[Hudlug] using brltty

[Michael Weaver]

I am thinking of running my Braillenote with Gutsy as my Braillenote
can be used as a Braille Display.
I managed to get it working basically in Feisty but I am not sure if
it has changed on Gutsy and also I might need a USB to Serial dongle
if I were to use my Braillenote connected to my laptop as I don't
think I have a serial port and the Braillenote doesn't being a Braille
display as an actual USB device.
I read someone's email on the Orca list and found a link to the
information but I may need a bit of help if I am going to be trying to
use Braille in Ubuntu.
Using Braille with Orca: BrlTTY
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Contents
1. Using Braille with Orca: BrlTTY
1. BrlTTY 3.8 on Ubuntu
2. BrlTTY on Solaris
3. What If You Don't Have a Braille Display???
2. Troubleshooting
1. /etc/brltty.conf is overwritten
Orca uses
BrlTTY
 for braille support.  Orca does not automatically start BrlTTY for
you -- you typically
need to do that yourself, and it is something that is usually done at boot time.
Start-up options are described in the BRTLTTY reference manual.
Orca attempts to work with various releases of BrlTTY.  It works well
with BrlTTY
v3.7.2, and we've also been working with the BrlTTY team to get it
going for BrlTTY
v3.8.  The remainder of this document provides information related to using Orca
with BRLTTY 3.8.
To get Orca working with BrlTTY v3.8 requires that the Python bindings
for BrlAPI
are built/installed as part of the BrlTTY build/install process.
Below are descriptions
of the necessary tasks to do this for Ubuntu and Solaris.  For both, you need to
first obtain
brltty-3.8.tar.gz
 from the BrlTTY site.
BrlTTY 3.8 on Ubuntu
First, setup your build environment to build BrlTTY.  Much of this setup is done
for you automatically in the Ubuntu distribution with products such as
G++ already
present. In addition, YOU MUST also install tcl, Pyrex, and the Python
developers
environment.  To do this, execute the following commands as
root:
apt-get build-dep brltty
apt-get install tcl8.4 python-pyrex python-dev
Then, when you build BrlTTY, avoid configuring the package with
--prefix=/usr.  Use
the standard procedure instead, executing the following commands as
root:
gunzip -c brltty-3.8.tar.gz | tar xvf -
cd brltty-3.8
./autogen
./configure
make
make install
Run BrlTTY as root (need notes on automatically starting brltty):
/bin/brltty -bauto -d/dev/ttyUSB0
If you want, you can remove the existing /sbin/brltty and replace it with the
/bin/brltty either by copying the /bin/brltty to /sbin/brltty
 or just by making a symbolic link.  Do so at your own risk.
BrlTTY on Solaris
First, make you've set up
 CBE
.  CBE will get you all the tools you need to build BrlTTY.  Then,
when you build
BrlTTY, avoid configuring the package with --prefix=/usr.  Use the
standard procedure
instead, executing the following commands as
root:
bash
ln -s /usr/sfw/bin/tclsh8.3  /usr/sfw/bin/tclsh
. /opt/jdsbld/bin/env.sh
gunzip -c brltty-3.8.tar.gz | tar xvf -
cd brltty-3.8
./autogen
./configure --disable-java-bindings
make
make install
Run BrlTTY as root (need notes on automatically starting brltty):
brltty -d /dev/term/0 -bauto -xno -p none -A auth=none -n
NOTE: The /dev/term/0
 portion will differ depending upon whether you're using a serial
device, a USB device,
or a USB-to-serial dongle.  The
/dev/term/0 portion was based upon using a USB-to-serial dongle.
What If You Don't Have a Braille Display???
So, you want to test, but you don't have a braille display?  Well, the
Orca braille
monitor will tell you what Orca is sending to the display.  But, you
can also use
BrlTTY's X Windows driver, which will allow you to click on cells as
though there
were cursor routing keys and also invoke BrlTTY input commands.  Instead of
-bauto, use -bxw
.  When you do this, a window will appear that emulates the braille
display.  For
example, on
OpenSolaris
, you might type this command, and you don't need to be
root for it to work:
brltty -d /dev/term/0 -bxw -xno -p none -A auth=none -n
Right click on the window for options.
Troubleshooting
The number one problem people have with BrlTTY is that they have built
BrlTTY 3.8dev
from source, but did not build the Python bindings for BrlAPI.   Verify that the
Python bindings for BrlAPI are installed.  If the following command
doesn't produce
any errors, you've done things well:
python -c "import brlapi"
If the above produces errors, follow the steps above and take care to
read them this
time.
:-)
/etc/brltty.conf is overwritten
If you are wondering why your /etc/brltty.conf gets overwritten from
time to time
and you wish it not to be the case:
comment out the mv lines and the sed line in /etc/init.d/brltty
so that it looks like this:
if [ -e /dev/.initramfs/brltty.conf ] && [ -e /etc/default/brltty ]; then
        if [ -e /etc/brltty.conf ]; then
                # following line is commented out!
                # mv /etc/brltty.conf /etc/brltty.conf.orig
        fi
        # mv /dev/.initramfs/brltty.conf /etc/brltty.conf
        # sed -i -e 's/^RUN_BRLTTY=.*/RUN_BRLTTY=yes/' /etc/default/brltty
        # above two lines are commented out!
fi
intrestingly enough the file gets overwitten on two of the machines on a regular
basis, and on another never at all. Hardware detection issue? Observed on Ubuntu
6.06 onwards.