Orca on Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition

After trying various gnu/Linux distributions for mobile devices, I choose Ubuntu MID (8.10 Intrepid Ibex), a keyboard / mouse driven distribution from Ubuntu. It was possible to use a spare PC laptop as my test development platform instead of a MID Development kit. The idea behind this experiment to try running Orca screen reader on devices other than gnu/Linux personal computers.

Ubuntu MID distribution is targeted at new Mobile Internet Device (MID) devices, though it doesn't include gnome-orca package. But don't let that stop you, you can get the packages and its dependencies from main repositories and install it manually with dpkg. Right now not possible to install the gnome-orca packages from the main repositories due to 'lpia' architecture package tag conflict.

The list of needed packages are given below.

• at-spi_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_i386.deb
• gnome-orca_2.24.1-0ubuntu1_all.deb
• libatspi1.0-0_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_i386.deb
• libbrlapi0.5_3.10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
• libgail-gnome-module_1.20.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
• libgnome-speech7_0.4.21-0ubuntu5_i386.deb
• libxevie1_1.0.2-3_i386.deb
• libxevie1-dbg_1.0.2-3_i386.deb
• python-brlapi_3.10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
• python-gnome2_2.22.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-gnome2-desktop_2.24.0-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-gnomecanvas_2.22.3-0ubuntu1_i386.deb
• python-pyatspi_1.24.0-0ubuntu3_all.deb

Once the packages are installed with 'dpkg -i *deb'. The orca can be enabled via the accessibility menu or by setting the gconf settings. Though the interface is not yet accessible, I was able to use midori browser with Orca without any trouble.