Download

• Copyright and Disclaimer
• Current Release
• Precompiled Binaries
• Braillified Installer/Rescue Images
• The Development Repository
• Old Releases
• Android

Copyright and Disclaimer

Current Release

The current production version of BrlAPI is 0.6.0 (April 1, 2013). It can be downloaded in the following formats:

BRLTTY can also be downloaded from:

The Public's Library

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/access/

• brltty-3.0.tar.gz
• brltty-3.0-2.i386.rpm
• brltty-3.0-2.src.rpm

The Blinux Site

ftp://leb.net/pub/blinux/brltty/

• brltty-3.0.tar.gz
• brltty-3.0-2.i386.rpm
• brltty-3.0-2.src.rpm

After downloading the package, install it as follows:

.tar.gz

This flavour of the package contains the source and documentation in a form which can be built on any system. To unpack, configure, compile, and install it, do:

tar -xzf brltty-release.tar.gz
cd brltty-release
./configure
make
make install

The ./configure script is only provided with version 3.1 and beyond; for earlier releases, carefully edit the top-level Makefile.

.arch.rpm

This flavour of the package contains the compiled binaries and documentation in RedHat Package Manager format. To install or upgrade it, do:

rpm -Uvh brltty-release-version.arch.rpm

.src.rpm

This flavour of the package contains the source and documentation in RedHat Package Manager format. To build it, do:

rpm -ivh brltty-release-version.src.rpm
rpm -bi brltty-release-version

If you try BRLTTY, do leave us a note! We would like to know who the users of BRLTTY are.

Precompiled Binaries

• RPM (RedHat Package Manager)

Debian packages for BRLTTY can be found at ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/b/brltty/.

Braillified Installer/Rescue Images

• Fedora Linux Core 1 Installer
• Fedora Linux Core 2 Installer
• Fedora Linux Core 3 Installer
• Fedora Linux Core 4 Installer
• Fedora Linux Core 5 Installer
• Fedora Linux Core 6 Installer
• Fedora Linux 7 32-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 7 64-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 8 32-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 9 32-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 10 32-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 10 64-bit Installer
• Fedora Linux 11 32-bit Installer
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3 Update 4 Installer
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Installer

Some brief notes on writing to (burning) CDs:

• If you're using a rewritable CD then you should erase it first with a command like:

  cdrecord -v dev=0,0,0 blank=fast

• You can write an image to a CD with a command like:

  cdrecord -v -dao dev=0,0,0 -data image

• For more information on writing to a CD, please check the CD-Writing HOWTO.

For installer images, the following modifications have been made:

• BRLTTY has been added (all drivers, all tables).
• The timeout for the initial boot loader prompt has been disabled.
• The default kernel configuration to be booted has been changed to text.
• The use of frame buffers for the text consoles has been disabled.

For rescue images, the following additional modifications have been made:

• Text consoles are used when rescue is selected.
• The use of frame buffers for the rescue consoles is disabled.

After booting from any of these images, wait a few seconds after the CD has begun to spin in order to give the boot loader enough time to get started and to present its initial prompt. Don't worry about waiting too long before typing since the timeout for the initial prompt has been disabled.

Then enter:

text brltty=driver,device,table

For example:

text brltty=ht,ttyS1,de

You may omit any operand of the brltty= parameter, allowing it to default, simply by not specifying it. You also needn't specify any trailing commas resulting from omitted operands. For example:

• text brltty=driver,device,
• text brltty=driver,device
• text brltty=driver,
• text brltty=driver
• text brltty=driver,,table
• text brltty=driver,,

driver

The first operand is the two-letter identifier of the driver for your braille display. It's the only required operand.

device

The second operand is the device to which your braille display is connected. It's optional, and defaults to the primary serial port (/dev/ttyS0). If your display is connected to a serial port then specify either the name (e.g. ttyS1) of or the path (e.g. /dev/ttyS1) to the corresponding device. If it's connected to the USB then specify usb: (the trailing colon is important).

table

The third operand is the text translation table you wish to use. It's optional, and defaults to nabcc (North American Braille Computer Code). See the text.*.tbl files in the BrailleTables subdirectory of BRLTTY's source tree for alternatives.

