[BRLTTY] Fedora core 7 installer

[Rimkus, Robert W]

Hello Everyone and Stepan and Sauro,

First I would like to point out that the BRLTTY rpm's are no longer included on the Fedora Core 7 DVD.  I used the BRLTTY rpm's from Fedora core 6 and had
no problem but a small and simple step in the right direction would get the BRLTTY back in the Fedora distribution.

I have tried to install Fedora Core 7 and Enterprise Red Hat using BRLTTY.

In my humble opinion, it appears that getting BRLTTY running on a live CD and then trying to do a network install might offer one method of achieving an
independent blind user installation; however, this method obviously requires at least two machines that can talk to one another over a network.

Another method would use the Kickstart facility but one would still depend on someone to do the initial setup.

I have tried to use the BRLTTY script that combines it with the Red Hat boot CD and got some limited success with an Alva 380.  I used Anaconda in text mode
and could see some of the choices but the arrow keys and tab keys did not work consistently.

I would explore the live CD approach more but I am too much of a dummy to know all the stuff I need on the live CD to make BRLTTY work; e.g., which
libraries and utilities.

I have tried using the ldd command to determine which libraries support BRLTTY and put those on a boot CD and met with no success yet.

I went as far as calling Red Hat to ask them about making the install process braille friendly, but that particular rep  shot me down by saying it was too
big and complex a change to the Anaconda install process.  (Stepan, if you can, see case # 1345156.)

This suggests that most people believe that Anaconda is the only installation process.
If it is the only method then the text mode of Anaconda should allow Braille users to install while using BRLTTY with out assistance from another person and
almost does.  BRLTTY or Anaconda just need some work to make them like each other more.

After looking at the ISO images on the boot CD in the directory Images, I suspect there may exist other methods for those who know enough about what else
they need to run the BRLTTY on one of these boot images.

I would like to help and get help on solving this Red Hat installation problem.

(Stepan, you might talk to Chris Tatman who is a level two support tech for Red Hat. He knows me and he sometimes works with blind people in his community.
His behavior suggests that he is very sharp.  I would ask him about it myself but he and I are currently tied up with a different problem.)

Your Servant,

Bob Rimkus

-----Original Message-----
From: brltty-bounces at mielke.cc [mailto:brltty-bounces at mielke.cc]On
Behalf Of Stepan Kasal
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 1:53 AM
To: brltty at mielke.cc
Subject: Re: [BRLTTY] Fedora core 7 installer


Hello,

On Sun, Sep 09, 2007 at 11:34:36PM +0200, Sauro Cesaretti wrote:
> I'd like to know if fedora core 7 brallified installer is available.
> If it's not available, is it possible to create it by myself?
> can you give me some information to do that?

Perhaps I might help you.  Let me describe the situation:

- I work for Red Hat, big part of my time is dedicated to developping
  Fedora; so I might be useful here.
- I used to have some contacts to a charity which used to have
  Braille printer; I'm not sure if they still have it.  I guess they
  might help me to get access to a Braille tty.

But there are also negatives:

Though I remember playing with a Braille typewriter and Braille "pen"
and dotted-pad (don't know the official name), I cannot read Braille
at all.  So I have only a very limited ability to check that the
Braille tty shows the same as the screen.  And, obviously, sighted
user can easily miss something trivial.

I have never worked on Anaconda (the installer for Fedora), nor
tested the install process.  Installing Fedora is something I
"survive" once a year, and that's all.

I'm not an official speaker for Fedora, but I believe we all wish to
have Fedora friendly to Braille users.  Obviously, our main interest
is to fix the development version, so that Fedora 9 is Braille ready.
(Fedora 8 is probably too close to release for any bigger changes.)
Let me know how I can help.

Have a nice day,
	Stepan Kasal
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