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-rw-r--r--appendix_emacspeak.xml246
-rw-r--r--chapter_15.xml2
2 files changed, 247 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/appendix_emacspeak.xml b/appendix_emacspeak.xml
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/appendix_emacspeak.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,246 @@
+<appendix id="ap_emacspeak">
+ <title>Emacspeak for Blind Users</title>
+
+<para>
+ Slackware Linux includes two methods of creating a blind-accessible
+ distribution: the Speakup.s kernel and
+ <application>emacspeak</application>.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ The Speakup.s kernel is configured to work with hardware
+ speech-synthesizers which connect to a non-sighted user's computer
+ and &#34;speaks&#34; whatever is sent to standard out.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Not all non-sighted users have access to hardware
+ speech-synthesizers and even those that do might find it cumbersome
+ to carry one along with their laptop every time they go out. To
+ account for this, <application>Emacspeak</application> was
+ developed, by a non-sighted programmer, to create audio output from normal
+ interactions in <application>Emacs</application>. Since
+ <application>Emacs</application> is so extensible and has modes for
+ shell access, office work, email, web browsing, file management, and
+ so much more, it can act as the primary UI for the rest of the OS.
+</para>
+
+<section id="emacspeak_reqs">
+ <title>Prerequisites</title>
+
+<para>
+ Before you install <application>Emacspeak</application>, you should
+ (obviously) first have installed
+ <application>Emacs</application>. If you excluded this from your
+ initial install, then add it with
+ <application>slackpkg</application> or
+ <application>pkgtool</application> (it can be found in application
+ set &#34;e&#34;).
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ You should also have at least one user (not including root) on the
+ system, and this user should be a member of the audio group.
+</para>
+</section>
+
+<section id="emacspeak_install">
+<title>Installing Emacspeak</title>
+
+<para>
+ <application>Emacspeak</application> can be installed over the
+ network with <application>slackpkg</application>. See <xref
+ linkend="pkg_slackpkg"/> for more information.
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#35; </prompt><command>slackpkg</command> install emacspeak
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ You can also install it from the install media using
+ <application>pkgtool</application> or
+ <application>installpkg</application>. <application>Emacspeak</application>
+ can be found in the <filename>&#47;extra</filename> directory on the
+ disc.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Once <application>Emacspeak</application> has been installed, it
+ needs to be configured, but you can test that it has been installed
+ by simply typing <command>emacspeak</command> at a shell
+ prompt. <application>Emacs</application> will start and return some
+ errors in the minibuffer; this is expected, since we have yet to
+ configure the backend for sound.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ To exit <application>emacs</application>, type
+ <keycap>control</keycap>-x <keycap>control</keycap>-c</para>.
+
+<!-- not closing install section cuz we are still sorta installing -->
+
+<section id="emacspeak_config">
+<title>Configuring Emacspeak</title>
+
+<para>
+ In order for <application>emacspeak</application> to produce sound,
+ your system requires speech synthesizer software. As of this
+ writing, <application>flite</application> is the most actively
+ maintained and most reliable free speech synthesizer for
+ Linux. While it does not ship with Slackware, it can be obtained
+ as an RPM package from <ulink
+ url="dl.fedoraproject.org/blah/blah/">LINK HERE</ulink>
+ <!-- Its homepage <ulink
+ url="http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/packed/flite-1.3/flite-1.3-release.tar.gz">http:&#47;&#47;www.speech.cs.cmu.edu&#47;flite&#47;packed&#47;flite-1.3&#47;flite-1.3-release.tar.gz</ulink-->
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Use <application>rpm2tgz</application> to convert the RPM package to
+ a Slackware Package, and install using
+ <application>installpkg</application> as discussed in <xref linkend="pkg_rpm2tgz"/>.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ You can test <application>flite</application> once it has been
+ installed with the command <command>flite</command> <arg>-t</arg>
+ <userinput>foo</userinput>. You should hear
+ <application>flite</application> speak &#34;foo&#34;. If you do not,
+ then either <application>flite</application> has not been installed
+ correctly, or your computer's sound is not working or is
+ muted. Check <application>alsamixer</application> to adjust the
+ levels of your speakers, use <application>lsmod</application> to
+ find out if your computer speakers are being recognized at all, and
+ <command>which</command> <userinput>flite</userinput> to ensure that
+ <application>flite</application> actually got installed.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ With <application>flite</application> and
+ <application>emacspeak</application> confirmed, your system now has
+ both the user interface and the speech synthesizer to vocalize input
+ and output. The final component necessary is a speech server to
+ bridge these two separate parts. The speech server that has been
+ developed for <application>flite</application> is
+ <application>eflite</application>, and is available directly from
+ its homepage at <ulink
+ url="http://eflite.sourceforge.net">eflite.sourceforge.net</ulink>.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ To build eflite from source code:
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt>tar -xf eflite*gz &#38;&#38; cd eflite*
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt>make
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt>make test
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ The test should play a voice confirming that eflite is working
+ properly. If you hear nothing, do not install
+ <application>eflite</application> until you diagnose and repair the
+ problem.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Assuming all goes well, install <application>eflite</application>&#58;
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt>su -c &#39;make install&#39;
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ An environment variable needs to be established so that
+ <application>emacspeak</application> knows what speech server to
+ use:
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt> echo
+ &#34;DTK_PROGRAM=&#47;usr&#47;local&#47;bin&#47;eflite&#34; &#62;&#62; ~&#47;.bash_profile
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt> echo &#34;export DTK_PROGRAM"
+ &#62;&#62; ~&#47;.bash_profile
+ <prompt>darkstar~:&#36; </prompt> source ~&#47;.bash_profile
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ Launch <application>emacspeak</application> and you will find that
+ every interaction is narrated.
