Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

phunni · 2016-04-12 13:21:47

Purely for experimentation and the fun of learning, I'm trying to set up a screen reader system that would actually be useful if I was blind and wanted to be able to use my computer as much like I do now as possible. I've read various articles on the wiki including the ones on speech recognition and talking arch.

These all seem to detail how one can install and start using a screen reader (espeak or festival etc.) but not how one actually gets it to read whats on the screen and how one controls it - e.g. configuring what gets read out and when etc.

I did not that the first wiki article I read says:

A note to newcomers: speech recognition is something that traditionally has not been well supported in Linux. If you become interested and choose to dig below the immediate surface, you can expect difficulty in finding documentation or help from the community.

so perhaps Linux simply isn't a good OS for the visually impaired, which would be a massive shame, but understandable.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

TCBear · 2016-04-12 20:11:20

Blind Linux user here. I will try to help, though I am new to the forum and somewhat to Arch.

First, speech recognition is something completely different from a screen reader.

You can google speekup for documentation on the command-line screen reader, but basically the number pad is used to move and read around the screen by character, word, and line.

Orca, from the Gnome desktop, is the GUI screen reader., and it has the numpad navigation and other forms of navigation.

I've never gotten Festival to work with Orca. I use Orca3.18 with Mate desktop.

Last edited by TCBear (2016-04-12 20:15:05)

phunni · 2016-04-12 22:14:08

Thanks for the reply. I understand the difference between speech recognition and screen reading - it's just that they're together in the wiki.

So, it looks like speakup and orca are what I need to look at. I did try speakup, but it didn't seem to work, although I suspect that's because I need to use a better desktop environment. I'm using openbox at the moment and I guess it's too minimal to support accessibility.

My plan is try and see if I can get it working in a virtual machine do I can experiment a bit more.

If you don't mind me asking, how do find surfing the net? I'm led to believe that some sites are difficult for screen readers because of how they're built - tables for layout etc.

TCBear · 2016-04-12 23:38:14

I have no idea why that wiki is written that way. I came to Arch after I learned to use Linux Speakup and Orca, so wasn't looking into that with Arch wikis.

Speakup is only for the console command-line and will do nothing for a graphical desktop or X related programs. It also only works with ALSA, and will not speak if Pulseaudio is running.
I used the TalkingArch wiki, though it has one out of date ALSA related command "alsactl store."
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TalkingArch

If, as root, you have installed espeakup and alsa-utils, then done systemctl enable espeakup.service, then reboot, it should come up at the login speaking. I've never tried it, but you might be able to just start the service as root to get it speaking.

There is some voodoo people do to get Firefox and Libreoffice to work with Orca as stand alone programs with Openbox; Knoppix Adriane, for example. Running Gnome is the easiest way because it is built in.

Some web sites are a mess because their HTML coding is a mess. There are some java script things and so on that throw off screen readers. Adobe Flash has also caused problems on and off over the years.

Docbroke · 2016-04-13 02:29:06

I just tried espeakup, it works flawless on next boot once enabled. It works with PULSEAUDIO, no issue. Only trouble is once graphical environment starts, it keeps reading x logs from console ignoring GUI.

TCBear · 2016-04-13 02:50:41

Cool.

Before you start a graphical environment, press the print screen key up at the top of the keyboard. This will shut it up. You could also hold down the zero on the numpad kind of like holding down a shift key and press the numpad's return key. There are other ways but that is easy.

You would do the same key strokes to bring it back if you are back on the command-line.

Last edited by TCBear (2016-04-13 02:52:34)

Arch Linux

#1 2016-04-12 13:21:47

Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

#2 2016-04-12 20:11:20

Re: Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

#3 2016-04-12 22:14:08

Re: Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

#4 2016-04-12 23:38:14

Re: Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

#5 2016-04-13 02:29:06

Re: Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

#6 2016-04-13 02:50:41

Re: Trying to understand how to set up a useful screen reader system.

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