The Kyle File

Sonar 2014.1alpha3 is out

First of all, for some months now, I’ve been working alongside Jonathan Nadeau and the ([Manjaro]https://manjaro.org/) team to redesign Sonar GNU/Linux around the Manjaro distribution, which is based on Arch Linux, adding ease of use, stability and a great out-of-the-box experience to the already great and venerable Arch Linux. I am pleased to announce that the redesigned Sonar 2014.1 has reached alpha3, and now includes the long-awaited talking login screen via gdm. It can be downloaded at the Sonar GNU/Linux SourceForge page. As always, it is available for both 32-bit (i686) and 64-bit (x86_64) systems.

TalkingArch gets a new team and a new website

In addition to my work with Sonar, I am very happy to be one of the new maintainers of TalkingArch, an unofficial respin of the Arch Linux live CD/USB image that adds speech and optional braille output so that blind and visually impaired users can perform eyes-free installations of Arch Linux. Chris Brannon, who faithfully maintained the TalkingArch iso since 2008, has named Kelly Prescott and myself as his successors, as he was no longer able to consistently maintain the project. This live image will still maintain consistency with the official install media as much as possible, but should now be synchronized more often, in time with the snapshots of the official install image. I am also providing hosting for the new TalkingArch website and the new support email, as well as seeding the torrent for the iso file. Currently, we still have the iso from August 5, but we are planning to release the next build to coincide with the February Arch snapshot. 2014 will indeed be a great year for Linux, especially Arch and Arch-based distributions.