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Episode: 1173
Title: HPR1173: Sonar GNU/linux
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1173/hpr1173.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 20:58:24
---
Hello and thank you for listening to this episode. My name is Jonathan Nado. I'm the Executive
Director of the Accessible Computing Foundation, which can be found at theacf.co. This episode
isn't necessarily going to be about the Accessible Computing Foundation, but if you want
to find it, like I said, the URL is theacf.co, and you'll find out about what we are.
Quickly and quickly, what we do is we develop free software that we build assistive technology
using free software. We're looking at doing things on Android and with the GNU Linux and
any other kind of devices we can get our hands on, making them accessible to people around
the world. And there are 1 billion people in the world that have some type of disability.
And out of these 1 billion people, 360 million people are blind or have low vision. Out of
those 360 million people, 90% of those people live in developing countries. Out of the remaining
10%, there's anywhere from 15 to 20 million blind or low vision people in the United States.
This is a hard number to really lock down because some people that are considered legally
blind, if they put on glasses, they can then see. So it's really hard to get a hard number
of actual blind people such as myself. I've gotten a bad car accident and I'm definitely
not going to be seeing any time soon. So out of the, like I said, 15 to 20 million blind
people in the United States, up to 80% of these blind and low vision people are unemployed.
So these are just some numbers that give you an idea of what we're looking at when I talk
about building people in the world with some type of disability. The 90% of people in
the developing countries that are blind, the majority of those people are blind. In Nepal,
99.99% of blind people are unemployed. So this is just giving an idea of some statistics
and what we're going to be looking at in regards to what I'm going to mention here in the
next few moments. What I would like to talk to you about is, I guess I'm called, I have
a website called sonar-project.org and essentially what the sonar project is is making things
accessible to people with disabilities. Granted, that's the ACF's main goal but there
could be other things that the ACF is going to be involved with, you know, maybe website
design, testing out websites for accessibility, things of that nature. But the sonar project
is making technology accessible through free software and or hardware hacking with
Arduino's and even Raspberry Pi's. So at the sonar project, I've been working on a
distribution called sonar and it's a new Linux distribution. I have versions based
off of Debian Weezy, Debian Sid, Ubuntu 1204, Ubuntu 1210 and I also have a Ubuntu 1210
version using the LXDE desktop. So what's the purpose of sonar? Well, the purpose of sonar
is to bring new Linux to people using free software for accessible software and assistive
technology needs. So what I've done in sonar is on any of these distributions that you
install no matter if it's the Ubuntu or Debian or even the LXDE version. Here are some
of the things that I've created and developed and designed and put into the operating system.
So first of all, all versions of sonar can be installed by a completely blind person
with no-sided help at all whatsoever. So I myself can install all these versions of sonar
and I don't need any help at all whatsoever. So that's the first thing is bringing freedom
to blind people that maybe they can't get a hold of their friends to help them install sonar,
maybe they live on their own, maybe they see their friends and or family every so often.
This gives them the opportunity to install an operating system by themselves and not have to
wait for anybody to help. So there's the first one of the first hurdles that sonar can overcome.
Next you'll find in sonar is obviously the Orca screen reader because that's what's used to
read the installation process as you're installing sonar onto your computer. So the Orca screen
reader is included. We also include a screen magnification for people that have low vision.
They can what I do is I use the there's a comp his plugin that helps with screen magnification.
So I use that and include it and I get everything set up. I get all the keyboard shortcut
set up for the magnification to work also. Other things you'll find in sonar the first the
other thing is a on screen keyboard. Now with the on screen keyboard this is useful for people
that have low motor skills where maybe they don't have a use of their hands very well or they
can't really use a regular keyboard that well but they can use a mouse or track pad or something
or a track ball. So they can basically drag the cursor or mouse across the screen and use the
on screen keyboard to you know to be able to type out things on the computer. There's an additional
on screen keyboard which has the on screen keyboard functionality but it also has predictive
text that you can build into it. So if there's some phrase that the person might say all the time
or if there was putting in their like their name address phone number or let's see just any
maybe paragraph that they might say a lot or things like that they can pre they can program
this predictive text keyboard to basically when they push a button it'll populate this paragraph
or whatever it is that they you know that they repeat a lot. So with one press of a button
they can you know have quite a bit accomplished already instead of you know hunting and pecking
on the on screen keyboard to you know type things up that they type out all the time.
