinux from Scratch!

2009-02-08T15:40:00.000Z

Today I had a go at building Vinux from scratch by starting with the minimal ubuntu install iso which is only about 10MB and installs a very basic console system. You can then use apt-get to install only the packages you actually want rather that starting with a full install and uninstalling what you don't need. Sounds great doesn't it! So I began to install what I considered to be essential applications like remastersys, yasr etc and it turns out that they require nearly 200mb of dependancies to run properly. By the time I had all the basics installed and ran remastsersys the new iso was just over 400MB in size, and that was before I had installed Orca and the Gnome desktop etc. Thus this method was not going to produce a smaller iso than I can by just uninstalling unwanted applications from the original iso. However it is a very simple way to create a basic system either with a console interface or a lightweight window manager like Fluxbox etc. I presume that GRML might have been produced through this kind of process (although not on an ubuntu base). This would be something I would consider doing if I wanted to use an old computer as a file server etc, or wanted to create a lightweight distro with the Fluxbox window manager but only basic accessibility features, like yasr and xzoom etc. So back to the drawing board! The only advantage this method would offer would be an Ubuntu 8.10 iso which contained the latest package updates without increasing its size. Food for thought! I still can't decide whether I should just make a 1GB iso containing everything, or a stripped down version that fits on a CD!

The Foundations of Vinux!

2009-02-05T20:16:00.000Z

I have spent the last week playing with a variety of Linux distributions to see if Ubuntu is really the best foundation on which to build Vinux. I have looked at the latest versions of Fedora, OpenSUSE, Knoppix, GRML, Puppy Linux and PCLinuxOS to see how they compare to Ubuntu. With the exception of GRML these are all distributions that I am fairly familiar with and have used as my primary OS at one time or another. The first thing I looked at was what accessibility features they provided out of the box. Fedora and OpenSUSE both provide Orca by default (if you choose the Gnome variants) GRML and Adriane Knoppix are both text based distributions which provide console based speech support by default, although graphical desktop options are available. Only Puppy and PCLinuxOS offer little or no accessibility software, primarily because they are not Gnome based. The second factor I looked at is how easy it is to remaster the distribution. Adriane Knoppix and GRML didn't have any obvious methods for doing this, although they might be hidden away in some console command, while Fedora, OpenSUSE, PCLinuxOS and Puppy Linux all offer an explicit remastering process. However, the Fedora and OpenSUSE packages only allow you to add/remove applications and change a few settings, you cannot actually test the image until you have actually created it, and if something doesn't work you have to start all over again. Puppy Linux and PCLinuxOS on the other hand allow you to install and configure the system so it meets your requirements and then make the image, which means you can change things if they don't work without having to start again. I feel this approach to remastering: Install, Modify, Create Image and then Boot, much more logical and user friendly than having to make all of the changes during the construction of the image and only get to try it out and test it thoroughly after you have burnt it. On the one hand Fedora and OpenSUSE offer better accessibility features, while Puppy LInux and PCLinuxOS offer better remastering facilities! So how does Ubuntu compare? Well it provides good accessibility features (albeit with a few bugs) and a very simple way to remaster the live CD with Remastersys. So after a week of window shopping (or should it be linux shopping) I think that as things currently stand Ubuntu is still the most suitable foundation on which to base Vinux. So the next edition of Vinux will still be based on Ubuntu 8.10, I will not be touching 9.04 with a bargepole until it has been thoroughly tested and any significant bugs removed.

Moments of Doubt and Faith!

