OpenSolaris

OpenSolaris 2009.06 Accessible Live CD Instructions

These are rough notes for using the OpenSolaris 2009.06 live CD, which has accessibility support built into it.

The timing information is for reference purposes -- your times might vary.

Booting to Live Mode

1. Burn the ISO to a CD and boot from the CD.  The ISO image can be obtained from (available from http://genunix.org/.
2. After about 5 seconds, the CD stops whirring. Press the Down Arrow key about 6 times to select the "OpenSolaris 2009.06 screen reader" option. This option is the last in the list, so you will not skip past it if you press the Down Arrow key too many times.  Press the Return key to boot.
3. After about 55 seconds, you will hear a 'beep'.  At this point, you're being prompted to select the keyboard layout.  The command being run is "kbd -s", and the default choice is 43, which is US-English.  You can press Return here to select 43, or you can type another number and press Return to select a different layout. You can find the complete list here. Make your selection and press Return.
4. You will hear another 'beep'.  Wait a few seconds after you hear this beep -- it's important that you wait. The CD will whir and then stop whirring.  At this point, you're being prompted for the desktop language.  The command being run is /usr/sbin/set_lang.bash, and the default choice is 6, which is English. You can press Return here to select 6, or you can type another number and press Return to select a different language. You can find the complete list here.  Make your selection and press Return.
5. The machine will now boot into live mode.  After about 3 to 4 minutes, the CD will stop whirring and you should head "Welcome to Orca".  It may take longer.  Press Ctrl+Alt+d to get to the desktop pane. You can then up and down arrow to get to the OpenSolaris installer.

Using the Installer

If you haven't started the installer, press Ctrl+Alt+d until you Orca say you are on the desktop.  Then press the Up or Down Arrows until you get to the "Install OpenSolaris desktop configuration file icon."  Press Return to start the installer.

"Welcome" Screen

After you press Enter on the "Install OpenSolaris desktop configuration file icon", the disk will whir for about 20 seconds and you will hear "OpenSolaris 2008.11 installer frame" (or something similar) followed by "Release notes button."

This is the "Welcome" window of the installer that presents us with all the information we never read and just skip over.  You can flat review the window using the numerical keypad keys if you wish, or just skip this step and press Alt+n (the mnemonic for the "Next" button, which you can also tab to) to go to the next step.

"Disk" Screen

When you press the Return key on the "Next" button in the Welcome screen or press Alt+n, you will hear say "disk" followed by the size of a disk, followed by "selected".  This window is where you choose which hard drive you want to use.

1. You are currently on the list of disks and you've heard Orca speak information for the current disk -- something like "149GB selected radio button".  [I only have one disk in my machine, so I don't know what the user experience is when you have more than one disk.]
2. Press Tab to go to a radio button list that lets you choose the partitioning for the disk [KNOWN ISSUE BEING DISCUSSED WITH THE INSTALLER TEAM: MISSING LABEL FOR/BY RELATIONS FOR THE RADIO BUTTON GROUP].  You can press the Up Arrow to choose "Use the whole disk" or just do nothing and keep the selection at the "Partition the disk" radio button.
3. If you've selected "Partition the disk", pressing Tab will take you to a "Partition Type" combobox that lets you select the partition type.  Press Space and then the Up and Down Arrow keys to select the partition type (you want "Solaris").  Pressing Tab again will take you to a "Size (GB)" spin button [KNOWN ISSUE] that lets you set the size of the partition in GB.  You can set up to 4 partitions this way, and you will encounter combobox/spinbutton pairs for defining the partitions as you Tab through this window (you will only encounter a size spinbutton if the partition combobox is not set to "unused").  If you changed things, you may also encounter a "Reset" button to reset the
   partition information back to what it was when you first entered this window.
4. When you're satisfied, Tab to the "Next" button and press Return.  You can also press Alt+n instead of needing to tab to the "Next" button.

"Time Zone, Date and Time" Screen

When you press the Return key on the "Next" button in the Disk screen, you'll just hear Orca say "Region colon".  You're now on the "Time Zone, Date and Time" window of the installer.  This window is where you set the date and time information for your machine.

