Fenrir

A modern, modular, flexible and fast console screenreader. It should run on any operating system. If you want to help, or write drivers to make it work on other systems, just let me know. This software is licensed under the LGPL v3.

OS Requirements

• Linux (ptyDriver, vcsaDriver, evdevDriver)
• macOS (ptyDriver)
• BSD (ptyDriver)
• Windows (ptyDriver)

Core Requirements

• python3 >= 3.3
• screen, input, speech, sound or braille drivers dependencies see "Features, Drivers, Extras".

Features, Drivers, Extras, Dependencies

Input Drivers:

1. "evdevDriver" input driver for linux evdev

• python-evdev >=0.6.3 (This is commonly referred to as python3-evdev by your distribution)
• python-pyudev
• loaded uinput kernel module
• ReadWrite permission
  • /dev/input
  • /dev/uinput

2. "ptyDriver" terminal emulation input driver

• python-pyte

Screen Drivers:

1. "vcsaDriver" screen driver for linux VCSA devices

• python-dbus
• Read permission to the following files and services:
  • /sys/devices/virtual/tty/tty0/active
  • /dev/tty[1-64]
  • /dev/vcsa[1-64]
  • read logind DBUS

2. "ptyDriver" terminal emulation driver

• python-pyte

Speech Drivers:

1. "genericDriver" (default) speech driver for sound as subprocess:

• espeak or espeak-ng

2. "espeakDriver" speech driver for Espeak or Espeak-NG:

• python-espeak

3. "speechdDriver" speech driver for Speech-dispatcher:

• Speech-dispatcher
• python-speechd

4. "emacspeakDriver" speech driver for emacspeak

• emacspeak

Braille Drivers:

1. "BrlttyDriver" braille driver (WIP):

• brltty (configured and running)
• python-brlapi

Sound Drivers:

1. "genericDriver" (default) sound driver for sound as subprocess:

• Sox

2. "gstreamerDriver" sound driver for gstreamer

• gstreamer >=1.0
• GLib

Extras:

1. spellchecker

• python-pyenchant
• aspell-YourLanguageCode (example aspell-en for us English)

2. Unix daemon (also needed for Systemd):

• python-daemonize

3. Modify system volume:

• pyalsaaudio (needs libasound2's headers).

installation

If there is a package for your distrobution of choice, please let us know so we can add it here.

• Archlinux: PKGBUILD in AUR (fenrir-git recommended)

• PIP: sudo pip install fenrir-screenreader

• Manual:

• install "espeak" and "sox" with your package manager

• sudo pip install -r requirements.txt

• run install.sh or uninstall.sh as root

• you also can just run it from Git without installing: You can just run the following as root: if you are in Fenrir Git rootfolder:

  cd src/fenrir/ sudo ./fenrir

Same thing, but use the daemon so the terminal is not blocked:

cd src/fenrir/
sudo ./fenrir-daemon

Settings "settings.conf" is located in the "config" directory or after installation in /etc/fenrir/settings. Take care to use drivers from the config matching your installed drivers. By default it uses:

• sound driver: genericDriver (via sox, could configured in settings.conf)
• speech driver: genericDriver (via espeak or espeak-ng, could configured in settings.conf)
• braille driver: brlttyDriver (WIP)
• input driver: evdevDriver

Configure pulseaudio

Pulseaudio by default only plays sound for the user its currently running for. As fenrir is running as root, your local user does not hear the sound and speech produced by fenrir. for this fenrir provides a script to configure pulseaudio to stream the sound played as root to your local user. This is not a issue of fenrir but this is how pulseaudio works.

just run the configuration script twice (once as user, once as root):

/usr/share/fenrirscreenreader/tools/configure_pulse.sh
sudo /usr/share/fenrirscreenreader/tools/configure_pulse.sh

The script is also located in the tools directory in git

Configure pipewire

Pipewire by default only plays sound for the user its currently running for. As fenrir is running as root, your local user does not hear the sound and speech produced by fenrir. for this fenrir provides a script to configure pipewire to stream the sound played as root to your local user. This is not a issue of fenrir but this is how pipewire works.

just run the configuration script twice (once as user, once as root):

/usr/share/fenrirscreenreader/tools/configure_pipewire.sh
sudo /usr/share/fenrirscreenreader/tools/configure_pipewire.sh

The script is also located in the tools directory in git

localization

copy fenrir.mo translations file from fenrir/locale/your_language/LC_MESSAGES/fenrir.mo to /usr/share/locale/your_language/LC_MESSAGES/fenrir.mo

Documentation

Here is the Fenrir Wiki. It is currently being updated, so keep checking back. Feel free to help with documentation.