2009-02-01T13:53:00.001Z

I am currently feeling very frustrated, having spent nearly every waking hour since the release of Vinux 1.2 (as well as regularly dreaming about it in between) and have really not made any significant progress as yet! I have managed to solve a few small issues like being able to choose your own username and password when you install it, being able to use the built in USB installer to create a bootable pendrive Vinux with persistent storage and installing YASR. However I have made no progress at all with the more significant issues such as installing and configuring speech-dispatcher with Alsa (without losing multi-channel sound capabilities), enabling multi-language and keyboard support or getting LinuxSpeaks to integrate into the system without causing problems. I could release a Vinux 1.21 version but I don't really feel that it is worth releasing a completely new version with such insignificant changes as it is easy enough to install and configure YASR after installation and change your password, and I don't think that many people are that desperate for bootable USB pendrives.

So I have decided to take a short break from Vinux (maybe a couple of weeks) and just experiment with other distros as a starting point (possibly Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE or PCLinuxOS) as well as taking a closer look at other specialised VI distributions such as Adriane Knoppix, BlindUbuntu and GRML etc., to see what I can learn from them. I am still sincerely committed to the goal of creating a fully accessible easy to use distribution that Visually Impaired users who have never used Linux before can just boot and experiment with. I just need a short break to rethink my approach and take the pressure off myself for a bit. In the words of the Terminator "I'll be back!"

The Tortoise and the Hare!

2009-01-25T16:01:00.000Z

There have not been many updates on the blog or the development mailing list lately because I have been trying to find solutions (or at least workarounds) for some fundamental problems such as getting Speech-Dispatcher and Alsa to work with multi-channel sounds, getting LinuxSpeaks to integrate into the system without causing any problems and trying to get all of the accessibility features to fit on a 700MB CD without removing too many applications. This has been frustrating enough, but on top of this I had a serious neck injury last week which means I have been unable to spend very much time at a computer. On the other hand I have managed to solve the username/password problem, installed and configured YASR and managed to fit a few more useful console based applications onto the CD. I think I will realistically have to leave Speech-Dispatcher, Speakup and LinuxSpeaks until a later version and just get out a new release with some small but significant improvements rather than be over ambitious and release something with more advanced features that may or may not work. I am obviously more of a tortoise than a hare!

New Features in Vinux 1.3!

2009-01-19T19:19:00.001Z

Here is a list of new features I hope to be able to incorporate in the first release under the new Vinux name: The Username and Password entered during the install process will be retained, the USB Creator application will work with the customised live CD by default, the YASR console screen-reader will be installed allowing users to run without a GUI, the LinuxSpeaks complete audio desktop will be available and a whole host of accessible console based applications including lynx, urlview, joe, mc, oleo, mutt, vlock, partimage, alpine, irssi, mpg123 etc...

I am also trying to configure Speech-Dispatcher with Alsa, Emacspeak, the Linux Screen Reader, Speakup, Screader, Festival and as many other accessibility applications as I can find, but unfortunately I have not been able to get these working satisfactorily yet with Intrepid!

The cost of including these extra accessibility packages is that I have to exclude some standard packages in order to fit them on the CD. I have already stripped Ubuntu down about as far as I can without causing any significant problems, but Open Office is now the only thing left I can safely remove! So the choice is this - do I remove everything I can and provide a bare bones system with all of the accessibility packages ( I suppose I could include a script to reinstall everything I have removed once installed) or do I leave Ubuntu as it is and just add on all of the accessibility applications creating a large iso (possibly up to 1.4Gb) that would have to be burned onto a DVD. This is a problem I am still wrestling with, I may well end up making two different versions one for CD and one for DVD!

Performance v Functionality!

2009-01-08T18:58:00.000Z

I have spent the last week unsuccessfully trying to replace PulseAudio and Gnome Speech with ALSA and Speech-Dispatcher. I have been able to get Speech Dispatcher running with ALSA and this does significantly improve the responsiveness of Orca. However, once I enable Speech Dispatcher I have been unable to run any other applications which produce audio output. This is in all probability because I have not configured Speech Dispatcher properly, but I have followed all of the guides I can find online as well as receiving advice from members of the Speech Dispatcher mailing list to no avail. Speech Dispatcher offers many advanced features: It is able to use OSS, ALSA and PulseAudio as well as being able to run as a system service or on an individual user basis. However the fact that it offers so much functionality means it is not easy to configure. I hope that I will be able to resolve this problem but if not I face a tricky decision. Do I install ALSA and Speech Dispatcher and sacrifice multi-channel sound functionality or do I stick with PulseAudio and Gnome Speech and settle for poorer performance?

