Linux EFI?

[Eric Oyen]

these days, speech can be handled almost entirely in software. the only hardware needed is a basic sound device.

thats what I use here on the mac. voiceover screen reader talks  on the system sound device. It's pretty much all software at this point. The same for jaws or NVDA in windows and definitely the same way for any of the half dozen or so text to speech engines available in linux.

BrlTTY is the lightest weight of any of them and also carries the least dependencies. Any libraries needed can be compiled in.

I may have to sit down, turn on the linux machine and actually compile a source package for BrlTTY and see how much it takes on disk and how much memory it might use.


On Mar 12, 2017, at 12:12 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

> On Sat, 11 Mar 2017 15:30:38 -0700
> Eric Oyen <eric.oyen at icloud.com> wrote:
> 
>> Steve, the wiki article does explain a lot, but there is no real
>> support for blind IT personnel in it, let alone any support for those
>> of us who are just plain computer users with some advanced skills.
> 
> You still didn't answer what EFI is: Is it the boot method, or is it
> something completely different, like Enhanced Fortified Interface?
> 

I believe someone else already answered this. Its basically a mini OS. It behaves in a similar fashion to a command line interface in that it is fully interactive. THis is far more flexible than the old standard Bios that only let you modify a few settings and not much else.

>> 
>> It's a nice command line interface that has a lot of the usual basic
>> linux/unix utilities and programs, but no speech or braille support.
> 
> What's a nice command line interface? Far as I know, the UEFI I've seen
> acts pretty much like the old BIOS interface acted.
> 
>> 
I didn't know of any old BIOS that contained an executable memory test program (memtest-86 is the closest utility I can think of).

>> Right now, I am composing a letter to the UEFI forum members in hopes
>> that someone over there might listen and do some research. I am even
>> offering some suggestions on how this can be done (given my
>> experience with Ubuntu and Vinux respectively, it can be done). My
>> only difficulty is that I am not a coder
> 
> I don't know how expensive text to speech interfaces are. Given that
> they existed on CPM machines in the 1980's, I imagine they're cheap
> enough to put into a computer's pre-boot firmware.
> 
>> 
read my response in the first paragraph. :)

>> Now, the wiki doesn't specifically stipulate what OS the UEFI is
>> based on (and yes, its a bit more than a bios and less than a real
>> full blown OS). what I do know is that it has a kernel, some basic
>> utilities and a user interface. As far as I am concerned, thats a
>> basic OS if there ever was one.
>> 
>> so, this is what I want to do and it's the reason behind my original
>> question. Making the UEFI accessible to those of us who are blind and
>> working in the tech sector would certainly improve our capabilities
>> as employees. It would be built-in accommodation without adding a lot
>> of expense to the hardware.
> 
> Assuming you're speaking of the configuration that happens when you hit
> that special key combo pre-boot, I agree with you, although I have no
> idea of the expense or cheapness. Other than text to speech being on
> CPM computers in the 1980's :-)
>> yeah, those days are long gone. so, also are the days of the $5,000 hardware speech synthesizer. telesensory used to make such units. They were ungodly expensive and required a serial port and a tsr program running in background. I sure do miss the old CP/M machines. you could do a lot with them.

>> So, with that being said, would it be possible? Given all the
>> technology available, I say yes. So, what about the rest of you?
> 
> Yes, but I'm still confused, because as far as I can see this thread has
> nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with stuff that happens
> before the initramfs begins to run. I'm not getting huffy and calling
> it offtopic, I was just confused because I assumed it was about Linux,
> which made the whole thing hard to understand.
> 
> By the way, when you're talking to the UEFI guys, could you ask them to
> have a special way to install a failsafe UEFI in case something
> somebody does to their /proc/efi or whatever bricks their hardware?
> This OS access to the firmware boot creates the first time since the
> Chyrnobyl Virus around 2001 that software stuff can brick a mobo. I've
> heard cases of people who, for whatever reason, did rm -rf /proc
> assuming it would only affect their hard disk or RAM, and it nailed the
> internal UEFI storage. Or these defective programs that fill up UEFI
> storage to the point where the computer won't run well enough to delete
> it, bricking the mobo. Seriously, it shouldn't be possible for a user
> to destroy his hardware without a hammer.
> 

well, I think they are working on something like that now because of the leaks regarding the CIA mess. having a failsafe UEFI image available to restore the system would certainly be handy.-eric
from the central office of the Technomage Guild, access technology dept.