If your braille display uses a serial connection then it's possible that the installer's probe for a serial mouse will disturb the communication between BRLTTY and your display. If your display stops working for no apparent reason during the initial stages then try restarting the install and adding the noprobe parameter. Since many models either appear to be immune to this problem or manage to recover from it, you should only use this parameter if you need to because a possible side-effect is that you may need to answer more questions about your system's configuration.

If you're doing an install, you may wish to make the following changes to the system before rebooting to it. While none is essential, you should give serious consideration to each. To prepare for making any of these changes, do the following:

1. Wait for the prompt to reboot the system which is presented after the packages have been installed. This ensures that the packages which require changes, as well as your favourite editor, are all available.
2. Switch to the installer's interactive shell by pressing CTRL-ALT-F2 (all at once).
3. Switch to the installed system by executing the command: chroot /mnt/sysimage

The changes which you may wish to make to the installed system are:

Serial Port Probing

If your braille display is connected to your computer via a serial port then it's possible that communication between the two will be disrupted when the installed system probes for added or removed serial hardware. You can disable serial port probing by putting kudzu into safe mode. Use your favourite editor to change SAFE from no to yes in /etc/sysconfig/kudzu. You can also do this by executing the following command: sed -e '/^SAFE=/s/no/yes/' -i /etc/sysconfig/kudzu

Graphical Configuration Stage

If you have no sighted assistance when doing the install then you'll find yourself stuck as soon as the installed system is booted. This is because the last stage of the install uses a graphical interface to configure various components of the system while it's booting for the first time. This stage can be disabled by executing the command: /sbin/chkconfig --level 2345 firstboot off

Graphical Login Screen

Unless you've explicitly deselected the X server, the installed system will typically be configured to boot to a graphical login screen. If you choose to leave it like that, e.g. if you share your system with sighted users, then you can still always switch to a text login screen by pressing CTRL-ALT-F1 (all at once) after the graphical screen is up. Alternatively, you can disable the graphical login screen by changing the default run-level. Use your favourite editor to change the run-level on the initdefault line in /etc/inittab from 5 to 3. You can also do this by executing the following command: sed -e '/^id:/s/5/3/' -i /etc/inittab

The Development Repository

The repository is at [svn://mielke.cc/]. Here are a few simple things which you can do:

• To check out your own copy of the latest development source, do:

  svn checkout svn://mielke.cc/main/brltty
  

  This will create the directory brltty in your current working directory. To pick up the latest changes from that point on, go to that directory and do:

  svn update
  

No derived files, e.g. the configure script, are stored within the repository. If you would like to build BRLTTY, then, after checking out the source tree, you must first create all of the initial derived files by running the autogen script (autogen.sh in older releases) in the top-level directory.

cd brltty
./autogen

Autoconf 2.53

If the default autoconf on your system is too old then assign whatever command will invoke a sufficiently new autoconf to the environment variable BRLTTY_AUTOCONF.

export BRLTTY_AUTOCONF=autoconf-2.53

TclX (Extended Tcl) 8.3

The Extended Tcl shell is assumed to be in /usr/bin/tcl. If it's in a different place on your system then adjust the path in the first line of the gendeps script.

Old Releases

Android

brltty-latest.apk

The latest application package.

Android.txt

The latest documentation.

We're interested in translating the text on BRLTTY's Android screens into as many languages as possible. If you're a native speaker of a language for which we don't have a translation yet, and if you'd like to do some translating for us, then we'd sure appreciate your help. So far, we have translations for the following languages:

• Chinese
• French
• German
• Italian
• Norwegian

1. Download this file: android-strings.txt
2. Use an editor to translate the English text into your language. The first word on each line is an internal identifier which you should not modify. The rest of the line is the English phrase associated with that identifier. That's the part you need to translate.
3. Return the translated file to us. The best way is to attach it to an email to me. In your email, please remember to tell me which language it is. It's a good idea to compress the file before attaching it to the email in order to protect all of the special characters used by your language from being inadvertently corrupted during transmission. To compress the file, use a tool like zip, gzip, bzip2, xz, etc.