1. You're currently on the "Region:" combobox.  Press the Space key and Arrow and/or Page Up and Down to select the region.  Press Enter to close the combobox and make your selection.  HINT: 'Americas' is two down arrows from the top.
2. Press Tab to get to the "Location:" combobox.  Press the Space key and Arrow and/or Page Up and Down to select the location.  HINT: the United States is very near the bottom - press the End key and then 5 up arrows and you should be on it or near it.  Press Enter to close the combobox and make your selection.
3. Press Tab to get to the "Time Zone:" combobox.  Press the Space key and Arrow and/or Page Up and Down to select the time zone.  Press Enter to close the combobox and make your selection.
4. Press Tab to get to the "Date:" spin button.  You'll be entering the current date here: first the year, then then month, then the date. Press Tab to get between each field.
5. Once you've entered the current date, press Tab to get to the "Time:" spin button.  You'll be entering the current time here: first the hour and then the minutes.  The default format is 24-hour time format.  You can change between 12-hour and 24-hour format by Tab'ing just past the spin button for entering the minutes.
6. When you're satisfied, Tab to the "Next" button and press Return.  You can also press Alt+n instead of needing to tab to the "Next" button.

"Locale" Screen

When you press the Return key on the "Next" button in the Locale screen, you'll just hear Orca say "Language colon table English". This is where you select the default locale for your machine.

There are two main controls in this window: 1) a "Language" list and 2) a "Territory" combobox.

1. You're currently on the "Language" list and then press the Arrow and/or Page Up and Down to select the language you want as the default.
2. Tab to the "Territory" combobox.  Press Space to open the combo box and Arrow and/or Page Up and Down to select the territory.
3. When you're satisfied, Tab to the "Next" button and press Return.  You can also press Alt+n instead of needing to tab to the "Next" button.

"Users" Screen

When you press the Return key on the "Next" button in the Users screen, you'll just hear Orca say "Enter a root password for this system" and then "root password colon password".  This is where you set the root password for your machine, set up an account for yourself, and give your machine a name.

1. Tab through the various text areas and fill out the information. Don't skip this step -- if you do, you'll end up with a machine that you're not able to login to.
2. When you're satisfied, Tab to the "Next" button and press Return. You can also press Alt+n instead of needing to tab to the "Next" button.

"Installation" Screen

When you press the Return key on the "Next" button in the Installation screen, you'll just hear Orca say "Disk panel" and then come information about the disk you selected earlier on.  This window provides you with a summary of the information you've entered in the previous steps.  Use the arrow keys to review the information.

1. When you're satisfied, Tab to the "Install" button and press Return.   You can also press Alt+i instead of needing to tab to the "Next" button.
2. If you need to change things, Tab to the "Back" button and press Return.  You can also press Alt+b to go back.

When you activate the install button, the installation will start.  This takes a very long time.  Just be patient and let the CD whir away.  It took about 70 minutes on my machine.  Towards the end, the machine eggs you on by pausing the CD, reading it, pausing, etc.  Eventually, you should be able to tab to the "Reboot" button and reboot.

Post Install

To be written.

Just note that the installed machine will boot without accessibility enabled by default.  So, you need to log in blind.  Type your username, Return, your password, and then Return again. Wait about 30 seconds just to give the first login a chance to do all of its work.

Once you log in, you can press Alt+F2 to bring up the "Run" dialog.  Type "orca" and press Return.  Orca should launch.

Note on the Wireless Setup GUI

The wireless setup GUI can come up too soon for it to be recognized by the accessibility infrastructure.  You can fix this by restarting it from a gnome-terminal window:

    svcadm disable svc:/network/physical:nwam
    svcadm enable svc:/network/physical:nwam

If you have a wireless card in your machine, the GUI that prompts you to select a wireless network should appear after a little while.

Note also that two network-related applets appear in the top panel.  To get to the one you need, press Ctrl+Alt+Tab (perhaps more than once) to get to the top panel.  Then press Tab several times until you get to an applet that Orca presents as "icon".  Press Ctrl+F1 to bring the tooltip up for this applet.  Based upon the tooltip, you'll know if it's for the network or not -- it might be for the electrical power applet.  If it's not for the network applet, press Tab again until you get to another "icon" and press Ctrl+F1 to get its tooltip.

Once you've found the unfortunately ill-behaved applet, press Shift+F10 to bring up its menu and press the up and down arrow keys to view the menu items.  If Shift+F10 doesn't work, you can press the Orca flat review command to do a right click on the item.  In desktop layout, a right click can be performed via the keypad '*' ("star") key.  In laptop layout, a right click can be performed by pressing the Caps Lock and '8' key on the main keyboard at the same time.  At this point, you should be able to open the configuration dialog.  Note that you may need to press Escape and/or Ctrl+Alt+Tab to get to the dialog because the dialog doesn't always seem to grab focus when it appears.  We realize this is a big bummer and we hope to work on it for the next release.