Transformed my standard Ubuntu Lucid Desktop into Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) this morning. This interface allows netbook users to make better use of screen space and few great interface enhancements.
The Ubuntu UNR wiki page gives all the information about the packages and the required steps to convert your standard ubuntu desktop to UNR interface. Don't forget to report bugs to Canonical Desktop Experience Team.
Caps Lock key doesn't work is the most common complaint from Orca screen readers users. On Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx I found that Caps Lock is reset mysteriously. Here is workaround you can use until we find the culprit responsible for this.
You find the present keymaps setting with xmodmap command. You can see that the line starting 'lock' is empty. We can set it properly with xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock".
$ xmodmap xmodmap: up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lock control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69) mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_R (0x6c), Meta_L (0xcd) mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4 Super_L (0x85), Super_R (0x86), Super_L (0xce), Hyper_L (0xcf) mod5 ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c), Mode_switch (0xcb) # Set the Caps_Lock with xmodmap $ xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock" # Now caps lock works properly $ xmodmap xmodmap: up to 4 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lock Caps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x69) mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_R (0x6c), Meta_L (0xcd) mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4 Super_L (0x85), Super_R (0x86), Super_L (0xce), Hyper_L (0xcf) mod5 ISO_Level3_Shift (0x5c), Mode_switch (0xcb)Bash Autostart script for setting Caps lock
Now we know that this can be fixed so I used a bash script to call the modmap script everytime we boot. Somehow '.Xmodmap' settings are not getting loaded so I am using an alternative script '.xmodmaprc' and call it from .bashrc file manually.
# .xmodmaprc xmodmap -e "add Lock = Caps_Lock" # .bashrc if [ -f ~/.xmodmaprc ]; then . ~/.xmodmaprc fi
Reboot the computer and enable the modmap file to be loaded at boot time.
PS: Kudos to dotslashblog for the xmodmaprc solution
During last few months Yelp Gnome help viewer had few hiccups. The ever vigilant users quickly posted "Yelp in Ubuntu Lucid is currently not accessible" messages to various mailing-lists. I am quite happy to report that Yelp (2.29.5.x) is now fully accessible with gnome orca screen reader once again. The accessibility testing was done on Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid with Orca screen reader (2.30.0pre) and Accerciser.
You will find few accessibility and usability suggestions from the evaluation listed below. Willie Walker and Shaun McCance helped by offering sage advice on Gnome #a11y IRC channel and Gnome Bugzilla. You can track these issues by subscribing to bugs.
Please do let me know if you find more issues with Yelp. I'll promise to look at them once I return from the easter vacation.
Dots is braille typesetting program for gnu/Linux, it can translate XML and MS DOC files and displays it both ASCII and braille dot notation. Dots is in very early stage of development and not as feature rich as commercial braille editors like WinBraille and Duxbury DBT.
The Dots braille editor is available on Debian Sid and Ubuntu Lucid, however it has loads of bugs. I patched few bugs and managed to get it working and save the translated document in .brl format. (see LP: #541721). You can view the screenshots of the program in action below.
Took a short break from Ubuntu accessibility work to try out the Skype 2.1.0.81 beta on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx).
We used the Static build of Skype client on my Ubuntu Lucid laptop, while Kaprie Kanu used Ubuntu Jaunty laptop across the room. Downloaded and extracted the compressed archive to /opt/skype-version location on both the computers.
First I faced few issues with my external web camera (see LP #502866). Starting skype with following command fixed this issue.
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so /opt/skype-2.1.0.81/skype
And the results are good, text chat and Video chat works well. There is slight video distortion (green lines at the bottom of video frame). File transfers are quick and Desktop sharing, a new features in this version works out of the box.
You can use Desktop sharing for making online presentations with Ubuntu. If you need sound events from the computer to be streamed as well, unplug the headphone and use the external speakers.
Skype Desktop SharingThe next version of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) ships with espeak version 1.43. This new release of espeak has the klatt voices that's everyone is talking about.
In December 2009 I first read about the Klatt voices in a post on NVDA mailing list. After some initial testing, I filed a Ubuntu bug report(LP: #510182) requesting to include this version into Ubuntu. Eddie Hung build Espeak packages for testing on Ubuntu Lucid development release.
Meanwhile Luke Yelavich mentioned that we can't include unstable software releases and I wrote to espeak developer Jonathan Duddington to make a stable release just in time before the lucid code freeze. Luke and Jonathan managed resolve the technical problems, thanks to them you can now try out the espeak voice variants. Give it a try!
espeak -v 'en-us+klatt2' "This is espeak test"
Storm dargon responded to my email request to provide the steps to enable the klatt2 voice for US english. Here is how you enable them to use with orca screen reader.
cd /usr/share/espeak-data/voices/en/
cp en-us en-us.bak
sudo gedit en-us
#move to the end of the file press enter and type: klatt 2
#save the file and exit. Espeak will change to klatt 2 automatically.
Someone once commented "espeak voice sounds like a 1960's science fiction robot" and I think its true. Right now we should work to make them better, Interested Anyone?