Also on sonar is a font for people with dyslexia. Now I heard about this a few years ago and
I wondered exactly how that worked so basically I'm not sure if I'm going to describe this right or
not because you know I'm blind but I'm going by what people have told me. So with this font
what they do to the letters is they make the letters they call they say they call it heavy
they make the letters heavy at the bottom because when a person has dyslexia apparently their
mind wants to flip the words around and backwards and upside down and things. So when these fonts are
heavy and they're in my mind the picture and then like bold on the bottom half or something.
And so when the letters are heavy on the bottom it tells the person with dyslexia it tells their
mind don't move this letter. This is exactly how it's supposed to be and it helps with with that.
So the font is included it's not set by default in the case people don't need that font but the
font is included in sonar. Another thing that's included is a piece of software for tracking eye
and or head movement. So you could have a quadriplegic and they could be sitting in the chair and you
can use any common webcam as long as the driver is in new Linux any webcam will work.
I'm assuming I haven't done enough testing yet with this yet or not but I'm assuming the better
the webcam I'm assuming the better the response will be with the cursor moving on the screen I'm
just assuming this. So essentially what will happen is when you the person though will need some
help to get it set up unfortunately that's the only thing right now I hope to be working on this
but the person in the wheelchair will have to have some assistance to initially set it up. So
once it is set up though they can basically the webcam will track the cursor on the screen with
either the movement of their eyeballs and or even their head. So with the combination of the
head tracking software and the on screen keyboard a quadriplegic could now have access to a computer
type things out read his or her email be able to go online and do all the things that you and I
you know take for granted on a day-to-day basis. So this is some of the things that you'll get
within so-and-so in our new Linux. This is a very new project it's you know not even a few months old.
My goal my end goal for me as the executive director of the Accessible Computing Foundation
and also me being a person that depends on on assistive technology. This is an important
goal for me. My end goal is for everyone that depends on assistive technology to use free software.
My goal is even if they're not using sonar the reason why I'm building sonar is to show people
that it can be done and that's a viable option and it's a solution that can be used. So that's why
I'm building sonar I would like in the long run for a sonar to become almost a development platform
where anyone interested in implementing new assistive technology to choose sonar as the platform
instead of choosing Windows or Mac or whatever else might come down the road. I want sonar to be
that platform for people to come to and to develop on. You know there's there's lots of other things
that I want to do down the road. I also want to work on making sonar be usable for people that have
like Asperger's or for people that have like Down syndrome and lots of other disabilities too.
I know I'm not covering all disabilities right now with sonar but like I said in the long run
I my goal is for people that depend on assistive technology for sonar to be the distribution that
they use and I believe this can be done. You know no one it's underestimated the people out there
that have disabilities. Like I said there's one billion people in the world that's being underestimated
right now and I want to provide something for these people to access technology that's around them.
There's no reason this day and age that we shouldn't be able to give access to anyone that has
any type of a disability to access even a PC. So again that's that's my goal with sonar and
even the ACF. So these are some of the ideas that I have with sonar like I said I also want to
build a tackle like learning disabilities in some way she perform an autism and things of that
nature and sonar is a new project it's young and there's still a lot to go with it. I've been
designing it now for a couple of months and the last I checked I haven't checked too recently but
the last I've checked we had over 600 downloads and 30 different countries so people are using it
which is fantastic and another goal is to find a way to reach out to these people in other
countries and let them know that this does exist and like I said I just want everyone to be using
this that depends on assistive technology that that's my goal. Another thing that I'm going to be
working on soon is I recently got a Raspberry Pi and I thankfully was able to get flux box
pretty accessible. So what I'm going to be doing is looking at making the Raspbian and also the
Fedora remix for the Raspberry Pi. I'm going to make accessible versions of those using flux box.
