Improving the Fedora boot experience

[zan]

On 13 March 2013 14:32, Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Hi Zan!
>
> On 03/13/2013 09:44 AM, zan wrote:
>> Thanks Máirín.  It should be brltty (with an L, not an I).  Sorry if I
>> spent it wrong the first time.  You might want to update your blog
>> entry to the correct spelling.
>>
>> http://mielke.cc/brltty/index.html
>
> Whoops, my bad, I fixed it and linked to the upstream link you provided
> as well.

Thanks.

>> brltty is in Fedora already so it should not be a difficult thing to
>> start it.  The main thing is to have it running and for the installer
>> interface to be compatible with it (anaconda isn't).
>
> Is anaconda supporting it just a matter of brltty running while the
> installer is running or is it more complex? Do you have any documents /
> guides that you'd recommend for investigating how to get anaconda to
> support it?
>

It is unfortunately more complicated.  Most graphical toolkits now
provide hooks that you can use to scrape the screen with.  Anaconda
does not have any way to get information about what is going on from
brltty's point of view.  I have not looked at the Anaconda code in
quite some time.  I imagine it could be patched to provide them, but I
do remember thinking that it did not look very straightforward, even
though there is an API provided by brltty for this sort of thing.
There is a fedora usability group, where it has been discussed from
time to time, especially whenever the Anaconda folks are proposing to
look at making changes.  We have asked several times for brltty
support to be included, but without success so far.  It is always
going to be a problem when people are busy and donating their free
time, and most of the developers are not able to test it themselves.

Z.