New user encountering problems

[Jerry Robinette]

Hi;

I apologize for the length of this. I'm trying to help a blind buddy of mine get access to Linux and we were very excited about the possibilities of Speakup. Unfortunately, our first attempts have crashed and burned, and I didn't see anything relevant in the documentation or the archive, so I thought I'd try the list.

The system is a Pentium 120, running RedHat 6.2, kernal 2.2.14. They synthesizer involved is a DECTalk Express. This hardware all works without problem under a variety of Windows OSs (this is on a test system at our office). I have successfully compiled and installed custom kernels before, but it has been many months, so I am open to "user error" as the cause.

When we downloaded the speakup-patch tar.gz, the patch applied without problem (except for prompting about system architectures like PPC, MIPS, etc.). The Speakup option did not appear in a "make xconfig" but it did in "make config" and the compilation seemed OK (no errors, etc.)

We copied the new kernel & system.map into the /boot directory and adjusted the links exactly as described in the INSTALLATION document. When we boot, we get "LILO" then on the next line "loading Linux ...." and then it just stalls. No sound, no boot, no nothing!

Out of curiousity, we made a RedHat 6.2 bootdisk out of the appropriate image file, and it boots just fine, but we get no sound at all from the synth.

So the questions are:

Does the first issue sound like a kernel problem, or a LILO issue? Is there a really clear and complete set of instructions on changing LILO to use a new kernel? (LILO took my lilo.conf OK, and responded "added Linux" but that may not mean anything, I guess.)

Does it matter which serial port the DECTalk Express is on? We tried it on both one and two, with the same results. Does Speakup probe for the right port?

I believe the serial port defaults to 38400 bps, and I understand the DECTalk can only handle 9600. Do I need to put "serial=9600n8" in the global section of the lilo.con for this to work at all? Or does this matter?

We're both excited by the potential, and I can guarantee you that when John gets up and running he will be sending you all manner of DECTalk info, requests, kudos, etc.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Jerry