# Blind System Admins

Category: Geeks r Us

## Post 1 by Dj paddy (The irish Cranky geek) on Tuesday, 30-Oct-2007 11:20:06

I'm painfully realising the lack of resources online for the above.
We've great and I do mean great sites like,
http://www.blind-geek-zone.net
http://www.blind-computing.com
And
http://www.blindprogramming.com
To name but a few.
The sites are great but email lists?
I've rarely had a question answered I've put to BGZ and blind-computing is very general and thus high traffic, (especially for subscribing at work).
I'd really like to be able to bounce problems off and offer solutions to other VI's in the admin/engineering/help desk areas, but where are they all?
Put,
"+blind+person+system+engineer"
Into google and look at the results it comes up with...
I feel like I'm struggling here at work with some tasks and I'm using an awful lot of time trying to research solutions to problems my peers can just pop a USB stick in, get a pre-installed environment up like Bart PE and I'm generally just getting fed-up of feeling left standing.
I had a contact in the US who was one of the most experienced techs I knew but he's sortive disappeared off the face...
Comments? Suggestions?

## Post 2 by frequency (the music man) on Tuesday, 30-Oct-2007 11:49:49

what sort of preinstallation tasks do you need to perform?
In case you need to partition, I recently found a great partitioner that can be scripted and that runs from a dos command line..

## Post 3 by Dj paddy (The irish Cranky geek) on Wednesday, 31-Oct-2007 10:21:17

I need to be able to run Ghost System drive restores in the first instance. I also need to be able to run system diags otuside of Windows with speech feedback.
I've looked at Bart PE and have a XP booting of a CD and USB stick but I cant' get sound support with Bart PE.
I've also looked at, SystemRescueCd
http://www.sysresccd.org/Detailed-packages-list
Trouble is I've only basic shell writign experience with Linux and cant' figure out how to get a soft synth working with this as i dont' have access to a hardware synth.
Ghost can be scripted but only older versions and not the current release.

## Post 4 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Wednesday, 31-Oct-2007 15:22:37

Have you tryed using a win pe image and then making the gui from bartpe automaticly start? Pe would give you sound and then you could load some speech prog.
technically you can do this withxp embedded, perhaps you could download a trial.

## Post 5 by SingerOfSongs (Heresy and apostasy is how progress is made.) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 10:33:42

Hmm. I haven't used it much myself, but I've heard good things about the GRML live linux CD. IT can be found at www.grml.org
Let me know what you find out about other options though, as I forsee myself being in a similar situation.

## Post 6 by Squiggles (Account disabled) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 15:48:17

GRML is great you need a hardware synth. Read the post before replying he specifically said he can't get to a hardware synth. You could, if you had access to a braille display, use that with grml. It is a great distro and I've used it and have had no problems with it.

## Post 7 by SingerOfSongs (Heresy and apostasy is how progress is made.) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 17:41:25

GRML does not need a hardware synth, unless they changed it in the most recent version.

## Post 8 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 20:30:20

yeah, grml comes with flite.
I'm actually looking into making a pe 2.0 image with nvda and stuff, but i'll only do it if I can put bts packs in there, otherwise its pointless.

## Post 9 by frequency (the music man) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 21:31:18

are all the disk tools accessible on GRML?

## Post 10 by b3n (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Thursday, 01-Nov-2007 21:36:02

Some are from what I can remember, but you'll probably get a more usefull responce over time. I'm not sure if he can use it with ghost though.

## Post 11 by Dj paddy (The irish Cranky geek) on Friday, 02-Nov-2007 5:30:24

Thanks guys. I'm going to poke about with this Live CD that's been recommended.
This is seriously appreciated! I've never really used these boards before, I will in future!
I'll also check them in case I can help out with stuff.