Linux AccessX

Linux Handicap Accessibility Project

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

page revised 15 April 1999, 3:15 AM

Members:

• Rishi Dubey aka "The Curry King"
• Aaron Klish
• Kristian Rickert
• Charles Shane Smith

• What is Linux AccessX? A graphical tool for movement-impaired users to customize the mouse, keyboard, and screen to their needs.
• How do I install Linux AccessX? As of now, it is available on this page and soon on other pages.
• How do I download Linux AccessX? Follow this link.

What is Linux AccessX?

Before now, the only widely known information on handicap accessibility features came from reading the Linux Accessibility-HOWTO file. However, these features were limited, difficult to configure, and had numerous bugs. The Department of Rehabilitiation Education Services in conjunction with the Computer Science Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed a package which will easily activate and install the handicap features available for Linux.

The following special features have been configured for use of intel-based Linux systems:

• MouseKeys turns the user's keyboard number pad into a pointer controller, enabling the user to move the pointer without the mouse.
• BounceKeys makes the keyboard ignore spurious extra presses of a key.
• StickyKeys causes modifier keys such as Shift, Ctrl, and Alt to latch and affect the next key pressed, such that modifier keys and other keys may be pressed in sequence instead of simultaneously.
• SlowKeys makes the keyboard ignore spurious presses of other keys on the way to a target key.
• RepeatKeys lets the user toggle whether held keys are acknowledged repeatedly or just once.
• AccessX Time Out Allows the user to set the time when the features will become disabled after no keyboard activity. This feature is especially useful to a user who may type on a terminal and turn-on the settings, leave the computer and another non-handicap user begins to type.
• Video Mode Changing lets users change their video screen mode on demand.
• Control Panel allows the user to apply the settings before saving, save the user's settings, tab through the panel (for those who cannot use a mouse), give the user the option to restore the to the default settings, and more.
• Soon, the AccessX package will also include screen magnification.

• For Redhat intel users: There is an rpm file which will install the control panel. To install in package, type:

rpm -i AccessControl-1.0-1.0.i386.rpm
or use the RPM GUI in the control panel.
• For Redhat non-intel users: Download the rpm source code file. There is an included makefile. If you are running a non-intel Linux machine and have to make any changes to the code to get it to compile, please E-Mail Jon Gunderson
• For other Linux distributions: Please download the tar file and view the README file.

System Requirements for build (Note: RedHat 5.1 and 5.2 should have these libraries already):

• ld-linux.so.2
• libX11.so.6
• libXext.so.6
• libc.so.6
• libm.so.6
• libstdc++.so.2.8

For more information about making information technology more usable for everyone, please visit Handicap Accessibility Links Page

Linux AccessX thanks Jon Gunderson, Rebecca Underwood of SGI, Mark Novak of the University of Wisconsin, William Walker at Sun Microsystems, and Erik Fortune of WebTV