Willie Walker's Weblog

Last month, I wrote about getting eSpeak working on Solaris Express and how that was one of the gating factors for me working on an accessible install for Project Indiana. Well, with eSpeak working, I began obsessing over what it would mean to get an accessible install working with Project Indiana. Luckily, I had a business trip coming up, and luckily that trip meant spending a lot of sleepless nights awake in a hotel room. OK, maybe I'm lying about being "lucky". My son cries every night that I'm gone (he really really cries and misses me dearly, as I do him -- it breaks my heart), but at least I had something to occupy me as opposed to pining away for my family the entire time.

So, the cool news is that I've made some great progress with a live CD based upon Project Indiana bits. It took a lot of work, and a bit of hacking, but I was able to use the distribution constructor to create my own CD that had Orca and eSpeak on it. Boot with the CD and Orca comes up talking. Run the installer, and Orca presents it to you. Really neat, and all the work only adds about 1Meg to the total size of the ISO image for the CD.

I'm now in the process of working with the Project Indiana team to fill in some of the missing pieces and smooth over the rougher edges. But, my hope is that we can keep the energy and excitement up to get something officially in place later this year. If we accomplish this, people with disabilities will be able to independently install Indiana in the privacy of their own homes without the need for assistance from others. That would totally rock.

PS - The folks involved with Project Indiana are awesome. They know their stuff and have been extremely helpful.