Can the openSUSE installer expose screen-reader support before the graphical YaST frontend loads?
0 reputation · 06 Aug 2025, 23:42 UTC
openSUSE's YaST installer can run in a text-mode (ncurses) interface, which works better with assistive tooling than the Qt frontend, and the installed GNOME desktop ships Orca with toggles in Settings > Accessibility. What seems missing is a documented, discoverable way to get screen-reader support during installation itself, before any desktop exists.
Assume a current Leap or Tumbleweed installation ISO booted in a VM. The practical constraint is that a blind user should be able to reach an accessible installation path without sighted help or prior knowledge of the textmode boot parameter. Orca and AT-SPI2 versions differ between Leap and Tumbleweed snapshots, so any answer should note which stack it applies to and be verified against the current media.
Is there a boot-menu or kernel command-line option on current openSUSE media that starts a screen reader or forces an accessible installer path early in boot? If not, does the ncurses YaST interface work reliably with a console screen reader such as those available in the initrd environment, and is that combination documented anywhere? Finally, would an early accessibility toggle in the boot menu be feasible given how YaST starts, or does the installer architecture rule that out?