Re: Good realistic way to get started with Gnopernicus?

[Janina Sajka <janina rednote net>]

Hi, Darrell:

I'll do my best to get you started. My hope is that you'll get up and
running, and that in the process of doing that, we can better document
what's involved.

Since you've started with FC2 (one of several good choices) I'll stick
to that.

1.)	Get updated

At the absolute least you should fully update your existing FC2
installation. If you installed with the Speakup Modified iso images,
this is essentially already done for you.

However, the latest builds of gnopernicus and the its dependencies are
not part of that. You would find that via most Fedora Core mirrors under
the "development" tree. These are the builds slated to become part of
the next release of FC. As of this writing, we are very close to the
release of FC3. I expect it before the end of the year--but that's just
my expectation.

I would strongly recommend a selective upgrade to certain packages now
in the pipeline to becoming FC3. At the very least, get the latest
gnopernicus rpm and install it. You will find that it will probably not
install on your first attempt because of missing dependencies. Here's
what to do:

	a.)	Get and install the latest rpmdb rpm file. While a
tangent, it's a useful tangent because it will improve the error
messages you get when you install files with missing dependencies by
suggesting what packages you need to resolve those dependencies. So, it
will save you research time.

	b.)	Now that you have the latest rpmdb, attent to install
gnopernicus. Take note of the missing dependencies and go get those rpm
files. I expect this will include a newer at-spi, a newer gnome-speech,
etc, etc.

	c.)	Test gnome-speech after you install the rpm. Use the
command line tool test-speech to do so. If this doesn't work,
gnopernicus isn't going to work.

2.)	As I recall, your goal is a Java app. The dirty little secret
about Java is that the default java support available in f/oss doesn't
support the accessibility properties provided by Sun's Java. You need to
get and install Sun's Java rtk (or sdk), and you need to insure that
Sun's java is used rather than the FC included gcj libraries.

	The Sun java sdk is approx a 75 Mb download available via
java.sun.com. You'll need to agree to Sun's license--which is where the
stumbling block is re f/oss.

The easiest strategy I know for insuring that Sun's java is invoked
rather than gcj is to put Sun's java dir at the top of your $PATH
(probably via a script under /etc/profile.d).


PS: A few ps points:

*	Be sure you're using a multi-channel sound card.

*	Try several TTS engines, such as software DEC Talk, Cepstral,
*	etc.

PPS: You might also want to try Orca (available as a source tarball via
ftp.gnome.org). It provides one thing that Gnopernicus
doesn't--scriptability. It may help your situation.


Darrell Shandrow writes:
> Hi all,
> I am a blind tech who is just now getting started with Gnopernicus.  Rather, I am trying to get started.  Though I would consider myself to be a good tech, I am also no programmer.  For the sake of time, I have enlisted the assistance of a sighted colleague to install the base system.  I need to get this solution up and running very soon in hopes that it might provide me with the best possible accessibility to a Java application I must access on my job.
> 
> Here's what I have so far.  I have a newly installed Linux box running Fedora Core 2.  It is Speakup modified, but I am not presently using Speakup.  It currently has Gnome 2.6.0 and an old Gnopernicus 0.8.1-02.  I have done a lot of research, but still not confident in how I should proceed.  I believe that what I actually want is Gnome 2.6.1 with Gnopernicus 0.9.9.  Is this correct?  I'm not currently worried about Braille support, but I do need speech.  I understand there are a number of other packages needed, such as Gnome Speech and Festival.  I have some definite questions:
> 
> 1.
> Do updates of this stuff exist in binary RPM format?  If so, please point the way.  
> 2.
> Is it better to manually build this stuff?  Please advise.
> 3.
> What are some good resources to get started?
> 
> Thanks.
>   

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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina freestandards org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040