[BRLTTY] Recommended live distribution

[Klaus Knopper]

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 06:24:57PM -0400, S. Massy wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 03:21:40PM +0200, Klaus Knopper wrote:
> > Hello David,
> > 
> > On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 02:25:52PM +0200, David Renström wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good Linux live distribution, i.e.
> > > that can be booted from a CD/DVD or a USB flash drive, which has braille
> > > support (BRLTTY) available from start. I used to use Knoppix and enter
> > > "knoppix blind brltty=ht,usb:" at boot time, but this doesn't work in the
> > > newer versions. If someone has got any idea how I can continue to use
> > > Knoppix, I would of course be grateful too.
> > 
> > Have you tried the ADRIANE edition of Knoppix, which is specially
> > designed for blind computer beginners? It uses sbl instead of brltty,
> > which supports program-specific profiles, attribute cursor routing and
> > has certain features such as advanced keyboard navigation which are
> > AFAIK still missing in brltty. If you don't like the "text-gui" that
> > ADRIANE offers, you can as well work with the shell.
> 
> Bit OT, but has SBL gotten better at detecting displays and running
> automatically?

I answered this in my previous mail. No (sbl) and yes (Knoppix).

> I moved away from Knoppix after the switch to SBL and
> ADRIANE because I just couldn't seem to get a plain console with braille
> support, which was a pity, as Knoppix was/is a great live distribution.

Since Knoppix 5.x, I always make a special edtion of the Knoppix CD ISO
files which starts speech and braille in textmode automatically without
having to type anything at the boot prompt, so it's easy to get started.
These images have "ADRIANE" in their file name. For the other editions,
you would have to start with "adriane" as boot option.

The "plain test console" without the ADRIANE-typical dialog-based text
menu, which you are looking for, can be reestablished by disabling the
menu in /etc/inittab.adriane. But you could as well just select the
"Shell" menu item to get a bash. The dialog menu is supposed to give you
shortcuts to your favourite programs like text web browser, mutt, file
manager etc., and can be reconfigured by creating configuration files in
the .adriane directory, so you can have your personal programs in the
menu instead of the default.

ADRIANE was designed in order to provide an easy start to beginners who
don't know much about computers or Linux, and who rather want to work
with applications directly than learning how to use the shell. Most
advanced console users don't very much appreciate the GUI, though. But
again, it's fully configurable. There is just an unfortunate lack of
documentation.

> Good to see you on this list, BTW.

Thanks, I'm always eagerly following discussions about new features and
drivers in brltty. :-)

Regards
-Klaus