GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] sound through pulse audio running as root may soon be fixed

Al Sten-Clanton writes:

I guess this is wandering more off-topic, but why should a screen reader
never run as root?  Thanks!


I think there are excellent reasons to run as root, especially the case
where you need to work with a machine that won't boot.

The most accessible setup I ever had was a DEC Alphastation 200, a very
early 64bit processor. I had one in the days of Linux 2.4 kernels

On this machine I had full access to the bios by simply disconnecting my
video display and connecting my Braille Lite to the DB9 serial port on
the machine's backplane.

Once Linux started, I had Speakup, of course.

Well, in those days, Orca wasn't even a gleam in Marc Mulcahy's eye. But
the low level stuff was beautifully accessible. I've been hpeful uefi
might get us back to that kind of access, but I've seen no joy on that
yet.

Janina



Al

On 05/09/2016 08:57 PM, kendell clark wrote:

hi

Definitely agree about the windows user. My main motivation for trying
to fix it is because since I develop sonar, I try to make it easy for a
blind user to use it, no matter what they might want to do. That
includes console speech. But when the speakup people don't want to fix
their own program because they don't like pulse audio, the pulse audio
people say it's not their bug and the brltty people insist it is a pulse
bug ... it's a circle I'm caught in. yes, they're definitely people.
Just like you're a person who sometimes uses windows and or apple. I try
to accomodate everyone by putting software in my distro to do whatever
it is you might want to do. Taking you as an example, I have the best
and most accessible software I could find to manage apple devices. I
don't know how good it is because I don't own one, but it's there. I
happen to agree with kyle and luke. Screen reader should never run as
root. Speakup and brltty could easily get what they need without running
as root. But it's going to take changes in several components to pull it
off, and I hope it succeeds. So I'm excited and hope luke can fix these
issues so that a console screen reader will work as easily as orca does
now.

Thanks

Kendell Clark



On 5/9/2016 7:37 PM, Christopher Chaltain wrote:

I don't get too bent out of shape over what some mythical Windows user
might think, and this definitely isn't a motivation for me to ask for
a change in Linux.

I guess open source developers are also people too.

On 09/05/16 19:32, kendell clark wrote:

hi
I pointed that out because any windows user seems to take any linux
issue as a sign that it's not worth using, and their own platform is.
They don't have any idea what speakup is, what a text console is, all
they hear is that something in linux doesn't work and presumably it does
work in windows. I am not a windows expert. I've used it, but I don't
believe it has a text console. Mac I know little about, it might. If it
does, I don't think the builtin screen reader can read it. Android ... I
really don't know. It has a terminal, I know that but I don't know if
there are ways to get around it to the actual shell underneath and if
it's accessible. It is definitely embarrassing, not being able to fix an
issue people suffer from daily. Not many people use console screen
readers but they should be able to without giving up functionality or
jumping through a ton of hoops to do so. They can't in windows because
it doesn't have a text console. They can in linux if they know enough
about how the underlying system works to make it work, and that's
unacceptable. I didn't have any luck getting the pulse audio people to
care but as a side effect, I did get luke to agree to start the ball
rolling in the systemd camp. He thinks all of this stuff can get fixed
by making speakup and brltty run in userspace, under logind, which will
control the permissions of the files they need  access to in order to
work. This sounds a lot better than them running as root all the time. I
don't have any idea how long this will take but not having to deal with
"its your bug." "no it's your bug" is a huge weight off my shoulders.
Sometimes open source developers act like children.

Thanks
Kendell Clark


Christopher Chaltain wrote:

This message below confuses me, since it was Kendell who said "The
reason I'm making such a big deal of this is because this has been an
embarrassing issue for all of us Linux accessibility advocates being
unable to fix an issue any windows user would immediately point out as
a show stopper even if they had no idea what speakup was or what it
did." I'm not sure why Kendell would write a strongly worded message
in opposition to someone who was agreeing with him. I remembered
Kendell's statement since I was going to say something, but I chose
not to since Kyle's statement was so much better than anything I would
have said. IMHO, I just don't think we should worry so much about what
Windows users will think. Let's make Linux accessibility the best it
can be regardless of the bar set by Windows.

On 09/05/16 17:46, kendell clark wrote:

hi
I have to agree with kyle. I was going to send a rather strongly
worded
message to this effect, but I'll settle for this. Windows hasn't had a
text console since the windows 98 days, and when that was indeed the
case microsoft made no effort to make such accessible. Users were
expected to purchase, at considerable expense, access products like
jaws
for dos, asap, etc. If ms had a builtin screenreader, I can't remember
if it first showed up in win 95 or 2000, it would only read the
graphical interface, and even then only certain programs. Android
might,
I'm not sure, have a concept of a text console, but if so it's likely
limited to terminal apps running inside android, which the builtin
screen reader will read. IOS and OSX? Don't make me laugh. They have
command line support, of course, but only through terminal, which is
builtin to the mac and only runs from within osx. I think you might be
able to get to single user mode in a mac, I'm not positive because I
don't know nearly as much about mac as I do about linux, but voiceOver
won't read it, of that I'm sure. This is most definitely a problem
that
should be fixed, but coming on hear and saying that windows users
would
look down on us for not being able to do it when they can't either
isn't
going to accomplish anything. Linux is not, and has never been
perfect,
and anyone who leads people to think otherwise is a fool. It has it's
issues like any other OS, yes, including those vaunted windows and mac
operating systems. If I ever lead anyone to think linux is perfect,
than
I've been a fool as well, I am not excluding myself. It's definitely
possible, sometimes I get a bit overzealous in my preaching, lol.

Thanks
Kendell Clark


Kyle wrote:

ChromeOS, Android, iOS, MacOS and Windows users would find having
trouble running text only consoles at the same time as the graphical
desktop to be unacceptable? I'm sorry, but although this is indeed a
problem that needs fixing, the idea that users of other operating
systems that know nothing of a text only console find it an
unacceptable lack of accessibility in Linux when it doesn't work as
expected is simply preposterous at best. Please note that I didn't
say
it isn't a problem for some, but it's nothing a Windows, MacOS,
ChromeOS Android or iOS user would even know about, let alone care
about. It's only system administrators and shell users who would even
know that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Of all these
other mentioned operating systems, ChromeOS is the only one I am
aware
of that even has an available text only console, and it has no spoken
output whatsoever. So in attempting to identify the problem that
needs
to be addressed, we should never resort to false or baseless claims
regarding the state of Linux accessibility or how users of other
operating systems would feel upon using a Linux desktop for the first
time.

Sent from the new power generation
_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org





_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org





_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org


_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide: https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org


-- 

Janina Sajka,   Phone:  +1.443.300.2200
                        sip:janina asterisk rednote net
                Email:  janina rednote net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:       http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures        http://www.w3.org/wai/apa
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]