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Groups > linux.debian.maint.boot > #77480

major accessibility and debian-installer issues for the live gnome iso image for totally blind users requiring speech always during the installation and usage of the system

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Hi, I am totally blind and am taking some Linux classes at a local 
community college here in my local area.  Trying to use the Trixie live 
iso image with speech is presenting several major chalenges for me as a 
totally blind user and also trying to install from this image is also 
not working.  I will outline the issues I am running into and am 
wondering who I can send these to so they get fixed as soon as possible? 
  First, the gnome system does allow the starting of orca with windows 
key and alt and s to launch speech.  Second, I get in this totally 
unusable tour of the gnome desktop that orca will not allow me to exit 
out of and from the very few times I have managed to get terminal open 
and run nmtui my non-free wireless networking card does connect to the 
wireless network.  Once I am in terminal orca does not automatically 
read the output of the screen as I had expected it to and the system 
will often go to sleep as this is a laptop running plugd in.  Once I 
wake it up orca is totally dead and no key presses will bring it back 
again.  There is also no sound when the gnome desktop is ready for input 
and I think some type of sound or voice prompt should play for users 
telling them how to enable speech should they need it.  I then tried 
installing espeakup and espeak and pulseaudio to get better speech 
output on the live iso image but when I switched to the console after 
loading speakup_soft with modprobe I was not able to get speech working 
and unable to switch back to the graphical desktop with control and alt 
and f7.  I had to reboot the live iso image again and so thought I would 
try option s from the boot menu to run threw the installation rescue 
mode but again ran into no non-free firmware in the installer portion of 
the image yet it is in the live portion.  I do understand that this is 
totally loaded into ram and all changes in live mode are lost but think 
that the inaccessible tour needs to have a way out of it as I have tried 
everything I could think of to get out of it with no luck.  Having 
speech start either automatically or with a key press at the boot menu 
would greatly help accessibility a lot or at least playing a sound with 
directions on how to enable speech once things are loaded.  Is there a 
more accessible live debian iso image then the gnome one that has either 
console speech or orca working and has the non-free firmware in the 
image and where the installer also has it built in as it is strange that 
it exists in the live portion but not in the normal debian-installer? 
How would I go about reporting these bugs as these issues are real 
issues that students do not have time to fight with during classes? 
Nick Gawronski

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major accessibility and debian-installer issues for the live gnome  iso image for totally blind users requiring speech always during the  installation and usage of the system Nick Gawronski <nick@nickgawronski.com> - 2026-05-12 08:20 +0200

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