Wednesday March 23, 2005 Solaris Kernel Help Needed - Speakup
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One of the things that Solaris currently lacks is the ability to provide audio feedback from the console using a synthetic speech device. Via our assistive technologies built into Solaris 10, we can provide speech output once the user has reached the login screen and for our JDS desktop, but what about before this for when the system is booting or even better when you are trying to install or upgrade your operating system? |
This would mean that a blind user could use our Solaris systems without any help from a sighted person. It would also mean that we would be on a par with what is currently available for Linux via the Speakup project.
About three years ago, I contacted a Solaris Kernel engineer (and performance guru) that I know and asked him who the best person was to talk to, to see if we could get this working for Solaris. He gave me a name. I sent that person emails and left them voicemail messages. I heard nothing back. Very disappointing. Since then, I've been busy on other projects and have only now been able to revisit this.
This time I'd like to take a different approach. I know there are several Solaris Kernel engineers that blog here. I'm hoping that one of them would be willing to spare the time to work with me, to help make this work on Solaris, so we can provide equivalent functionality for this platform.
A lot more information on this project can be found here including a compressed tarball of the 1.5 release. Kirk Reiser is the person who made this happen for Linux and from looking at the Speakup mailing list archives, I know he (and many others) would be there to help with any questions that might come up.
The blind community would really like to see this happen. So, whadya say? Any takers please?
( Mar 23 2005, 09:33:12 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink
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