Re: [orca-list] New feature: Cycle amongst the speech-dispatcher capitalization styles

[Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com>]

On 11/30/2012 05:43 PM, Alex Midence wrote:
> Couldn't you just install  from source and remain in Ubuntu?  Seems easier than migrating.

These are not exactly "normal times":

* Due to the GNOME switch to have accessibility always on (which is
  awesome for all of us), the most recent versions of Orca require
  the most recent core gnome packages (i.e. not just accessibility
  libraries, but also Gtk, Clutter, GNOME Shell, etc.)

* Due to the GNOME migration to Python 3 for this cycle, and the fact
  that the distros will be shipping Python 3.3, Orca needs to be
  compatible with Python 3.3. Unfortunately, that means you need to
  build speech-dispatcher, liblouis, brlapi, etc. for Python 3.3.
  (And due to a deprecation or two along with a bug fix or two in
  Python 3.3 which Python maintainers did not include in Python 3.2,
  having Orca compatible with Python 3.3 means it breaks in Python 3.2)

Long way of saying you more or less need to build a bunch of the entire
stack -- and some of what you need (e.g. speech-dispatcher for Python 3)
does not yet have a stable release.

That's the bad news. Here's the good news: In the long run, we're
getting lots of bug fixes, performance enhancements, etc. (e.g. as a
result of accessibility always on). In the long run, free software
options for Orca users in the graphical desktop will be far better than
they have -- possibly ever.

Having said all of that, under "normal" circumstances, there'd be the
possibility -- albeit one which is slightly risky -- of looking to the
next version of the distro for unstable versions of their packages. If
those package maintainers are doing their job correctly, you should be
able to get all the dependencies and identify where you are at risk for
landing in Broken Package Dependency Hell. And you can use your package
manager rather than stomping on packages, getting conflicts from
multiple versions of the same libraries, etc., etc. But if Ubuntu 13.04
is going to stick with GNOME 3.6 core then the laundry list above of
stuff you need to build or acquire packages for ain't gonna be there --
even in unstable.

So.... Sorry for the tons of bla, bla, bla, but.... No. It's not easier
than migrating right now **if** you want the latest Orca. As I keep
saying, if you want to stick with Ubuntu and have the latest Orca, you
need a PPA fairy to wave a magic wand and make it so.

Take care.
--joanie