[BRLTTY] Getting started

[Daniel Dalton]

On 27/10/2007 12:15 AM, Lee Maschmeyer wrote:
> Hi Daniel,

Hi,

> 
> You cannot install Linux "over the top of Windows." Doing so would destroy 
> Windows and turn your computer into a Linux-only machine.

If I did that could it break anything? Should a beginner do this? Will I
have lots of trouble doing things?

> 
> There are two ways to get Windows and Linux to coexist. One is to partition 
> your disk into Windows sections and Linux sections. This is free but rather 
> complicated and requires care in implementation. My computer here is done 
> this way but I wasn't the one who did the disk partitioning.

I am told that is very hard to setup and lots of problems can occur. Is 
that the best thing to do? Or should I just remove windows and install 
linux?
Is it possible to backup windows somehow?

> 
> The other way is to add an additional hard disk. Most computers have space 
> for an extra disk and you can get them at computer stores. This requires 
> sighted help, if not in the installation then in the BIOS configuration. 
> It's the safest way to go but it's not free.

So you still have a dual booting system?

> 
> There is also something called a "live CD". The last time I used such a 
> beast you couldn't save any files, or had to do so on a floppy (presumably 
> nowadays you can use a thumb drive). In this method nothing gets installed 
> on your hard disk at all. You boot from a CD or DVD which contains the whole 
> Linux system. While Fedora has a live CD I don't think it has brltty. Some 
> other systems do have it; GRML and Ubuntu are the two most often mentioned.

Is that just used for trying linux out? Before I go and install it?

> 
> Back when I was getting started in Linux, 5 years ago, the Speakup site had 
> an excellent introduction to how to install the Red Hat systems. If you 
> don't choose Speakup for your speech you can ignore the Speakup-specific 
> parts, but it's still a really good introduction to concepts, at least if 
> it's anything like it used to be. Go to Linux-Speakup.org (note the hyphen 
> in that name).

I think I saw it but will take another look. Thanks.

> 
> One thing you could do if you've got a couple GB to spare on your Windows 
> machine is to install Cygwin. This is a Linux emulation that runs under 
> Windows. It's sponsored by Red Hat so it's fairly similar to Fedora. It's 
> much slower than real Linux but it's good enough to get your feet wet and 
> learn commands. Go to cygwin.com (it's free). The installer is difficult to 
> use but it's not impossible (at least with Jaws).

I already have that. I am learning to program in c and wanted gcc. Also 
I needed a unix style system so I could compile the rockbox firmware. So 
I am using that now. But I have a lot to learn still. :-)
I only know the basics like cd rm cp and so on.

> 
> I'm a braille-only user but it's my impression that brltty's speech 
> capabilities probably won't be robust enough for fulltime speech use. But 
> it's a nice adjunct to braille and easy to get running.

Well I will try that out and if I think I need more speech I might try 
speakup as well.

> 
> Because I've been doing this for awhile and haven't kept up with the latest 
> developments I expect there are some errors in the above. That's one reason 
> I responded - to get the flames caused by my goofs. :-)

Yes thanks for all the help. This is all great info.

> 
> Rest assured you've got a fair amount of studying to do before you can 
> really get started. Even Cygwin, because of the peculiar installer, takes 
> some studying. The nice thing about Cygwin is you don't have to reboot to 
> use it; I use Cygwin all the time and for most purposes it's adequate 
> especially with brltty.

I think your right a lot to learn. I am using cygwin here already and 
sort of found out the commands and am finding it not to hard. But I am 
sure linux is a lot harder.

> 
> Good luck, and stay tuned; I'm sure there will be significant corrections 
> coming real soon now.
> 

Ok thanks for the help.

-- Daniel Dalton

http://members.iinet.net.au/~ddalton/
daniel.dalton47 at gmail.com