DEC Express problem

[Tony Baechler]

Hello.  I am new to the list, so sorry if I leave out important details.
I finally got a talking Linux installed, but it was more by trial and
error than anything.  I will comment, though, that for anyone who has
something like Zipspeak installed and is thinking about moving to a "real"
Linux setup one of these days, there is a noticable speed increase without
the umsdos file system with a lot more flexibility.  I would also suggest
looking at Loopspk under the /pub/speakup/slackware directory but it is
preconfigured so you do not get as much flexibility.

Anyway, I used to use an older version of Speakup as compiled into
Zipspeak.  I think it was 0.08.  It had problems pronouncing some letters
and seemed to frequently send commands to the synthesizer because I would
hear odd commands which were supposed to control voice parameters.
Anyway, that was fixed in 0.10a but there seems to be some other problem.
I am using a DECTalk Express.  It has a wide variety of pitches, but
Speakup will only let me set it from 0-100.  The correct pitch is supposed
to be 120, but I get an error when I try to set it.  If I reset the voice
to Paul, the pitch fixes itself for awhile but eventually resets.  The old
Speakup never had that problem.  Is there some way around this or is this
just a bug?  This does not seem to affect the rate or other parameters.

Also, I finally got everything installed and apparently working.  Is there
a way to get the kernel to start talking without including the
speakup_synth=dectlk parameter every time?  I have absolutely no idea how
to recompile a kernel and would rather not if I can avoid it.  I could not
get lilo to work and I am too paranoid to try again.  I am using loadlin
from the DOS end but I really need help with the correct startup
parameters to pass to the kernel.  For example, should I mount root as
read-only?  My root volume is /dev/hda8.  I can get it to work but more
with luck than anything.  I thought of creating a batch file but see
above.  I am not sure what to put in it.

I have lots of Linux experience from the user end, but I have no idea how
to do the installation except with luck.