To be honest I don't think the responsiveness of Orca using PulseAudio is that bad on reasonably modern hardware and adding yourself to the PulseAudio realtime group can improve this further. Hopefully in the long run the Ubuntu, Gnome, PulseAudio and/or Orca will resolve these issues and replacing PulseAudio will be unnecessary. In the meantime if I am unable to resolve the issue than I could install and configure Speech Dispatcher but not enable it by default. This way beginners would have fully functional speech and multi-channel sound, while more advanced users could enable Speech Dispatcher and configure it themselves. I am also intending to install and configure YASR, a console based screen-reader and LinuxSpeaks, a complete console based audio desktop in the next version of Vinux.

To Braille or not to Braille!

2008-12-31T19:27:00.000Z

I forgot to explain how to enable braille display support when I wrote the original 'How to Roll Your Own Vinux'. For some reason brltty is not enabled by default in Ubuntu 8.10 and therefore has to be manually enabled and configured. Firstly you have to open the /etc/default/brltty file by typing 'sudo gedit /etc/default/brltty' into a terminal. Then find the line which reads 'RUN_BRLTTY=no' and change it to 'RUN_BRLTTY=yes' and save the changes. This will add brltty to the list of applications which run when Vinux starts. Secondly you have to open the /etc/brltty.conf file by typing 'sudo gedit /etc/brltty.conf' into a terminal and uncomment the relevant configuration settings by deleting the '#' at the beginning of the lines. The settings I configured were: 'braille-driver auto # autodetect', 'text-table en_UK # English (United Kingdom)' and 'contraction-table en-uebc-g2 # Grade 2 Unified English Braille Code'. Which enables braille display autoprobing at boot with English six-dot contracted Grade 2 braille output once Orca is running. Thanks to Osvaldo La Rosa for suggesting this modification and providing simple instructions on how to do it!

Does size really matter?

2008-12-31T19:22:00.000Z

One of the key considerations in making a distribution is the final target size of the ISO. Most distributions come in at around the 700Mb mark, but some are under 100Mb and others over 4GB! I would prefer to keep the ISO image under 700Mb so that it can fit on a CD rather than a DVD. There are many reasons for this, including upload and download times as well as bandwidth and storage limitations etc. The price of keeping the distribution on a CD is that it won't be feasible to provide the full range of standard applications or updates etc. A Vinux CD could realistically provide all of the accessibility applications pre-configured out of the box, but the user would then have to download any other applications they needed themselves. The alternative would be to provide a larger DVD edition which would provide a standard range of applications and fully updated packages alongside all of the accessibility applications. Maybe there is a genuine argument for producing both versions? The other dilemma that developers have to face relates to the inclusion of proprietary media codecs and hardware drivers etc. Again most distributions do not provide these by default to avoid the threat of litigation, although it is relatively easy to install these after installation. On the other hand, several popular distributions including Linux Mint and Sabayon do provide these by default and this makes life very easy for a beginner who would find it very frustrating if their new operating system couldn't play their own legally purchased music files and DVD's etc. This maybe because they are based in Europe rather than the USA, where software patents are far harder to enforce. My instinct would be to err on the side of caution and merely provide guidance on how to install these rather than open up myself to the possibility of any law suits etc., no matter how unlikely these are. Again maybe there is a need for both approaches, letting the user decide which version to download according to the law and regulations in their country of residence. However, the priority for now will definitely be the production of a CD sized ISO with no proprietary software, as it would be a relatively simple process to add in extra applications and codecs etc after the core accessibility functionality is realised.

