may have found gnopernicus problem

["MICHAEL WEAVER" <michaelweaver1 btinternet com>]

I may have found my problem running Gnopernicus but as I am a fairly newby 
to Gnome I am finding it difficult to try and get Sighted members of my 
family to fix it.
Dad looked at my laptop and he saw Gnopernicus was running but not speaking.
He tried to do a fresh re-install of Ubuntu Dapper but I don't know if I 
gave him the wrong option because when he checked the preferences under 
Gnome and found the ones for speech etc, it said "Speech unavailable."
He tried to do the option for speech defaults for Gnopernicus or whatever 
the option is for restoring defaults only when he ran test speech we got a 
message about there being no speech driver so I think the problems I have 
had with Gnopernicus have been to do with speech driver.
I feel it may need another fresh install. Only trouble is I don't have any 
Sight for fixing the problem myself.
In thory although it is still a Beta, the latest version of Ubuntu should 
sort out this problem I had with loggins so I should get speech after loggin 
if Speech preference is set.
Dapper does have something for installing Accessability which I believe is 
something I do need to choose which might be why dad's attempt didn't 
install the speech driver.
Unfortunately although you are asked about accessability during an install, 
you don't get an actual spoken installation which would help for someone 
like myself who doesn't always have a Sighted person around as I live on my 
own.
I think the accessability option I should have chosen installs the speech 
drivers that Gnopernicus needs before the reboot but I am not sure what 
directions I need to give to a Sighted person when I pop my CD in and it 
brings up the menu.
I think I chose start Ubuntu but can't remember, I am wondering if I should 
have chosen installation or some option like that and then that menu for 
installing Gnopernicus appears.
There maybe even a short cut like if I put my CD in and it starts I might be 
able to press a function key or something as it says on the Beta 
documentation that F1 to F6 or something like that brings up certain 
installation options.
The chap who installed it at my LUG did something when he installed the CD 
and got to some menus within the installer and somehow he chose 
accessability options, and it brought up something about some option to do 
with Blind users and when he selected it that must have told ubuntu to 
install the speech driver at some point during the installation so when he 
rebooted and accessed the accessability options under Gnome Preferences he 
could check the option for speech.
Could someone give me some pointer which might help because dad at the 
moment seems to be wondering why I want to use Linux instead of Windows.
He said "I am sure Linux doesn't have all these problems when it is 
installed but it is taking you 6 months at least to try and get speech 
working." The problem is, dad hasn't really got the patience to put time 
into getting it working.
I am even thinking of asking my volunteer from Scope who has been employed 
to take me out to have a look at it but the problem is she will have less 
idea than my dad and I am not sure when I will next see her until she texts 
me which she normally does if for example she asks me if I want to go out 
for dinner. She works for this project within Scope but they have wound it 
up because of lack of funding but she still takes me out although she is no 
longer being payed until she finishes University and goes back home down 
south as she is not originally from the town where I live.
I am not bothered about losing any information as I don't have anything 
important on it and as I am thinking of devoting the whole system to Linux 
so I can afford to wipe the drive or whatever Ubuntu calls it when it asks 
about partitioning.