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Re: [orca-list] more progress

Hi, Mohammed;

Absolutely no problem about being a beginner. Motivated beginners become
experts eventually, and we need more folks with expertise.
It seemed to me worthwhile to write you along those lines because I know
people on this list, and on the other Linux accessibility lists, can be
very helpful to folks looking to gain technical proficiency on Linux.
So, I'll just give you my thoughts, and I know others will too, in the
hope and expectation that this will help you and others. Eventually,
you'll be doing the same for others I'm sure.

Janina

Mohammed Al-shar' writes:

hi Janina,

thank you very much for taking the time to answer my email this thorroly. as 
you have guessed I am a beginner when it comes to linux. I only managed to 
install feisty ubuntu and then I think I managed to build the environment 
"sudo apt-get build-dep gnome orca". it threw no errors on me and if I 
repeat the step it tells me I already have everything installed. (can't 
remember the exact phrase). then I also managed to install subversion and 
gnome-common modules successfully "sudo apt-get install subversion 
gnome-common" and when I repeat this step it would say that subversion is 
already the latest version and that gnome-common is also the latest version 
already.

I guess this is all and fine so far, although it really took me time to 
realise that I at times don't have patience to make it continue the work. I 
press the left ctrl key too quickly, and when it becomes silent and I review 
the screen to find nothing new, I assume that ubuntu has finished 
downloading stuff. obviously, I was wrong! but anyway, as I said, gnome-orca 
environment and subversion as well as gnome-common are surely up to date as 
we speak.

now is the headache, I issue svn co http://svn.gnome.org/svn/orca/trunk and 
I never get it to continue downloading no matter how much I leave it. the 
error that autogen didn't exist, I figured out, had to do with that. I 
managed to ge most files by repeating the steps more than once, but not 
everything. now it would tell me that there were some files missing. what is 
worse is that if I issue the svn command once again it would say that the 
directory is locked and that I need to issue svn cleanup. when I do it tells 
me that file so and so is not under version control, and so the work stops 
there.

I do realise that I am playing in the dangerous stuff too early, and that I 
should practice with something simpler, but I really can't use orca without 
access to firefox. to me a computer with no net is not so useful. I never 
would have learned all I know by now if it wasn't for the fact that I had 
this adventurous soul!

what does Jenina say I can do?

I am sure I wouldn't have faced all the above if I could get orca and 
firefox via ftp, but since I don't know how to use the net under linux, I 
just wonder how I will ever get the files. I know the addresses, and I can 
open firefox and go to them, but what then? how do I navigate to get to the 
desired download? if possible, more details from anyone would be 
appreciated.

before I call it an email, and I am sorry it has already been lengthy, I 
would like to thank everyone for their guidance. herman's help got me out of 
trouble so often, although I know nothing about linux.

long lives open source and its spirit.

thank you
Mohammed al-shar'
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Janina Sajka" <janina rednote net>
To: "Mohammed Al-shar'" <mohammed atexplorer com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 2:48 AM
Subject: Re: [orca-list] more progress



Mohammed Al-shar' writes:

hi listers.

I have achieved more progress with my new feisty installation. I managed 
to build the invironment and got the latest orca source by issuing svn co 
http://svn.gnome.org/svn/orca/trunk
now I want to install it.


Just to be very clear, you have to build it before you install it. What
you retrieve from subversion is source code which must be compiled into
object code before it can be installed and executed. Depending on the
package, this can be a very simple task, or a very complicated task. So,
if you're a beginner, you might want to practice with simple
applications. Orca is not as complex as a package like Firefox, but
neither is it simple like many packages that just do small tasks. You
are responsible, for instance, to insure that the various libraries Orca
requires are correctly installed and linked on your installation.

I tried to issue ./autogen --prefix=/usr but it said no file or directory.

Here's a case in point. From where did you issue this command? What does
the command pwd say if you issue pwd just before your ./autogen.sh?
Also, is there a ./autogen.sh in that pwd? Does an ls -l show it, and is
it executable?

PS: Did you actually forget the .sh or is there really not one?


I tried to become root by "su - root" it asked me for my password and 
when I put the pass I configured while installing it said "sorry, 
authontication failed".


OK, you're showing me that you're a beginner. That's OK, but it does
suggest to me that you might want to learn building packages starting
with something simpler than Orca.

Why do I say that?

su - root

is redundant. su - will do. More usefully, if you've added your ordinary
user to group wheel in /etc/group, what most of us do, you would rather
do sudo su -

One more point, there is a system level user called root. If you set
your installation up correctly, root would have a password different
from your ordinary password. The error you're getting suggests you're
either entering the wrong password, or are making mistakes typing root's
correct password. If you've forgotten root's password you'll need to
boot your installation into single user mode in order to be able to
reset this password. It's a security thing. It's part of the reason why
Linux is so much less likely to get viruses and other malware than other
OS.

Now here's the problem: You can't use orca in single user mode. You do
not get a gui desktop in single user mode. For single user mode you'll
need a screen reader like Speakup or a braille terminal application like
brltty. But, you're going to need one of these anyway. If you mean to be
building applications, I seriously doubt you will be able to rely on the
desktop alone. Just my two cents advice.



where to go from here. ideas?


Open the terminal under accessories. Just practice becoming root. Until
you can do that, you can't install anything.

Step 2: Once you become root, cd to the directly which has the source
code for orca and then try your ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr

PS: the --prefix/usr tells the configuration program to create the orca
building files for an eventual installation in the /usr directory tree,
as opposed to the customary default of /usr/local.

Now, one last thing ...

It's OK and probably useful to learn to build applications from scratch.
But, you really should take this one step further. You should really
learn to build .deb packages. Ubuntu uses apt (which relies on .deb
packages) to manage software that's installed. What dos this mean? It
means it works to insure your system remains stable, that the various
packages you install have all their required dependencies and that these
don't conflict one with another. When you build by hand, nothing is
doing this important work for you. So, what I'm really suggesting is
that you go to the ubuntu.org site and find the documentation about how
to build packages for ubuntu feisty. If you take that approach, you can
use the tools that ubuntu provides to insure your builds of orca are
good desktop citizens. Otherwise, you'll almost certainly introduce
problems for yourself further down the road.

OK, I can't specifically tell you how to do that, because I'm a Fedora
user, and I only know how to build packages for Fedora which uses yum
and rpm to manage dependencies and avoid convlicts. But the underlying
principles are the same.

Good luck, and I hope this has helped you understand what's going on.
Also, please forgive if I've not correctly understood your
sophistication with package building. I do not mean to offend.

Janina



thank you all.
mohammed al-shar'
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http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca


-- 

Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.202.595.7777; sip:janina a11y org
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC http://CapitalAccessibility.Com

Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and 
Canada
Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com

Chair, Open Accessibility janina a11y org
Linux Foundation http://a11y.org





-- 

Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.202.595.7777;        sip:janina a11y org
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC      http://CapitalAccessibility.Com

Marketing the Owasys 22C talking screenless cell phone in the U.S. and Canada
Learn more at http://ScreenlessPhone.Com

Chair, Open Accessibility       janina a11y org 
Linux Foundation                http://a11y.org
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