* Michael Whapples mwhapples@aim.com [20090602 15:24]:
Before saying yes, I will just state I need to learn about debian packaging. The only debian packages I have created have been on my own python packages using stdeb. Any guides you would suggest for debian packaging?
It's not that important that you do the packaging for us. It would help me a lot if you'd (kind of regularly) test our stuff, help us in accessibility related questions and provide suggestions and tips how we could improve stuff. It's especially hard for me to check out all the speakup related features because I don't have the hardware on my own and don't really know what people using those stuff really need.
Regarding packaging: have a look at the official Debian devel documentation:
Debian New Maintainers' Guide: http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/
Debian Developer's Reference: http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/
Debian Policy Manual: http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/
Also I will briefly mention a little about myself.
I do use speakup (I have an apollo synth on my desktop and for my laptop I use software speech output with espeakup). I also have a Braille display which I use brltty with.
Ok fine.
My view on accessibility is that where ever possible it should be in the main distro and easy to get running. When I say easy to get running I realise it can't be fully automatic on a CD such as GRML as not all users want it, but ideally giving the swspeak command at the boot prompt should be enough for software speech to come up working for the user with all language settings as they gave (IE. if the console shows german then speech should be german). On this topic it is something I never really worked out, why does GRML require me to type swspeak once booting finishes as surely the start up script which gives the speech messages (eg. "software speech has been enabled, type swspeak once booting finishes" or something like that) could run the swspeak command for me. Related to this, when I do grml2hd the HD installation when it starts will not come up automatically speaking, even if I used swspeak for install. This has caught me and I think others out in the past, as the instructions from the speech messages tell you type swspeak once booting finishes but the HD installation puts you at a login screen so you need to log in first.
Alright, regarding the swspeak setup (the "type swspeak once booting finished") I've created a wishlist bugreport in our bug tracking system: http://bts.grml.org/grml/issue684
Regarding grml2hd: I'm *not* a fan of the fact that people that don't know how to deal with Debian/unstable install a Debian/unstable based system on their box. There are several Debian developers working in the accessibility team of Debian and I'd like to have good accessibility in the official Debian installer and distribution. grml should be a good environment for all of you as a *live* system but if you intend to install Debian with accessibility features to harddisk then please either use the official Debian installer or consider using grml-debootstrap (which installs plain Debian on your system). But please do *not* use grml2hd if you're not really familiar with Debian/unstable.
So what I'd like to know: what are the biggest problems for you in using the official Debian installer with regards to accessibility? Might it be worth the effort to put work into grml-debootstrap providing an official Debian accessibility enabled harddisk installation?
And I'd like to work out a list of what software is important for you nowadays. speakup, speech-dispatcher, espeakup, speechd-up,... etc. - I somehow lost the overview what's the way to go nowadays, what needs an update, what could be dropped, etc.
regards, -mika-