I'm hoping to add the functionality that sonar and can do Linux has into these. I don't know what
to expect yet. I haven't even started. I was able to make flux box accessible accessible with
the Orca screen reader so that's a step in the right direction. I haven't even set up the
Raspberry Pi yet or anything but it's definitely something that I will be working on. I'm also
going to be looking into building Android mods like sort of like a Sanogen mod. It'll be a sonar
mod for again focusing on people with disabilities to have the screen reader talk back working right
away when the phones turned on. You know to be able to make mods for older phones that you know
to be able to put jelly bean on older phones that aren't getting the upgrades. So these are some
of the things that I want to be able to do for people around the world and so that's kind of like
the sonar project is making all of these things accessible. I've also been speaking with a person
recently that is in a wheelchair and he's done some really interesting things with the Arduino
and I've been speaking with other people that know the work that I do at the ACF and being given
me lots of really great ideas to do things with Arduino's and Raspberry Pi's. We live in a fantastic
age and I want to use this technology around us to better people's lives to give them opportunities
that they might not otherwise have had without this technology. So if we can get these people online
who knows what kind of opportunity is going to open up for these people. Like with sonar
there could be people like in India, China, any country name any country and they could build like
tech support businesses around sonar within their community. They can localize the distribution
to fit their community. They can respinate to put other things in it that I never thought of putting
in or they can just customize it to the area. They could start throwing tech support lines that
can start throwing businesses around sonar. So not only will we be bringing access to people
to the internet and technology but we'll be hopefully creating jobs through sonar and the ACF also.
I'm hoping that people are motivated enough to do things like this. They'll see the opportunity
that lies. They could even start building custom software like I was saying within sonar to
meet people's needs and get paid for that custom work to make work a better to develop some particular
piece of software for a certain type of disability in a certain area. The sky is a limit with what
sonar might be able to do throughout the world. Creating jobs, getting people online, getting people
access to technology. These are my goals. I think that you all hearing this episode are at least
intrigued a little bit. Someday you might depend on assistive technology. Someday you might
need a screen reader. Someday you might get in a car accident like I did. I was at the age of 14.
I played lots of sports in basketball and baseball and it was just you know I never considered
accessibility at all. I never thought I would be blind. I never expected you know myself to get
in a car accident but here we are and you know things happen for a reason or whatever but it's
just something that's so important and in this day and age like I said there's no reason why
people shouldn't be able to access the technology that's around them. So I've started an Indiegogo
campaign and I'm hoping that you'll join me and pledge to the sonar projects Indiegogo campaign.
