Calamares is an (Linux) installer framework. It's an application with lots of pluggable modules to do system installation tasks (like partitioning, setting up users, and enabling encryption on filesystems) needed when installing Linux onto a computer system. There are modules written in C++ (with Qt), modules in Python, and modules in Python (with Qt). The middle bunch was, up until this release, untranslatable.

Calamares 3.1.2 was released yesterday, followed by a hotfix 3.1.3 (my bad), with new potentially translatable strings. I'll admit that the last few strings were snuck in quite late, so translations are incomplete. This is no worse than they were, where the strings were entirely untranslatable. Expect more complete translations with 3.1.4, to be relased in two weeks time or so.

This is a medium-sized step for the accessibility of Calamares, now that more of the application is available in the user's native language.

I'm also planning a much bigger accessibility step, which is adding screen reader support to the application. Actually, "adding" is probably the wrong word: I'll stop agressively not supporting screen readers. That hostility towards screen readers comes from the setuid nature of Calamares (it's messing around in filesystems and partitions and whatnot) and that hostility needs to end. Adaptive technologies should be usable also when installing a computer.

With that in mind, I will be going to Randa next month for this year's Randa meeting, which has a focus on accessibility. The dot story explains the purpose of the meeting better than I can, and one of the comments presents exactly the challenge: turn off the monitor. Now boot the computer with CD in the drive, and install Linux. If Calamares can make that possible, then we're helping everyone get Free Software.

To help the Randa meeting help everyone, consider making a donation, which helps to keep lights on in Randa (not the heating -- we bring sleeping bags because it's cold in the mountains, even in summer).

(I should note: Calamares isn't a KDE project, although it is used by some Linux distro's that have a KDE focus. It is also used by some Linux distro's that focus on a Qt-free experience after installation. Calamares is an independent project, supported by Blue Systems. And yes, I do hope to install FreeBSD with Calamares at some point.)