Debian Accessibility Project
Summary
Console screen readers
Debian Accessibility Console (text-mode) screen readers

This metapackage will install packages which are useful for Console (text-mode) screen readers.

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Description

For a better overview of the project's availability as a Debian package, each head row has a color code according to this scheme:

If you discover a project which looks like a good candidate for Debian Accessibility to you, or if you have prepared an unofficial Debian package, please do not hesitate to send a description of that project to the Debian Accessibility mailing list

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Debian Accessibility Console screen readers packages

Official Debian packages with high relevance

brltty
Access software for a blind person using a braille display
Versions of package brltty
ReleaseVersionArchitectures
jessie5.2~20141018-5amd64,armel,armhf,i386
sid6.7-1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
trixie6.7-1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
bookworm-backports6.7-1~bpo12+1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
bookworm6.5-7+deb12u1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
bullseye-backports6.5-7+deb12u1~bpo11+1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
buster-backports-sloppy6.5-4~bpo10+1amd64,arm64,armhf,i386
buster-backports-sloppy6.5-3~bpo10+1armel,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
bullseye6.3+dfsg-1+deb11u1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
buster-backports6.3+dfsg-1+deb11u1~bpo10+1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
buster5.6-10+deb10u1amd64,arm64,armhf,i386
stretch-backports5.6-10+deb10u1~bpo9+1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
stretch5.4-7+deb9u1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
Debtags of package brltty:
accessibilityinput, screen-reader
interfacetext-mode
roleprogram
scopeutility
uitoolkitncurses
usedriver
Popcon: 268 users (56 upd.)*
Versions and Archs
 License: DFSG free
Git

BRLTTY is a daemon which provides access to the console (text mode) for a blind person using a braille display. It drives the braille display and provides complete screen review functionality. The following display models are supported:

  • Alva/Optelec (ABT3xx, Delphi, Satellite, Braille System 40, BC 640/680)
  • Baum
  • BrailComm
  • BrailleLite
  • BrailleNote
  • Cebra
  • EcoBraille
  • EuroBraille (AzerBraille, Clio, Esys, Iris, NoteBraille, Scriba)
  • Freedom Scientific (Focus and PacMate)
  • Handy Tech
  • HIMS (Braille Sense, SyncBraille)
  • HumanWare (Brailliant)
  • Iris
  • LogText 32
  • MDV
  • Metec (BD-40)
  • NinePoint
  • Papenmeier
  • Pegasus
  • Seika
  • Tieman (Voyager, CombiBraille, MiniBraille, MultiBraille, BraillePen/EasyLink)
  • Tivomatic (Albatross)
  • TSI (Navigator, PowerBraille)
  • VideoBraille
  • VisioBraille

BRLTTY also provides a client/server based infrastructure for applications wishing to utilize a Braille display. The daemon process listens for incoming TCP/IP connections on a certain port. A shared object library for clients is provided in the package libbrlapi0.8. A static library, header files and documentation is provided in package libbrlapi-dev. Bindings to other programming languages can be found in cl-brlapi (Lisp), libbrlapi-java (Java) and python3-brlapi (Python).
console-braille
Fonts and keymaps for reading/typing unicode braille
Versions of package console-braille
ReleaseVersionArchitectures
bullseye1.9amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
jessie1.3amd64,armel,armhf,i386
stretch1.4amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
buster1.7amd64,arm64,armhf,i386
bookworm1.10amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
trixie1.10amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
sid1.10amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
Debtags of package console-braille:
accessibilityinput
made-offont
roledata
Popcon: 1 users (3 upd.)*
Versions and Archs
 License: DFSG free
Git

This package includes

  • fonts with various sizes to render braille on the Linux console
  • keymaps to type braille as unicode characters on the Linux console.
espeakup
Connector between speakup kernel modules and espeak
Versions of package espeakup
ReleaseVersionArchitectures
jessie0.71-19+deb8u1amd64,armel,armhf,i386
sid0.90-16.1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
trixie0.90-16amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
bookworm0.90-13amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
bullseye0.80-20+deb11u1amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
buster0.80-15amd64,arm64,armhf,i386
stretch0.80-5+deb9u3amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
Debtags of package espeakup:
accessibilityspeech
interfacedaemon
roleprogram
Popcon: 250 users (114 upd.)*
Versions and Archs
 License: DFSG free
Git

Espeakup is a daemon that connects speakup kernel modules to the espeak software speech synthesizer through the /dev/softsynth device.
yasr
General-purpose console screen reader
Versions of package yasr
ReleaseVersionArchitectures
buster0.6.9-8amd64,arm64,armhf,i386
sid0.6.9-11amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
trixie0.6.9-11amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,ppc64el,riscv64,s390x
bookworm0.6.9-11amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
jessie0.6.9-5amd64,armel,armhf,i386
bullseye0.6.9-10amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
stretch0.6.9-6amd64,arm64,armel,armhf,i386,mips,mips64el,mipsel,ppc64el,s390x
Debtags of package yasr:
accessibilityscreen-reader
interfacecommandline
roleprogram
scopeutility
works-withaudio
Popcon: 7 users (0 upd.)*
Versions and Archs
 License: DFSG free
Git

Yasr is a general-purpose console screen reader for GNU/Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. The name "yasr" is an acronym that can stand for either "Yet Another Screen Reader" or "Your All-purpose Screen Reader".

Currently, yasr attempts to support the Speak-out, DEC-talk, BNS, Apollo, and DoubleTalk synthesizers. It is also able to communicate with Emacspeak servers and can thus be used with synthesizers not directly supported, such as Festival Lite (via eflite) or FreeTTS.

Yasr is written in C and works by opening a pseudo-terminal and running a shell, intercepting all input and output. It looks at the escape sequences being sent and maintains a virtual "window" containing what it believes to be on the screen. It thus does not use any features specific to Linux and can be ported to other Unix-like operating systems without too much trouble.
*Popularitycontest results: number of people who use this package regularly (number of people who upgraded this package recently) out of 246295