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Dear readers
Before I delve into my question properly, I'd like to point out that this is only a question / request for any possibility, not, by any means, a request for it to be done...
The main reason I post this on here, is because posting to the company directly didn't result in anything. What I really would like to accomplish here, is to install ClearOs, as a blind indipendant user, without anyone watching any screen. I simply feel that I need more than your basic router / gateway for my network infrastructure at home, but this is, as of yet, impossible. I honestly don't know if that's even possible, so I'm just throwing it out here as a new "potential" user.
What I'd need, to accomplish installing ClearOS, is a text mode installer, not a graphical one, and either brltty (for using a refreshable braille display) or speakup with say espeak for when braille is not an option.
Alternatively, installing over ssh would be an option, provided installer could run that way.

Why clearos? I've been searching everywhere, and among some other beta projects or similar this one did jump out as being robust and so on, so if anyone can give me any clues how I could force the os on my harddrive, it would be very much apriciated. In all honesty, it would help out a good deal if I could transform that old computer of mine into a powerful gateway, with content filtering and so on, so I can prevent my daughter from opening unwelcome websites, not to mention, prevent visitors from worming their way into my nas or printer.

In short, this is, both a support requests, as well as a new feature request, and I'd be more than happy to test drive any progress made in the area of accessibility.
Sunday, September 03 2017, 07:15 PM
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  • Accepted Answer

    Thursday, October 12 2017, 04:00 PM - #Permalink
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    Hitting tab at the initial install screen pulls up a command line with a Linux install command already typed in. It just does the normal install and graphics goes to no signal and the monitor goes to sleep while the install is going on. If delete that line and type linux text it does the normal install and again the monitor says no signal and goes to sleep.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Tuesday, September 05 2017, 03:18 PM - #Permalink
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    This might come across rather harsher than I intend it to, but why should I invest in new equipment, when the old equipment that has been put aside, is more than adequat to forfil the job. I'm not a developer, so can't comment on the ease of what's below, but it would suffice to include brltty within the initrd image and activate with a boot option like: "linux" "text" "brltty=OptionalBrailleDisplayIdentificator,OptionalConnection,OptionalBrailleTable". It's enough to have it during installation only, no need for getting it into the final system by default, there's always the package manager to do that later on. Alternatively, is there a way to prepare some sort of unattended file to preconfigure the important settings, and launch that at boot, to get at least the system on the harddrive and accessible through the network after it reboots?
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  • Accepted Answer

    Tuesday, September 05 2017, 08:01 AM - #Permalink
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    The new MicroServer Gen 10 from HPE comes with ClearOS pre-installed and supports a headless mode. You only need to plug in your laptop or other computer into the second network port and then navigate a web browser to:

    http://172.22.22.1:81

    Most browsers have broad support for visually impaired operators. From there you can use the username 'root' and password 'password' to run the initial install wizard.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Monday, September 04 2017, 06:32 AM - #Permalink
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    After doing some initial tests the only thing blocking me from actually using the installer is that the package "brltty" doesn't appear to be included in the installer. Brltty is a program that produces text output on a refreshible braille, display and thus would be able to give me the installer text. As a temporary work around, if that were possible, I could also, but this is also lacking in the documentation, try bringing eth0 up with dhcp and run the installation over ssh, I have putty downloaded so that can be a possibility. Once the installation is done, I then would just use a browser to complete the next steps, but I'd need to get the system up and running first.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sunday, September 03 2017, 11:01 PM - #Permalink
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    Actually ClearOS 7.3 has a text mode install already. Have used text mode on a system with a monitor that did not support any of the installation graphics modes. It is tedious - but works. How useful for a sight impaired user I cannot comment..

    At the first install screen hit the [TAB] key...
    The screen will then display "boot:"
    Type "linux text" (without the quotes) and hit the [ENTER] key

    The install will then, after booting, display in text mode questions which can be selected and answered using the keyboard - no mouse required...

    As mentioned above, it is slow and tedious - but possible. Completed a custom partitioning install this way...

    Tony... http://www.sraellis.tk/
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