Back to the Future!

2008-12-31T19:20:00.000Z

The New Year approaches and I really need to start working on the first official release of Vinux. The last few weeks have been quite frustrating as I have had to spend most of my free time setting up a new Vinux website, mailing list and development blog in preparation for the formal announcement of the re-branding of Vibuntu to Vinux etc. This has also given me the opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved so far and what the priorities are for the next release. I am quite pleased with the initial response to Vinux, which has been largely positive. However I was a bit surprised and discouraged by criticisms made by some subscribers suggesting that there was no real need for such a distribution, that Linux was already accessible anyway and posting updates on the three key forums (Ubuntu, Gnome and Orca) was tantamount to spamming! This aside, the key tasks in the order of priority as I see them, are: 1. To allow users to choose their preferred language and keyboard layout at boot, and their own username and password during the installation process. 2. To improve the responsiveness of Orca by replacing PulseAudio with Alsa and installing Speech Dispatcher (this may also provide a more elegant solution to the problem Orca has with administration applications). 3. Incorporating alternative accessibility solutions such as YASR, LinuxSpeaks and Speakup etc., (although this may require the replacement of Open Office with AbiWord and Gnumeric because of space constraints). 4. Replacement of Ubuntu logos and splash-screens etc., with original Vinux artwork or at the very least generic artwork which will not infringe on Canonical's trademarks etc.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!

2008-12-23T21:35:00.000Z

The Good: Vinux currently logs the user in automatically, starts the Orca screen-reader, autoprobes for USB Braille displays and allows the user to enable full-screen magnification with a simple keystroke. The Orca screen-reader now works out of the box with all of the applications which have to be run with root permissions provided they are launched from the Administration menu or the terminal. The default theme and desktop background provide better contrast and larger bolder fonts than the Ubuntu originals and it can now be installed and run from a USB pendrive with persistent storage.

The Bad: Because Vinux is currently based on Ubuntu 8.10 it comes with the PulseAudio sound server and Gnome Speech services by default, which can have a detrimental effect on the responsiveness and performance of the Orca screen-reader compared to that offered by Alsa and Speech-Dispatcher. The Orca 2D magnifier can be jerky and unresponsive, the Compiz 3D Advanced Desktop Zoom does not provide caret tracking and currently neither of these have high quality font smoothing which is essential at higher magnification settings.

The Ugly: Because of the way Remastersys works, in order to retain the required accessibility settings on the live CD, it is currently necessary to create a pre-configured user account which is retained even after it has been installed to a hard drive. This means that the user cannot choose their preferred language and keyboard layout at boot, and the default username and password are retained no matter what they type in, posing a potential security risk even though these can be changed easily enough after the installation process is finished.

Vinux Is Not Ubuntu but gnu/linuX!

2008-12-23T19:30:00.000Z

Why did we pick the name Vinux, what does it stand for and what is its relationship to Ubuntu? Well, originally it was going to be called Vibuntu, as it was based on Ubuntu 8.10 and as it was aimed at VI users Vibuntu seemed the obvious logical choice. However, after consulting Canonical's Trademark Team (the company behind Ubuntu) we were advised that they did not approve of our use of the Vibuntu name on the grounds that it might give users the false impression that it was produced by or endorsed by Canonical, and that granting this permission would also weaken their claim to the 'buntu' trademark. Although we were obviously disappointed with this decision, we completely understand their reasons for making it and will of course respect their wishes. They did generously say that we could call it the Ubuntu VI Remix if we liked, because it remained close enough to the original Ubuntu in terms of content and didn't include any packages that were restricted or from third party repositories. However, after some soul-searching we decided to go with Vinux, which had been a strong contender for the title from the beginning. This has the advantage of allowing us to do whatever we want with the distribution without having to try to stay within the boundaries of the Ubuntu Remix remit. Vinux may ultimately be a more approriate name, as after all it is Linux for the VI! But what does Vinux stand for? Well Osvaldo came up with a suitably recursive definition as is the honoured tradition in open-source society, namely: Vinux Is Not Ubuntu but gnu/linuX!