+</para>
+</section>
+
+<section id="emacspeak_usability">
+<title>Usability Hacks</title>
+
+<para>
+ Strictly speaking, the <application>emacspeak</application> system
+ is now fully configured. However, there are two useful modifications
+ that should be made to help usability. As it is now, when the system
+ boots, it runs through the usual init sequence and stops silently at
+ a login prompt waiting for the user to enter their
+ information. Obviously a silent prompt is meaningless to a
+ non-sighted user.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ To create an audible login prompt, modify a startup script such that
+ some command is initiated at the end of the boot sequence. The final
+ script to be executed during the normal init sequence is
+ <filename>&#47;etc&#47;rc.d&#47;rc.local</filename>, so modify it as root:
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#35; </prompt> <command>echo</command> &#39;exec
+ &#47;usr&#47;bin&#47;flite -t &#34;please log in.&#34;&#39; >>
+ &#47;etc&#47;rc.d&#47;rc.local
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ Now the non-sighted user will know when it is time to log in to
+ the computer, but immediately after logging in the same problem
+ exists: the user is given a silent shell prompt without any
+ confirmation that their login was successful or that the computer
+ awaits their next command.
+</para>
+
+<para>
+ Probably the most sensible way to deal with this problem is to have
+ <application>emacspeak</application> automatically launch after a
+ successful login; this provides audio cues that the login was
+ successful as well as eliminating the redundancy of manually
+ launching <application>emacspeak</application> every time the user
+ logs into the system.
+</para>
+
+<screen>
+ <prompt>darkstar:~&#36; </prompt> <command>echo</command> &#39;exec
+ &#47;usr&#47;bin&#47;emacspeak&#39; &#62;&#62; ~&#47;.bash_profile
+</screen>
+
+<para>
+ Reboot and test the new configuration; not only should the user be
+ audibly prompted to login, but immediately after login
+ <application>emacspeak</application> should launch. In fact, any new
+ shell that the user creates will launch an instance of
+ <application>emacspeak</application>.
+</para>
+</section> <!-- close configure section -->
+
+</section> <!-- close install section -->
+
+<para>
+ Combined with the inherent power of GNU <application>emacs</application>
+ and the addition of all of its extensions such as the
+ <application>w3m</application> web browser,
+ <application>eshell</application> console,
+ <application>wl</application> email client,
+ <application>org-mode</application> organizer,
+ <application>dired</application> file manager,
+ <application>emms</application> multimedia player, a non-sighted user
+ has a robust, stable, and powerful Slackware Linux system.
+</para>
+
+</appendix> \ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/chapter_15.xml b/chapter_15.xml
index 0e80bbc..ada4bf8 100644
--- a/chapter_15.xml
+++ b/chapter_15.xml
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ Slackware knows to apply all these options to the <varname>wlan0</varname> wifi
instead of the &#40;probably non-existant&#41; eth4 wired NIC. Many of the
other options are the same. IP address information is added in
exactly the same way we discussed for wired network cards in <xref
-linkend="ch_networking"/>; however, we have a lot of new variables that need
+linkend="ch_network"/>; however, we have a lot of new variables that need
some explanation.
</para>