BRLTTY
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Copyright and Disclaimer

BRLTTY is Copyright © 1995-2023 by The BRLTTY Developers.
It comes with NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, placed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation.


Download Formats

BRLTTY and BrlAPI can be downloaded in various archive formats. These formats can be identified by their file extensions.

Source archives, which contain everything, include:

.src.rpm
The format used for building binary packages for platforms such as Red Hat and Fedora.
.tar.gz
A tar archive compressed via gzip.
.tar.xz
A tar archive compressed via xz.

Binary formats which contain a full build include:

.apk
An Android package.
.exe
A Windows installer.
.zip
A full build for a Microsoft platform. If the file name begins with brltty-win- then it's for Windows. If the file name is brlttynn (or, in some cases, brlttnnn) then it's for DOS.

There are two variants for each Windows installer (.exe) and Windows binary archive (.zip). This is necessary because there are two ways to access USB devices on Windows.

LibUSB
The older, Win32-based interface. The version component of the file name ends with -libusb.
LibUSB-1.0
The newer, WinUSB-based interface. The version component of the file name ends with -libusb-1.0.

Binary builds for some distributions are split into several packages in order to facilitate minimizing the dependency on external components. Binary formats for these partial-build packages include:

.i386.rpm
A 32-bit Intel 386-compatible package for platforms such as Red Hat and Fedora.
.i686.rpm
A 32-bit Intel 686-compatible package for platforms such as Red Hat and Fedora.
.noarch.rpm
An architecture-independent package for platforms such as Red Hat and Fedora.
.x86_64.rpm
A 64-bit Intel package for platforms such as Red Hat and Fedora.

Partial build packages include:

brlapi
The BrlAPI client library.
brlapi-devel
C headers and a run-time library that facilitate software development using BrlAPI client code.
brlapi-java
Java bindings for BrlAPI.
brlapi-ocaml
OCaml bindings for BrlAPI.
brlapi-python
Python bindings for BrlAPI.
brlapi-tcl
TCL bindings for BrlAPI.
brlapi-utils
Commands that perform various BrlAPI-related functions.
brltty
The core, braille and speech drivers that have no external dependencies, the Linux screen driver, and the BrlAPI server.
brltty-braille-brlapi
The BrlAPI braille driver.
brltty-braille-xwindow
The XWindow braille driver.
brltty-devel
C headers and a run-time library that facilitate software development using BRLTTY code.
brltty-screen-atspi
The AtSpi screen driver.
brltty-screen-atspi2
The AtSpi2 screen driver.
brltty-screen-screen
The Screen screen driver.
brltty-speech-espeak
The eSpeak speech driver.
brltty-speech-festival
The Festival speech driver.
brltty-speech-flite
The Festival Lite speech driver.
brltty-speech-speechd
The Speech Dispatcher speech driver.
brltty-systemd
Units that allow BRLTTY processes to be managed by Systemd.
brltty-udev
Rules that allow BRLTTY processes to be manged by Udev.
brltty-utils
Commands that perform various BRLTTY-related functions.

Current Release

The current production version of BRLTTY is 6.6 (July 22, 2023). It can be downloaded in the following formats:

Name Category Size Date
brltty-6.6-1.src.rpm Source 6M 2023-07-22
brltty-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 2M 2023-07-22
brltty-braille-brlapi-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 16K 2023-07-22
brltty-braille-xwindow-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 22K 2023-07-22
brltty-devel-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 112K 2023-07-22
brltty-dracut-6.6-1.noarch.rpm Linux 19K 2023-07-22
brltty-screen-atspi2-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 29K 2023-07-22
brltty-screen-screen-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 17K 2023-07-22
brltty-speech-espeak-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-speech-espeak-ng-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-speech-festival-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-speech-flite-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-speech-speechd-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 16K 2023-07-22
brltty-systemd-6.6-1.noarch.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-udev-6.6-1.noarch.rpm Linux 15K 2023-07-22
brltty-udev-generic-6.6-1.noarch.rpm Linux 13K 2023-07-22
brltty-utils-6.6-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 604K 2023-07-22
brltty-win-6.6-0-libusb-1.0.exe Windows 12M 2023-07-22
brltty-win-6.6-0-libusb-1.0.zip Windows 23M 2023-07-22
brltty-win-6.6-0-libusb.exe Windows 8M 2023-07-22
brltty-win-6.6-0-libusb.zip Windows 18M 2023-07-22
brltty-6.6.apk Android 2M 2023-07-22
brltty-6.6.tar.bz2 Source 5M 2023-07-22
brltty-6.6.tar.gz Source 6M 2023-07-22
brltty-6.6.tar.xz Source 4M 2023-07-22

