Hi: Linux with speakup should boot without the synth, but speakup will be inoperable for tha session. In addition to this, it's extremely trivial to install a non-speakup kernel under speakup, in fact, redhat seems to do this by default according to what I've read. Geoff. -- Geoff Shang <gshang10 at scu.edu.au> ICQ number 43634701