[BRLTTY] Returning to BRLTTY - and asking for help with Windows/FS Focus Blue setup

Sun Jul 28 18:36:09 EDT 2019

Hi Nikhil,

I prefer BRLTTY when I'm using a Linux system directly. But most of the 
time I am working on Windows and accessing Linux boxes through SSH. It 
has been a while since I ran BRLTTY on Windows 10, so some things might 
be incorrect or out of date, since I'm typing this from the top of my head.

First of all I ran in the issue that the libusb drivers seem to lack a 
valid digital signature. Signed drivers are required in Windows 10 as 
far as I know so without signing they will not be used. The version of 
BRLTTY that ships with Windows Narrator (built-in screen reader) has 
signed drivers for the supported braille displays and also adds an 
option to easily switch drivers between Narrator/other screen reader 
from Narrator's preferences. However, the "normal" BRLTTY release didn't 
pick up the Narrator BRLTTY supplied drivers when I tested this, I don't 
know why. The Narrator BRLTTY version can be started manually from the 
command line and can be found in c:\windows\brltty.

Unfortunately, the Focus displays don't have an emulated serial port, so 
the only way to get them to work with BRLTTY is getting a correct USB 
driver. So, this would mean switching between drivers when you want to 
switch screen readers. The usbfilter option that Dave mentions doesn't 
work on Windows 10 as far as I know, but please correct me if I am wrong.

If you get BRLTTY to work, your console experience will be different 
from what you'll get on a real Linux text console. Since the underlying 
methods of accessing data are different. I found Windows consoles 
perform worse than Linux text consoles. So you might wonder if it is 
worth the hassle on Windows.

Also, it would be good if anyone could reproduce my experiences so we 
can clearly document what is possible on Windows 10 and which caveats 
there are in the official documentation.

By the way, Microsoft will release the second version of WSL (Windows 
subsystem for Linux). This version is based on a real Linux kernel and 
not just emulation. If this new WSL will provide a way to access USB 
devices from Linux, we might be able to run BRLTTY on that, but it's to 
early to tell.

I hope this helps, feel free to ask any questions.

Best,

Bram
On 28-7-2019 23:18, Nikhil Nair wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> Thanks, that's helpful.
>
> To be honest, I'm not all that proficient with technical aspects of 
> Windows
> 10 myself - I switched to it relatively recently.
>
> I installed BRLTTY from the .exe, for the libusb-1.0 version.  I only
> picked that because it mentioned it was a more recent one, and, given I'm
> using Windows 10, that sounded more appropriate.
>
> I configured it in the installer itself; I chose Freedom Scientific, and
> USB (the latter simply because I'm completely ignorant about the 
> technical
> aspects of the FS Focus driver, and didn't know if I was supposed to 
> bypass
> it, use a virtual serial port, or something else).  I'm fairly sure, from
> what you wrote, thatI chose wrong at that point.
>
> How to run BRLTTY was, actually, a non-trivial question for me. It was
> obvious that, once I got it running, I should choose the option to 
> install
> it as a service; but I wanted to get it working first.  I wasn't sure
> whether to try to run it from a command prompt - and, if I did, whether I
> needed to make sure it was run as administrator (the Windows 
> equivalent of
> a `su' shell).  In the end, I used run-debug.bat, but, as I mentioned
> before, I had to choose "Run as administrator" from the context menu (the
> Windows equivalent of running it with `sudo').
>
> Re my brltty.conf, the only uncommented lines are right at the end of the
> file, and read:
>
> braille-device USB:
> braille-driver fs       # FreedomScientific
>
> OK, so that's what I did previously.
>
> On to your suggestion re using a serial port.  I went into the device
> driver, and looked under `Ports (COM & LPT)'.  Both with the braille
> display unplugged and plugged in, there are 4 entries, 2 for "Standard
> Serial over Bluetooth link', and 2 for "USB Serial Device`; the Bluetooth
> ones were COM6 and COM7, and the USB ones were COM3 and COM4.  As far 
> as I
> can tell, though, none of these have anything to do with the braille
> display driver.
>
> When I plugged the braille display in to the USB, a new driver appeared,
> which is the FS Focus driver.  However, I've looked through all the
> sections (driver, details etc.), and there's no indication of any link 
> to a
> serial port.
>
> I could just try a whole load of serial ports - that shouldn't take too
> long, and I'm happy to do that, if you think it's the best approach.  
> Other
> options are probably (a) switch to the libusb-win32 version (I presume
> that's the version you were referring to, which has the filter; but 
> please
> correct me if I misunderstood that); or (b) contact Freedom 
> Scientific, and
> see if I can find out about a virtual serial port attached to the Focus
> driver.
>
> What do you think?
>
> BTW, I'm attaching my debug.log, just in case it's helpful; but, since I
> was using USB: as the port, and you've already told me that that won't 
> work
> for sharing the display with JAWS, I'm guessing it isn't actually that
> helpful after all.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Nikhil.
>
>
> On Sat, 27 Jul 2019, Dave Mielke wrote:
>
>> [quoted lines by Nikhil Nair on 2019/07/27 at 15:00 +0100]
>>
>>> I take it, from the silence, that my assumption was wrong, and no 
>>> one (or
>>> at least, no one who regularly reads this list) has experience with 
>>> Freedom
>>> Scientific displays under the Windows version of BRLTTY.
>>
>> Freedom Scientific braille devices have indeed been successfully used on
>> windows. The more likely situation is that trying to figure out what 
>> your
>> problem is isn't that easy so noone ventured to give it a try.
>>
>> I didn't answer right away because I'm rather illiterate when it 
>> comes to
>> Windows - I'm a Linux and an Android person. I was hoping that 
>> someone much
>> more familiar with Windows would respond, but, since that hasn't 
>> happened, I'll
>> give it a try.
>>
>> How did you install brltty on your Windows system, and how did you 
>> configure
>> it? For example, did you unpack the .zip archive or did you run the .exe
>> installer? Also, how are you starting brltty (including which options 
>> are being
>> specified). Perhaps you could also post your brltty.conf (as an 
>> attachment will
>> do).
>>
>> The usual behaviour of Windows is to direct a specific USB device to 
>> a specific
>> driver. Put simply, you can't (easily) have your braille device 
>> directed to
>> both the JAWS driver and the LibUSB driver. Since you need JAWS to 
>> continue to
>> be able to communicate with your braille device, its driver must be 
>> left in
>> control.
>>
>> You could try using the same serial device. If, say, the JAWS driver 
>> is using
>> COM6 then you'd set your braille device to serial:com6. You don't 
>> need to
>> separately test each existing serial device. Look through the Windows 
>> serial
>> device list to find the one that's attached to the JAWS driver for 
>> your braille
>> device.
>>
>> If you'd like to use USB directly then, as described above, you won't 
>> be able
>> to use the standard LibUSB driver. You need to use the other LibUSB 
>> driver -
>> the one that uses a filter. The LibUSB filter gets installed at the 
>> Windows
>> kernel level and intercepts all USB operations. Whenever it sees a USB
>> operation that LibUSB is looking for then, if no other application 
>> has that USB
>> device open, that USB operation is directed to LibUSB.
>>
>> To keep it simple, it might be best to try the serial approach first.
>>
>> -- 
>> I believe the Bible to be the very Word of God: http://Mielke.cc/bible/
>> Dave Mielke            | 2213 Fox Crescent | WebHome: http://Mielke.cc/
>> EMail: Dave at Mielke.cc  | Ottawa, Ontario   | Twitter: @Dave_Mielke
>> Phone: +1 613 726 0014 | Canada  K2A 1H7   |
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>
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