The current production version of BrlAPI is 0.8.5 (July 22, 2023). It can be downloaded in the following formats:

Name Category Size Date
brlapi-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 71K 2023-07-22
brlapi-devel-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 242K 2023-07-22
brlapi-utils-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 116K 2023-07-22
java-brlapi-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 110K 2023-07-22
ocaml-brlapi-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 49K 2023-07-22
python-brlapi-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 101K 2023-07-22
tcl-brlapi-0.8.5-1.x86_64.rpm Linux 27K 2023-07-22

After downloading the package, install it as follows:

.tar.*
This flavour of the package contains the source and documentation in a form which can be built on any system. To unpack the archive, do:
bzip2
tar -xjf brltty-release.tar.bz2
gzip
tar -xzf brltty-release.tar.gz
xz
tar -xJf brltty-release.tar.xz
To configure, compile, and install it, see Building BRLTTY.
.arch.rpm
This flavour of the package contains the compiled binaries and documentation in RedHat Package Manager format. To install or upgrade it, do:
      rpm -Uvh brltty-release-version.arch.rpm
      
.src.rpm
This flavour of the package contains the source and documentation in RedHat Package Manager format. To build it, do:
      rpm -ivh brltty-release-version.src.rpm
      rpm -bi brltty-release-version
      

After installing the package, be sure to read its README file.

If you try BRLTTY, do leave us a note! We would like to know who the users of BRLTTY are.


Precompiled Binaries

This site offers binary packages for the later releases of BRLTTY. See the Current Release and the Old Releases subsections of this page.

Debian packages for BRLTTY can be found at http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/b/brltty/.


The Source Repository

BRLTTY is developed within a source repository on GitHub. You can access the repository yourself if you have the git client. To download and/or learn how to use the git client, go to [http://git-scm.com/].

If your distribution provides it (most do) then you should get it from them:

The repository is at [https://github.com/brltty/brltty]. Here are a few simple things that you can do:


Building BRLTTY

The following instructions assume that you've changed your current working directory to the top level of BRLTTY's source tree.

The following basic steps, in order, prepare, configure, build, and install BRLTTY. Each of them will be described in detail below.

  1. ./autogen
  2. Tools/reqpkgs -i
  3. ./configure -q
  4. make -s
  5. make -s install

The autogen script needs at least the following:

autoconf 2.65
If the default Autoconf on your system is too old then assign whatever command will invoke a sufficiently new Autoconf to the environment variable BRLTTY_AUTOCONF.
export BRLTTY_AUTOCONF=path-to-autoconf
tcl 8.6
The tCL shell needs to be within your command search path ($PATH) and must be named tclsh. If it's in a different place on your system then adjust the path in the first line of the gendeps script as needed.

The configure script generates an enormous amount of output. We recommend, therefore, that you use its --quiet (-q) option so that you won't miss warnings and errors. If you need to see any of the details then look in config.log.

The make command generates an enormous amount of output. We recommend, therefore, that you use its --silent (-s) option so that you won't miss warnings and errors. You can get the same effect by setting this environment variable:

export MAKEFLAGS=s

./autogen

If you're starting from a checked out branch from the development repository, you must first generate the initial set of derived files. To do this, run:

./autogen

Tools/reqpkgs -i

This optional step installs all of the additional packages (that we know about) that are required for a successful build of BRLTTY. It needs to be run as root (or via sudo) on most platforms. The command's name - reqpkgs means required packages, and its -i option means install the missing packages. Alternatively, you can:

./configure -q

This step is only supported as of release 3.1. For earlier releases, carefully edit the top-level Makefile.

A number of platform-specific wrappers to the configure script are provided. As of the time this is being written, they are:

Each of the wrappers passes the best set of options to the configure script for its corresponding platform. If one is provided for your platform, therefore, we recommend that you use it to configure BRLTTY. All of the options given to any of the wrappers are passed through, unmodified, to the configure script so you can still do additional customization.

make -s

The following components are built:

make -s install

The following components are installed:

  • The brltty binary, configuration file, man page, and headers.

  • The braille, speech, and screen drivers.

  • The text, contraction, and attributes tables.

  • The braille device (input) and keyboard key tables.

  • The brltty-* commands.

  • The message catalogs.

  • The package configuration file.

  • The xbrlapi binary and man page.

  • The X11 and gdm startup scripts.

  • The BrlAPI client library, configured bindings, headers, man pages, and access key.

These additional make targets are provided:

Additional Install Targets
install-appstream The AppStream metadata.
install-messages The message catalogs.
install-polkit The Polkit rules.
install-systemd The Systemd units.
install-udev The Udev rules.
install-extras All of the above.

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