Contents

  1. Getting the live CD
  2. Taking Orca for a test drive
  3. Installing Ubuntu from the live CD
  4. Booting into your new Ubuntu system
  5. Where to go from here
  6. Getting the latest release of Orca
  7. Gaining access to gui based administration tools
  8. Optional method to access gui-based administration tools

Getting the live CD

If you want to check out and/or install Ubuntu Edgy Eft (AKA Ubuntu version 6.10) with Orca, start by obtaining a "live CD." A live CD is bootable and contains everything you need to run an operating system without actually installing it on your hard drive. Thus you can "try before you buy" so to speak (Ubuntu and Orca are free). You can obtain the latest live CD from http://releases.ubuntu.com/edgy/. Be sure that you select the Desktop CD as the instructions that follow will NOT work with the alternative CD.

Please note: In order to use the Live CD as described below, your computer must be set up so that your CD/DVD drive is higher up in the boot order than your hard drive. There's a good chance that it is already set up this way. If it is not, your computer will boot as it normally does even though the CD is inserted. Should this occur you will need to alter the boot order in your computer's BIOS. Making this change will, unfortunately, require sighted assistance; however, once the change has been made it will be saved, so this is at most a one-time-only problem.

Taking Orca for a test drive

Once you've downloaded and burned the live CD image, insert it into your CD/DVD drive and reboot your computer. You should find that your drive spins for a bit and then stops. The point at which it stops coincides with the appearance of the boot options screen. In order to enable accessibility options, press F5. This will cause a list of accessibility options to appear:

If you want to try Orca, you should press 3 to give focus to Screen Reader, followed by Enter to indicate your selection. You'll be returned to the boot options screen. Press Enter again to indicate you would like to boot.

Within a couple of minutes, Ubuntu will be loaded with Orca running. The Orca Preferences dialog will be open, but will not have focus. Press Alt Tab to give it focus.

The Orca Preferences dialog is a multi-page dialog with four pages:

Use Control Page Up and Control Page Down to move among pages. Use Tab and Shift Tab to move among the controls. If you are familiar with Windows, you should find that the controls all work as you expect (e.g. use the Arrow keys to move within a group of radio buttons, use the Space Bar to toggle checkboxes, and so on.) Having made all of your desired changes, press the Apply button followed by the Close button.

Note: If at any time you would like to modify your preferences, you can press Insert Space Bar to return to this dialog. In addition, you can use Insert Left and Right Arrow to change the rate "on the fly" and Insert Up and Down Arrow to do the same for pitch.

Now that you have Orca speaking the way you want, you are ready to check out Ubuntu. If you are completely new to Linux and the GNOME desktop, you may find the GNOME Desktop Accessibility Guide helpful, especially the chapter on Using the Keyboard to Navigate the Desktop.

Installing Ubuntu from the live CD

If you explore your Desktop while using the Live CD, you will find an icon named "install." Its purpose is, as you might have guessed, to enable you to install Ubuntu on your computer. At this time, however, Orca is not able to provide access to the installer if you start it from the desktop icon. This is a known issue and is being addressed. In the meantime, here is a work-around which will enable you to perform an accessible install:

  1. Press Alt F2 to get into the Run Application dialog
  2. Type "gnome-terminal" and press Enter.
  3. In the resulting Terminal window, type "sudo su" and press Enter.
  4. Press Insert Q to quit Orca. At this point, you will have no speech, but focus is still in the terminal window.

  5. Type "orca --no-setup &" and press Enter. This will cause speech to resume, but Orca will now be running as root (the equivalent of Administrator in Windows).

  6. Type "ubiquity" and press Enter.

Note: Because you are now running Orca as root, Orca will not use the speech settings you configured earlier. As a reminder, you can quickly change the rate with Insert Left and Right Arrow and the pitch with Insert Up and Down Arrow.

You should find the installer to be fairly straightforward: Use Tab and Shift Tab to move among controls, indicating your preferences as you go, and then press the Forward button to progress to the next screen of options. The one control that you might find different is the City combo box. After you choose your city from among the options, you will need to press Control Tab to move to the next control.

Towards the end of the installation, you will be presented with a screen asking you about disk partitioning and offering the following options:

If you would like to have a dual-boot system (i.e. so that you can boot your computer into Windows/OS X or Ubuntu), select the option to resize your disk and use the left-right slider to indicate the size. If the only operating system you want on your computer is Ubuntu, select the option to erase your entire disk.

After the disk partitioner, you will be given a summary of the installation options you have selected. Look them over and press the Install button to install Ubuntu.

Booting into your new Ubuntu system

When you reboot your computer, you should hear a musical tone which lets you know that the logon screen has appeared. Type your user name, then press Enter. Type your password, then press Enter. Your computer will then continue to boot. The first time you boot into your newly-installed Ubuntu system, the Orca Preferences dialog box will be opened. Alt Tab into it and configure your settings just as you did with the Live CD. For all future boots, you should find that Orca starts automatically using the settings you specified.

Where to go from here

Getting the latest release of Orca

Please refer to the Downloading and Installing Orca page for how to get the latest release of Orca.

Gaining access to gui based administration tools

If you attempt to access any gnome based administration utilities such as gdm setup or synaptic, you will notice that by default, in order to do so, you will need to enter your sudo password. Although the use of sudo provides an extra layer of security, it also presents a challenge in terms of accessibility when it comes to the gui. In a nutshell, the issue is that programs which require sudo are being launched from an account different than that of the user who is running Orca. At present, accessibility information can not be communicated across accounts. Therefore, when an application is run in this manner, Orca is unable to provide useful feedback.

One way around this issue is to enable the root account, and to allow the root user to login to gnome. This can be accomplished as follows: set a password on the root account: 'sudo passwd root'. Next, edit /etc/gdm/gdm.conf-custom and add the following line under the [security] section: AllowRoot=true

Reboot your system. Now, log in as root via a text console, and run orca --setup.You're all done. You can now login to gnome as root, run Orca and administer your system to your heart's content.

The only disadvantage to this approach is that although they are accessible via the command line, none of the administration tools appear in the start menu for the root user. Anyone know of an easy way to fix this?

Optional method to access gui-based administration tools

Supplied by community member Cody Hurst... 

Rather than enabling the root account, open a
shell, switch to root (sudo su), killall orca, and then launch orca.
This will start orca as root. you won't have speech just yet, so press
ctrl+shift+t and type sudo su again so you become root. if you know the
command or program name of a program that needs to run as root type it
and press enter and orca will begin speaking the application. for
example:

terminal tab one
sudo su
password: *******
orca
then orca launches

terminal tab two
sudo su
password: *********
gdmsetup
then gdm starts this is only example you could have launched something
else.

  when you want to go back to user just press the ctrl+pgup keys in the
terminal (additional fn for laptops) and press control c and that will
kill orca

rerun orca by pressing alt+f2 and typing orca and you're back to where
you started...

CategoryLivemedia

Orca/UbuntuEdgyEft (last edited 2008-02-03 14:44:56 by localhost)