Access
Five keys. Then a voice.
Speakup starts once the kernel is running, the same limit the Debian installer has. The menu beeps when it is ready. Keys 1 through 5 choose the entry, so a blind operator does not have to arrow through a silent list.
| Key | Entry | This boot |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full speech | Speakup, Speech Dispatcher, and BRLTTY. Orca joins only if a graphical extension is installed. Emacspeak is on disk for when someone runs Emacs. |
| 2 | Console speech | The same console stack. The graphical reader stays off. This is the entry for a blind install at the glass. |
| 3 | Large print | A 32-cell console font. The screen does not blank. Speech and braille stay off. |
| 4 | Regular | None of the access programs. This is the quiet cloud default, and the unit list still fits on one screen. |
| 5 | Advanced | Same quiet services as regular, with boot status on the console. This draft treats it as the sighted operator entry. Say if it should mean something else. |
A missing sound card or braille display does not stop the boot. Three beeps mean speech was requested and did not come up. The last pick is remembered. A build document can pin the entry for the next boot. A key pressed at the menu still wins for this boot.
Key 1 or key 2 is the blind-ready boot. The menu still only beeps. The sentences the console says after the kernel are on the service page. That client is not running.
You asked for these as GRUB options. The image keeps one signed boot file per slot. If that menu cannot beep and cannot bind keys 1 through 5, a one-screen GRUB is allowed in front of it. That GRUB only selects the signed entry.