On May 13, 2012, at 12:30 PM, Eric Oyen wrote: > ok, > thats a bunch of information. However, for me, its the same as rocket science > as I am totally blind and would require sighted assistance just to get it to > either install a network card, or port to USB/Serial. Unlike the rest of you, > using a computer with little or no accessibility on boot-up is immeasurably > harder. even porting to a braille display device is not straight forward. all > I want is a way to make/execute a script to do the installation unattended or > port to an interface that can be read with another machine with speech/braille > already running. > > then again, it appears that it may be easier to get a $200 interface device > that acts as the screen to the machine and outputs to either a network > interface or a serial port. unfortunately, most blind folks cannot afford > this, so having a stand-alone installer with speech or braille would be very > helpful. > > -eric
I believe I may have already replied somewhere about this, but I figger why not, just for safe. When I install my firewalls, I use a digi ts-2 (well, not a ts-4, since when last I ordered a ts-2 I got a ts-4). They can be had cheap on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digi-Portserver-TS-2-w-power-supply-Tested-Good-/1607 85148926 Of course, this is predicated on having an RS-232 interface (which the Alix boards I use, and the Suns, have). The beauty (and the ensuing security implications) are that you can telnet to this box from ANYTHING and get to the console of the device (be it a Sun or an Alix board, or whatever) and get just straight text out of it. Needless to say (and I realized I should say it), you don't put the TS on your DMZ, and you do secure it (the Digi's do have SSH). To go the completely fee and unattended path requires doing something like installing on a VM or something you can do easily, then building a distribution with your own installer. Most of that is straightforward, even getting the partitioning preconfigured. However, in my experience, it's just simpler to find tools to adapt to the already provided process -- otherwise, you have to do the same thing over and over again to get the same result. Of course, more and move vendors are building RS-232 free systems, and despite USB being a Universal Serial Bus, it is a pain in the ass to get a serial->usb plug working in either direction (drivers drivers drivers. Bah!). I wish you luck in whatever avenue you choose. Sean