Vinux Logos and Wallpaper!

2008-12-23T17:31:00.000Z

I have now created a set of original Vinux Logos and Wallpapers which will be used in the next release of Vinux. These are released under the GNU Free Documentation Licence and the GPL respectively and are available for viewing and download from the Vinux Development Group homepage at http://groups.google.com/group/vinux-development/. Some people, might quite reasonably be puzzled as to why I would bother making graphical logos and wallpaper for a distribution that is primarily aimed at visually impaired users. Isn't this at best a misguided waste of time, or worse still an insult to the visually impaired? I would argue not, because the vast majority of people who are registered blind do have some vision and are able to see images and read text if it is big enough and has high enough constrast; even those that have little or no effective vision still understandably want the things they use to look cool to their sighted friends and relatives. With this in mind I have designed what I think to be an appropriate, professional looking set of logos for Vinux and an original collection of large high contrast wallpapers. The logo is based on a modified version of an image called 'The Eye of Horus' by Jeff Dahl published at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_of_Horus_bw.svg. I think this instantly recognisable ancient Eygptian symbol clearly represents the primary purpose of Vinux which is; to provide a way for the blind and partially sighted users to participate fully in the digital revolution and all of the benefits this bestows. I created the logos using the GIMP. I began by lowering the eyebrow, changing the colour of the iris to black and then adding a pupil using the Supernova filter. I then placed this image on three different types of stone tablet (granite, white marble and pink marble) in three different shapes (tablet, slab and icon) and three different sizes (large, medium and small).

The wallpapers were also created using the GIMP (it really is an amazing tool). In each case I began by creating a 1024 x 768 image with a black background. and then drew a few coloured lines (pretty much at random). I then applied a Gaussian Blur from the Filters menu and twiddled the controls on the Lens Distortion effect until I had something I liked the look of. After all, what could be more appropriate for a distribution aimed at the visually impaired than images produced by blurring and distortion! This process only took a few seconds to do, so I created about 30 images very quickly and then picked out the four I liked best. I then applied the Make Seamless filter to the remaining images (which makes the wallpaper tile-able across wide-screen and multi-monitor displays) and this produced six more interesting images. Although I will probably use one of the dark low contrast wallpapers by default, I hope that the high contrast wallpapers will allows users to have an original, eye-catching desktop that will be the envy of their sighted friends.

Vinux on a USB Pendrive!

2008-12-21T19:59:00.000Z

Initially I had been installing Vinux to a USB pendrive using Unetbootin as the Ubuntu USB Installer would not recognise the Vinux Live CD. This worked well but the Unetbootin gui does not support Orca as it is uses QT rather than GTK, it does not run from a terminal, and it does not support persistent storage. Upon investigation I discovered that the Ubuntu USB Installer was looking for a hidden folder on the original Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD called .disk which contained three files: casper-uuid-generic, info and release_note_url. As long as this is in the root directory of the CD the Ubuntu USB Installer works, allowing you to install Vinux onto a USB pendrive with a persistant storage file, the size of which can be specified during installation. I will incorporate this file into the next version of Vinux, but in the meantime if you want to try this yourself here is a quick guide.

1. Place the Vinux.iso image in your home folder (e.g. /home/vinux) along with the hidden .disk file from the original Ubuntu 8.10 Live CD. Then open a terminal.

