Re: [orca-list] Intro and Issues

[Helios <heliooos gmail com>]

Hi James,
as I remember, Xandros is Debian fork (like ubuntu) so you can use deb
packages. In my opinion you could first try to install needed packages
on Xandros. I saw Eee with Ubuntu and talked with the guy and he said,
that the Xandros was much faster on the Eee although he used some
Ubuntu remaster for Eee. Xandros is also optimized for Eee while
Ubuntu Eee version still has bugs. I found some tips:

Choose EDIT in menu XandrosNetworks, then Set application sources,
check Debian unsuported sites and you have access to debian
repositories.

I do not know, how is it with the gnome on Eee, but if you were
planning to wipe Xandros out, you can try the installation from debian
repos first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xandros
"It is possible to install and use the GNOME and Xfce desktop
environments on Xandros."

Eee
"The full desktop version features a KDE 3 desktop with a few
modifications performed by Xandros. This desktop mode also provides
access to the Synaptic Package Manager which can be used to update and
manage the Eee PC's software."

Helios


> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:19:14 -0500
> From: James Dietz <jdietz oberlin edu>
> Subject: [orca-list] Intro and Issues
> To: orca-list gnome org
> Message-ID: <F6896A43-EA5B-4704-9FD4-C1A67C5AE71D oberlin edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
>
> Hi everyone.  I'm James, and I've been interested in Linux for a while
> (only using it on and off for about a year).  I've been a long time
> windows user, reasonably accomplished mac person and moderate newbie
> linux user.  If you want to know anything else (perhaps as a part of
> some sort of initiation ceremony) let me know.
>
> I've recently purchased an Asus Eeepc 1000 (with the apparently
> inaccessible xandros).  In order to prepare myself to use Ubuntu full-
> time I installed it once again on my reasonably powerful Toshiba (1.8
> ghz mobile processor, 1 gig of ram, which is comparable to the 1.6 ghz
> atom and 1 gig of ram on the new Eee) and have had a much smoother
> time than I have on either 7.10 gutsy or 8.04 hardy ubuntu releases.
> Sure the internet is a little sluggish (especially when navigating in
> reverse by webpage element for some reason) but it worked for me.
> I've found that on the netbook things are significantly slower and the
> fan starts up only a few minutes of using firefox and other apps with
> speech.  This isn't a problem as it has worked (though a tiny bit more
> loudly than I would've liked).
>
> After having lots of issues (mostly results of my hacking around --
> moving home directory onto it's own partition post-install was a
> particular problem) I thought I had a moderately  stable system...
> until Orca started randomly baling out on me.  The past few times I've
> booted the Eee, gnome starts fine (I get the login sound), orca boots
> up, I go on the net to do some thing or other and either in the middle
> of a sentence or while not speaking in the first place speech drops
> out.  Rebooting X, running "orca" in the "run application" dialog gets
> me nowhere.  Usually rebooting X, running "killall orca" followed by a
> restart worked fine under the old toshiba but not now for some
> reason.  X reboots and I get the login sound but no orca!  I have to
> power down the Eee, power it up and then I only get a few minutes of
> usage. I don't think it's an espeak issue (as I can get espeak to talk
> through the run dialog post-orca-crash) and I don't know enough about
> gnome-speech to start investigating there.
>
> After searching the archives I've found that pulseaudio (the audio
> system I'm using as gnome-speech doesn't like cooperating with other
> sound-playing apps even alsa ones, and speech-dispatcher is far too
> buggy for me to use regularly) is apparently not optimal for
> screenreading goodness and in some cases has been a cause of random
> speech dropouts.  Should I bother either uninstalling the pulseaudio
> package and using the aoss wrapper for gnome-speech (even though
> pulseaudio has solved lots of interop issues I've had with plane ol'
> alsa and other audio apps like audacious and saytime) or is this not
> likely to be the problem?  I know this doesn't seem related, but I'm
> shooting in the dark: like I said I use gnome-speech, but on trying to
> use speech-dispatcher the espeak module was inexplicably replaced by
> the "dummy" module, giving me the same generic error message whenever
> orca wanted to speak.
>
> I'll do some more snooping on this issue tomorrow, but since sighted
> assistance is not always around (and is probably annoyed at the
> extensive help I've needed over the past few days) and it will be a
> little while before I go back to school (where i can use the braille
> display and brltty for some raw terminal goodness) I thought I'd ask
> the list.   I've been on a 3-week running streak of not-using-windows,
> and I'd like to keep it up (for reasons both monetary and snobbish).
> I actually intend to help out others, rather than just post and
> disappear; who knows - I know a decent amount about the command line
> and related tools (enough to solve lots of woes I've had swapping
> partitions and crap over the past few days) and I'd like to learn more
> about linux myself.
>
> In excited anticipation,
> James