You can visit indiegogo.com slash sonar. So it's been up for five or six days now hopefully by
the time you guys hear this it may be if only been up for 10. It's a 30 day campaign. I'm looking
to raise $20,000 to bring sonar to the next level to give it that fit and finish and polish to
make some of the source code better for some of the accessible applications that we're currently
using and who knows I might be able to even add some additional things onto sonar but I really
want to bring it to this next level. I feel like I've brought it as far as I can with what I have
and I just feel like I really need this this push to to get it to that next level to help with
like the raspberry pine to help with building sonar mods for Android. So if you feel you want to
join me on this campaign and bring accessible freedom to people around the world this is a
worthwhile campaign indiegogo.com slash sonar and you can help out that there's $5 pledges
$2,500 $510,000 but you can even fill in your own pledge that you want to do so that's more
than welcome also. Any any amount is highly appreciated and even even even more so if you can spread
the word about the indiegogo campaign you know you might you're going to have to unfortunately hate
a little bit of freedom to help promote this but they have like Facebook likes and Twitter tweets
that are pre-populated and you can plus one it you can also embed they have some HTML code that
you can embed on a website any of these things would be greatly appreciated if the more that they
gets tweeted the more that it gets like the more it's plus one the more code that gets embedded
indiegogo will feature the campaign on the front page and that can make a huge difference so
again these are just some of the the ideas that I want to do some of the ideas I've been working on
sonar currently does exist you can download it you can go to sonar-project.org you can download
and see what it's capable of doing so far you know please spread the word any any help is greatly
appreciated and I just really want to get this to the next level I I want to bring the successful
freedom to people around the world because there is assistive technology that does exist but it's
extremely expensive and it's put out of the reach of people that actually need this software like
I said 90 percent of blind people live in developing countries most screen readers costs from a
thousand to twelve hundred to fifteen hundred dollars depending on which one you're looking at
we they can't afford this I can't afford that um so the assistive technology does exist there's
magnification software it's like eight hundred dollars uh you know no none of these people can
afford these things it's out of their reach some people can get it because they get some
type of assistance in order to pay for it or some governments might pay for assistive technology
but only for a number of people so who's to decide who gets what and who doesn't this way with free
software and GNU Linux it'll be put into the hands of everybody they won't have to depend on
anyone supplying anything for them you know that's the whole reason why I started I worked on
getting the LXDE desktop accessible was because people in developing countries might not have great
hardware but now that sonar is running on LXDE and it's accessible now we can run on older hardware
and get get the sonar into the hands of people that might have full-run hardware um I'm also
looking at making persistent installs for usb sticks so even if these people uh don't have a computer
they might have a friend has a computer they can bring their usb stick with a persistent install
sonar pop it in the usb drive and build the boot off that and use the computer you know they can
send emails and write documents and surf the web and all that stuff and everything will get saved
because it's on a persistent install on the usb drive so this is just a number of things and you
know again back to the Raspberry Pi they could even purchase a Raspberry Pi and have an accessible
version of sonar for that so you know these are the things that I want to do and and free software
as well allows you and I to do this for these people and and even for myself I myself depend on
free software and assistive technology so and it's not I mean it's not for me it's I can get you
know proprietary versions of the software because I'm a college student uh I wrote my own business
and you know they would get me copies all day long I refuse to get to get copies of proprietary
software I don't use those things they continue they continue to offer them to me and I tell them
no and I don't you I don't use proprietary software I choose not to I can easily get free copies
if I wanted to and I choose not to I choose to use free software because it's what I believe in
and it's what I know can change the world with assistive technology so I'm not sure if I'm
ranting or not here but it's just a passion of mine and I truly believe in this and if you can
please join me indiegogo.com slash sonar you can join pledge and again if you can't pledge if
you can't pledge five dollars one dollar please spread the word that's almost just as important
if we can get on the front page of um the indiegogo site that'll be a huge help it'll be greatly
appreciated if anyone has any questions at all you can go to sonar-project.org you can reach
me there's a contact page right there you can reach me through that contact page you'll easily
find me among google plus I don't really use google plus because it's not accessible
but you can find me there plus Jonathan NATO and you know you can try and reach me there
I'm also on ideneca I'm frostbite on ideneca so you can reach me there you can you can
reach me through the indiegogo site again is indiegogo.com slash sonar please write blog posts
about it and embed the code do whatever you can to spread the word like I said it it would take
you like one minute to to do the plus one to tweet it and to like it on Facebook or whatever
at the indiegogo site so indiegogo.com slash sonar again thank you all for listening thank you
for the hacker public radio podcast it's it's really appreciated what these guys do and it's
amazing that they're able to put out you know an episode per day it's all about the community
and it's a fantastic community at that so again thank you all for listening thank you for
pledging and thank you for listening again and again if sonar-project.org you can reach me
there plus Jonathan on google plus frostbite on ideneca and thank you again for listening thank
you for pledging and join me bringing accessible freedom to people around the world
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