2. Create a mount point for the Vinux CD iso image by typing:

mkdir /home/vinux/CD-iso

3. Mount the Vinux.iso image to this mount point by typing:

sudo mount -o loop /home/vinux/Vinux.iso /home/vinux/CD-iso

4. Copy the contents of the mounted Vinux iso into a temp folder by typing:

cp -r /home/vinux/CD-iso /home/vinux/USB-iso

5. Copy the hidden .disk folder to the temp folder by typing:

sudo cp -r /home/vinux/.disk /home/vinux/USB-iso

6. Copy the contents of the temp folder into a new USB iso image by typing:

mkisofs -r -o /home/vinux/Vinux-USB.iso /home/vinux/USB-iso

7. Unmount the Vinux CD iso image by typing:

sudo umount /home/vinux/CD-iso

8. Delete the mount point for the Vinux CD iso image by typing:

rmdir /home/vinux/CD-iso

9. Delete the temp folder by typing:

sudo rm -rf /home/vinux/USB-iso

10. Insert a pendrive of 1Gb or greater and start the Ubuntu USB Installer from the Applications menu. Point it to the new Vinux-USB.iso in your home directory and it will install it and create a persistent storage file of whatever size you specify.

Roll your own Vinux!

2008-12-21T19:51:00.000Z

This is a very rough guide as to how I created the very first version of Vinux from a default install of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).

1. Change the desktop theme, background, font size and style etc., to fit your needs or preferences and add, remove or rearrange any desktop icons or panel applets as required.

2. Install the 3D Settings Manager by typing 'sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager' into a terminal, enable Compiz by typing 'compiz --replace' , modify the Compiz settings, create appropriate key-bindings and then disable Compiz by typing 'metacity --replace' .

3. Start Assistive Technologies and then set appropriate speech and magnification settings in the Orca Preferences window.

4. Create an .orbitrc file for the root account by typing 'sudo su - root' then the following four lines exactly as they are written (without the bullet points) into a terminal one at a time:

cat> ~/.orbitrc << EOF
ORBIIOPIPv4=1
ORBIIOPUNIX=0
EOF

5. Enable the 'Disable gksu keyboard grab' option in the General page of the Orca Preferences window.

6. Type 'sudo visudo' into a terminal, find the line which reads 'Defaults env_reset' and then add the line 'Defaults env_keep+="GTK_MODULES"' underneath it. Press Ctrl+X to exit, Y to save changes and Enter to finish.

7. Modify the launching of any application on the Administration menu that will not run with Orca by opening the Main Menu entry on the Preferences menu, find the launcher you want to modify, open its Properties, change it to an 'Application in Terminal' and add the word 'sudo' before the default Command.

8. Add 'deb http://www.remastersys.klikit-linux.com/repository remastersys/' to your /etc/apt/sources.list and then install remastersys by typing 'sudo apt-get install remastersys' into a terminal.

9. Remove any applications you do not require by typing 'sudo apt-get remove name-of-application' into a terminal to reduce the size of the iso image.

10. Type 'sudo remastersys backup' into a terminal and after about 20-30 minutes or so your new live CD image called Custom_Live_CD.iso will be waiting for you in the /home/remastersys/remastersys directory.

Isn't Linux already Accessible?

2008-12-21T18:29:00.000Z

Since releasing Vinux it has been pointed out to me that there are already some Linux distributions which provide accessibility and therefore I should not have claimed that Vinux was the first Linux distribution to provide full accessibility for blind and partially sighted users out of the box.

There are indeed distributions that provide accessibility features and some of these are designed specifically for visually impaired users. However I feel that the mainstream distributions are simply not accessible enough, and the specialist distributions often opt for a console based solution and are thus inaccessible to the sighted. Take for example the latest Ubuntu 8.10 release 'Intrepid Ibex' upon which Vinux is currently based. It does provide some accessibility features at boot, but you have to press enter to choose a language, then F5 and cursor down three times to enable speech support at boot, something that a beginner is unlikely to know or work out without sighted support. Even when the screen-reader is enabled it will not allow a user to run applications with root permissions without some terminal commands and/or significant modifications to the system. Again something a beginner is unlikely to be capable of doing independently.

