SUSE Blinux

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SuSE Blinux

There has been a SuSE Blinux Webpage, which isn't any longer available. Therefor we attached these informations on this Wiki, which will get some updates in the near feature.

Since SuSE Linux 7.0, the screen reader SuSE Blinux is enclosed with every official version, enabling blind users to work on the text console and utilize numerous applications with a braille display or speech synthesizer.

Supported Hardware

This pages provides a list of braille displays and speech synthesizers that are currently supported by SuSE Blinux.

At present, SuSE Blinux supports the following braille displays:

• Papenmeier: all models
• Handytech: all models
• ALVA: all models
• Baum: Vario 40, Vario 80
• Tiemann: Combybraille 25, 40, 80
• Blazie: Braille Lite

The following models are supported, but are not autodetected during the installation:

• Tiemann: Combybraille
• Blazie: Braille Lite

Basically, SuSE Blinux can only be used to operated braille displays connected to the serial port. Pure USB displays can possibly be operated by means of an adapter from USB to the serial port, but this constellation has not be tested yet. Pure hardware displays can be operated with Linux without any problems, though SuSE Blinux does not have any effect on the output. For questions on braille displays and SuSE Blinux as well as for wishes in connection with the adaption of new devices, please contact the support team. At present, SuSE Blinux supports the following hardware synthesizers:

• Apollo1 and Apollo2
• Infovox 700
• Keynote (experimental stage)

The adaption of new external, serial hardware synthesizers to SuSE Blinux is not difficult. If you need a new adaption, feel free to contact the SuSE Blinux support team.

Starting from SuSE Linux 7.2, SuSE Blinux offers an interface for the speech synthesizing system Mbrola that can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. Under ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/blinux/mbrola, you will find the package mbrola4sbl which greatly facilitates the configuration of Mbrola with SuSE Blinux. Furthermore, all speech databases required for using SuSE Blinux with Mbrola are available at this URL. Information on the configuration of SuSE Blinux with Mbrola is provided in the mbrola4sbl documentation which you will find below.

Installation of SuSE for Blind Users

The File suse-blinux.conf

This page provides a brief explanation of the entries in the file suse-blinux.conf, which is located in the directory /etc by default. This file is the central configuration file for SuSE Blinux. Settings such as the utilized braille display and the speech synthesizer are specified in this file. The file can be edited with any ASCII editor. Comment lines introduced by a hash (#) are ignored by the program.

suse-blinux.conf contains the following commands:

• brlname= : Name of the connected braille display, e.g. ht40 for a 40-cell display from Handytech. If you use mbrola4sbl, you should enter ht40 in order to set the keymap of this display (ht40.map). Currently, the following entries are possible for the supported displays:

• Papenmeier: 2dlite, tiny, 2d, el80, el66, el2d, el40
• Handytech: ht40, ht80, brlwave
• Baum: vario40, vario80::
• Alva: abt340, abt380, abt34d, abt38d, del440, del480
• Tiemann: cmbbrl25, cmbbrl40, cmbbrl80
• Blazie: brllite40

• brlport= : Serial port to which the braille display is connected, e.g. /dev/ttyS0 for com1, /dev/ttyS1 for com2, etc.
• spkname= : Name of the connected speech synthesizer, e.g. apollo2 for Apollo2. Currently, the following entries are possible: apollo2, infovox700, keynote, and mbrola (for this device, please enter // for spkport!!!)
• spkport= : Serial port to which the speech synthesizer is connected, e.g. /dev/ttyS0 for com1. If mbrola is used with the package mbrola4sbl, the port specification is //.
• debug=x : If x = 0, no debug information is logged; if x = 1, some debug information is logged in /tmp/sbl.log; x = 2 results in a more verbose output.
• kbdsniff=x : Determines whether or not to use the keyboard sniffer. In addition to the keys of a braille display, the keyboard sniffer allows the keyboard to be used for controlling SBL. The keyboard sniffer is a kernel patch that is currently only available for kernel 2.2.x. x = 1 enables the use of the keyboard sniffer (provided it is installed); if x = 0, the sniffer is not searched for.
• keydelay=x : This command sets the delay for the execution of commands activated via the keys of the braille display. x specifies the value, which must be greater than 0.
• repeatdelay=x : This command sets the speed for the execution of commands activated with a key of the braille display (e.g. line up or line done). x must be a number greater than 0.
• brltbl= : Determines the braille table to be used, e.g. german for German or us for American English.
• sleep=x : Determines the time during which SBL waits for the other programs in the system to operate. x must be a number greater than 0.
• profdelay=x : This command can be used to set the period that elapses before the system checks for an automatic profile switch. x must be a number greater than 0.
• profile1, profile2, profile3, profile4= : These four commands are used to define the profiles to which the user can switch manually.
• progpath= : This command specifies the directory containing SuSE Blinux and its files, e.g. /usr/lib/suse-blinux.

SuSE Blinux Speech Filters

This page briefly describes how to set up speech filters for SuSE Blinux. Speech filters can control the speech output for certain character strings or punctuation marks. Accordingly, speech filters can be compared to dictionaries for the speech output. The utilized method is "search and replace". Example:

[x]= active 

Replaces the character string "[x]" with "active". By default, the SuSE Blinux speech filters are located in the directory /usr/lib/suse-blinux/spkfilter. A speech filter can be created for every application. The name of the filter must correspond to the entry for the application in the process table of the system, e.g. lynx for the browser lynx or y2base for YaST2. The table of running processes can be queried with ps. If no speech filter is available for an application, the default filter default will be used. Starting from SuSE Blinux version 2.0, language-specific speech filters are supported. As many speech synthesizers support various languages, the feature allows SBL to be customized even more flexibly. For the speech synthesizer parameter files under

/usr/lib/suse-blinux/spk 

the default extension of the filter files for the various languages can be set with the entries

filter1= 
filter2= 
... 

The filters become active when the speech synthesizer speaks with the languages specified in the entries for

language1= 
language2= 
... 

Example for the software speech synthesizer mbrola:

The following values are set in /usr/lib/suse-blinux/spk/mbrola:

language1=de2 
language2=en1 
... 
filter1=.de 
filter2=.en 

Now speech filters with the extensions .de and .en can be created in the directory

/usr/lib/suse-blinux/spkfilter 

If the language de2 is active, the filters with the extension .de are used, and if en1 is active, the filters with the extension .en are used. During operation, the various languages can be toggled by means of the commands nextlang= and prevlang= using the defined key combinations on the braille display (see documentation for the keymaps).