Getting Involved
Bridger Reed-Lewis
bridgerreedlewis at gmail.com
Mon Jun 16 04:26:46 BST 2025
Thank you for sharing that with me, I wasn't aware of the zendalona
<https://zendalona.com/accessible-coconut/> project. I am going to install
it on a VM to see how it works, and maybe we can chat about
integrating their work into KDE. Also as you said, yes i want to
contribute to linux as a whole not just one flavor or distro. I guess how I
look at it is, I should just concentrate on the most popular flavor, and
work my way down the list. Oh, yeah I did end up seeing a lack of an
accessibility category on their site. It was definitely frustrating.
Oh, and I am doing the same thing, managing my time has been like
pulling teeth lately. I volunteer a lot myself, not just for this project.
So I understand, and respect others' precious time. About the equipment, I
did have a question. In about 6-12 months, I wanted to purchase a linux
compatible tablet, and phone to do similar testing. Do you have any
recommendations?
On Sun, Jun 15, 2025 at 2:23 AM Benson Muite <benson_muite at emailplus.org>
wrote:
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2025, at 11:54 AM, Bridger Reed-Lewis wrote:
> > Well idk 🤷 to be honest the most I can do is advocate and give
> > suggestions. My goal is to install, and hopefully work with this
> community
> > to improve accessibility. One thing I will be asking for is
> faster-whisper
> > to be folks, and a setting button be added so it’s easier to install.
> > Because right now it’s a nightmare to even get setup.
>
> The drawback with being able to customize your operating system is having
> lots
> of options - it takes some time to figure out which ones are suitable for
> you. If you
> will use Arch, get on their community channels, which are forums, irc and
> mailing lists:
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Getting_involved
> Arch is a developer focused distribution - it allows you to do a lot, but
> also requires some
> time investment to make changes yourself with community assistance.
>
> Distributions such as:
> https://zendalona.com/accessible-coconut/
> are focused on accessibility.
>
> There is an effort to develop KDE Linux:
> https://community.kde.org/KDE_Linux
>
> contact them in Matrix ( https://go.kde.org/matrix/#/%23kde-linux:kde.org
> ) to see how
> much accessibility support is currently available and what they would be
> willing to add
> in the near term. It is fairly new, so may have things that prevent it
> from being usable
> for you.
>
> Not everyone who contributes to KDE uses KDE linux though. As an example,
> it would
> be easier for me to contribute to Vojtux:
> https://github.com/vojtapolasek/vojtux
>
>
> >
> > Outside of that, I still need to checkout all the text to speech software
> > along with eye tracking, speech control stuff too. Because I think this
> > should be just be a click away from installing compared to now where I
> feel
> > like I need a damn degree in computer science to set it up.
>
> Suggestions for KDE applications that can help with accessibility are
> welcome. Debian has a list at:
> https://blends.debian.org/accessibility/tasks/kde
>
> Maybe this is something KDE should highlight at https://apps.kde.org/ an
> accessibility category
> is missing.
>
> KDE did have a speech recognition application Simon:
> https://apps.kde.org/simon/
> but it is currently unmaintained.
>
> If you expect to purchase again, and want dedicated support consider
> contacting companies that
> provide linux laptops, for example:
> https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-t4-gnulinux-laptop
> https://slimbook.com/en/
> https://kfocus.org/spec/
> https://manjaro.org/enterprise
> https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/
> https://system76.com/
>
>
> Most of us who contribute do so as volunteers as time permits - we
> appreciate the freedom
> to change and improve things, but also need to prioritize with other
> things in life.
>
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 15, 2025 at 00:33 Benson Muite <benson_muite at emailplus.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, Jun 15, 2025, at 11:24 AM, Rob Whyte [Fudge] wrote:
> >> > You could get someone to build a package that depends on all you
> >> > separate packages and also makes system changes using gsettings.
> >> >
> >> > You can use packages to update configuration files also.
> >> >
> >> > Would this be a possible solution?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Speak to someone on the KDE core team about packaging your changes.
> >>
> >> KDE applications are not directly packaged for Arch linux by KDE, but by
> >> Arch
> >> linux packagers. The Arch package repository does contain KDE packages:
> >> https://archlinux.org/packages/
> >>
> >> but faster-whisper seems like a candidate for AUR
> >> https://aur.archlinux.org/
> >> and seems to already be there:
> >> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python-faster-whisper
> >>
> >> If there are problems with integrating with KDE software, that would be
> >> useful
> >> to know.
> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > cheers
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On 11/06/2025 8:09 am, Bridger Reed-Lewis wrote:
> >> >> Because right now, it requires someone with the knowledge of the
> >> >> terminal, along with access to chatgpt to troubleshoot. If not they
> >> >> either have to know what they’re doing or rely on the community to
> >> >> help them.
> >> >>
> >> >> What I’m envisioning is something that built into the settings very
> >> >> similar to what Apple has, so I think in about 2 months I should have
> >> >> a decent presentation and summary of what they can do.
> >> >>
> >> >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 13:59 Shervin Emami <shervin.emami at gmail.com
> >
> >> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> That sounds like a great idea.
> >> >>
> >> >> Cheers,
> >> >> Shervin.
> >> >>
> >> >> On Wed, 11 June 2025, 5:35 am Bridger Reed-Lewis,
> >> >> <bridgerreedlewis at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> I think my goal is to test these out, and meet with the board
> >> >> along with the accessibility person they hired to recommend
> >> >> some changes for the OS so that these things are more
> >> >> integrated into the system so that those with disabilities
> can
> >> >> just easily use these out of the box
> >> >>
> >> >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 03:46 Shervin Emami
> >> >> <shervin.emami at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Oh ok, so Bridger was thinking that the functionality is
> >> >> already integrated into the dedktop environment, whereas
> I
> >> >> was thinking that Bridger is willing to implement the
> >> >> integration into KDE.
> >> >>
> >> >> The speech recognition engines convert speech files to
> >> >> text, they don't have any OS integration. But it's not
> >> >> that hard to implement basic OS integration by getting
> >> >> speech recognition to emulate pressing keys on a
> keyboard.
> >> >> I hacked together my own basic scripts for doing that.
> You
> >> >> could turn my script into something more convenient to
> use:
> >> >>
> >> >> https://github.com/shervinemami/push-to-whisper
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> Cheers,
> >> >> Shervin.
> >> >>
> >> >> On Mon, 9 June 2025, 8:37 pm Bridger Reed-Lewis,
> >> >> <bridgerreedlewis at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> It’s installing right now, and no it’s not a feature
> >> >> yet from what I know. I’m going to see how accurate
> it
> >> >> is though once I get back from work. From what I
> >> >> understand though it runs this in a separate window
> >> >> not with the os, which is what I’m looking for
> similar
> >> >> to what Apple and windows does it.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 02:06 Benson Muite
> >> >> <benson_muite at emailplus.org> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, at 12:52 PM, Bridger
> >> >> Reed-Lewis wrote:
> >> >> > Hey so I set up what I could with a older
> laptop
> >> >> but I was looking through
> >> >> > our past conversations, and I wasn’t aware that
> >> >> faster-whisper didn’t work
> >> >> > within program, is there a effort to fix this?
> >> >>
> >> >> You would probably need to file a bug report, but
> >> >> without more details it is unclear
> >> >> where. For example, which program does it not
> >> >> work with? Does it work with any
> >> >> programs? Is this on Arch with KDE on Wayland? Do
> >> >> other programs similar to
> >> >> fast-whisper work?
> >> >>
> >>
>
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