GNOME.org
 

Re: [orca-list] Latest Version of Orca

Under Linux, you have choices. Oh, yes--you have choices, many of which are made by your distribution. Under GNOME 2, for instance, to generate speech, Orca could use either gnome-speech or speech-dispatcher (gnome-speech is gone from GNOME 3). Now unlike speech-dispatcher, gnome-speech did not generate sound itself but instead delegated that to the program that actually synthesized the speech (typically espeak, but it's also possible to use festival, or a commercial synthesizer that you buy). And the preferred API to generate sound has changed--OSS was the standard years ago, and festival to my knowledge was never ported away from it. And then there was ALSA, which has the ability to emulate OSS, but doing so can prevent it from being able to play other sounds / cause problems if you have two or more programs playing sounds. And then everyone started using pulseaudio, and GNOME now requires it, and, in its default configuration, pulseaudio captures the ALSA hardware device but has its own incomplete ALSA emulation, so programs that play sounds using the old ALSA or OSS APIs may not work correctly.
So there are a lot of possible combinations / configurations, which I think makes it difficult for people to guess as to what is going wrong, if Orca is crashing for you, or not speaking, and they aren't using your particular distro. There is a lack of centralization compared to other operating systems which can be challenging.
There is a debian-accessibility list; asking on there about issues with Debian might be helpful. Or it might be worth trying a distribution which you know to be well-tested accessibility-wise and can get help with, particularly for a new user--vinux, for instance, or Ubuntu, both of which can be installed using Orca without sighted assistance. OpenSUSE can as well, for that matter, using the Gnome LiveCD (although I really should write explicit instructions for doing so and post them somewhere). 

Sorry--I know this is kind of a rant and a non-answer...

-Mike G-

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011, Janina Sajka wrote:


RiverWind writes:

Ok, I am actually running orca 2.30.2 and  Gnome gdm  2.30.5.



OK. Forget all that stuff about reinstalling.


... However, we still
can't pinpoint the source of the constant crashing.



Chasing down problems like that can be time consuming, and can often
require skills. Do you have those kinds of Linux skills? Are you even
interested in going down the road of learning those kinds of things?

I ask, because I keep recalling that you paid for this system. Seems to
me you might want to ask for your money back.

Not that you should give up on Orca and Linux. But, you might try it on
different hardware.Yes, the hardware you use can matter. I don't know
for a fact this is your problem, but it well could be, and chasing that
down would also not be trivial.

Janina



Feel free to visit my website and my blog and learn more about me
and what I stand for.
My Website @ http://riverwind.shellworld.net
My Blog http://windraven13.livejournal.com/

On Fri, 14 Oct 2011, Jason White wrote:


RiverWind <riverwind shellworld net> wrote:


So for the sake of experimentation, I would like to switch my gnome
version back to "gnome.2.32" and my version of Orca to "xdesktop."
Would I need to download specific disks, or will I be able to
accomplish the switch online, via say, something like the "apt-
get?"


Which version of Gnome are you currently running?

In Debian, Gnome 3 is available from the experimental repository only, so
unless you've specifically installed it from experimental, you won't be
running Gnome 3.

In Ubuntu, so far as I've read on the list, you have to enable the fall-back
Gnome environment and there are instructions available for this which have
been discussed on the list previously.

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Netiquette Guidelines are at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/NetiquetteGuidelines
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp



_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Netiquette Guidelines are at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/NetiquetteGuidelines
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp


--

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

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

Chair, Protocols & Formats
Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

_______________________________________________
orca-list mailing list
orca-list gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list
Visit http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca.
The manual is at http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
The FAQ is at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions
Netiquette Guidelines are at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/FrequentlyAskedQuestions/NetiquetteGuidelines
Log bugs and feature requests at http://bugzilla.gnome.org
Find out how to help at http://live.gnome.org/Orca/HowCanIHelp
[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]