While there are some specialist distributions and software packages aimed specifically at the VI community, they tend to be console based solutions which are inaccessible to sighted users unfamiliar with terminal commands etc. Even distributions that do offer a gui, often use high contrast colours, large fonts and icons which can distort the layout of windows or displace parts of them off the display altogether. Again this means that sighted users would find it difficult and disturbing to use. However, many VI users work with or alongside sighted users and having a desktop which sighted users are unlikely to want to use for any period of time only serves to perpetuate the alienation of VI users.

In conclusion, Vinux may not be the first distribution to be aimed specifically at VI users, or the first distribution to offer accessibility support. But I maintain that it is the first Linux distribution I know of that provides speech, magnification and braille support out of the box without any configuration or previous experience of Linux, whilst still providing an attractive visual interface for sighted users. I fully realise that 99% of the credit for this really lies with the developers of Gnome, Orca, Compiz and Ubuntu etc. All I have done is to make a number of small but significant changes that Canonical could have made to Ubuntu quite easily if they had wanted to, but they didn't and neither has anyone else yet to the best of my knowledge...

Why do we need Vinux?

2008-12-21T18:22:00.000Z

When I first released Vinux I was challenged by some members of the Linux VI community who thought that this kind of specialist distribution was undesirable and unnecessary. It was argued that specialised distributions took the moral pressure off mainstream developers to make their products fully accessible. Here is my considered response:

There are two very different approaches to accessibility. One school of thought believes that anyone should be able to access any software/hardware no matter what their disability, the other that it is either impossible or uneconomical to create a universally accessible solution and therefore specialist equipment/software is the most practical solution. I like to call these the 'idealist' and the 'pragmatic' approach to disability issues. I think everyone would agree that having a single accessible system would be great, but the difficulties of producing such a system are immense - has anyone actually achieved this yet in Linux, Windows or Mac? I would say not, although significant progress has been made. The crux of the issue is whether this is just a question of solving technical difficulties or are the needs of different users so diverse that it is not possible to make a universally accessible system without making unacceptable compromises.

I think when I was younger I may have fallen into the idealist camp, but with age and experience cynicism sets in, and I have just got fed up of waiting for something that really meets the needs of VI learners. How many more years am I and many other VI users going to have to wait for this universally accessible system, which may never actually arrive. I would absolutely love it if OpenSuse, Fedora or Ubuntu etc., were completely accessible, because I wouldn't have to give up many hours of my free-time to make something that I think is fit for purpose out of the box for VI users who have little or no experience of Linux. I do not object to mainstream developers incorporating accessibility into their distributions. However, I suspect some of the changes needed to really optimise a mainstream Linux distribution for VI users are so radical that it would probably alienate many sighted users.

In conclusion I believe that at least in the short term there is a real need for a specialised Linux distribution for the visually impaired, and I hope Vinux is a small step on the way to realising this...

An Introduction to Vinux!

2008-12-21T17:30:00.000Z

Vinux is a specialised Linux distribution which is designed to be fully accessible to blind and partially sighted users out of the box. Vinux is a customised version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution optimised to meet the needs of visually impaired users. Vinux comes in the form of a live CD which you can boot by placing it in a CD drive and restarting your computer. Once it boots a screen-reader is activated, USB Braille displays are automatically detected and full screen magnification can be turned on/off with a simple keystroke. Vinux also provides an attractive visual interface which makes it suitable for sighted, partially sighted and blind users alike. You can navigate the menus and applications using the screen-reader and/or Braille display or switch this support off and use the full screen magnification if required. This is an ideal way of introducing visually impaired users to the Linux operating system which offers a free and open-source alternative to expensive proprietary software. This is very safe and secure way to let you experience Linux and experiment with it without taking any risks or making any changes to your computer. You can continue to use Vinux as a live CD or install it to your hard drive either alongside Windows or as a complete desktop replacement. It is also possible to install and run Vinux from a USB memory stick if your computer supports USB booting.