software speech on Slackware, Debian, and others?

[Willem van der Walt<willem@top.health.gov.za>]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004, David Bruzos wrote:

> Hello Everyone:
> This message is kind of long, so you might not want to include the entire
> thing when you respond!
> I have some questions about software speech and distributions other than
> Fedora.  I started writing some stuff down and retesting some of the
> things I did before (to make sure they work again) and I plan to have a
> draft of the software howto written soon.  However, I like to include
> whatever I can about other distributions like Debian and Slackware...
> Below, I will write the basic steps that I perform to get it configured on
> Fedora.  Can users of other distros send me their distro-specific details?
>
> 1. I use the "mkinitrd" command to put the "sftsyn" module into the kernel
> at boot time.  The command was:
> "mkinitrd -v /boot/initrd-2.6.x.img 2.6.x --with=speakup_sftsyn
> --with=pcspkr"
>
>    A. Can this be applied to other distros?
>    B. Does "mkinitrd" act different (how) in other distros?
>    C. Should I use another (more portable) approach?
>    D. Do other distros have the PC speaker (pcspkr) compiled as a module?
>
> 2. I created a /dev/softsynth device using the "mknod" command.  The
> command was:
> "mknod /dev/softsynth c 10 26".
>
>    A. Is this ok for other distros?
>    B. Is the syntax the same?
>
> 3. Festival was already instaled and working in Fedora.
>    A. Any problems getting Festival for other distros?
>
> 4. Flite was not installed in Fedora.  I had to download RPMS, because it
> would not compile properly...
I got flite compiled on fc2 by applying a patch from I think Luke 
Yellovitch.  The patch file is called const.patch.bz2.
I had to compile flite as the rpm I could find at the time did not seem to 
have the required shared libraries for speech dispatcher to compile.


>
> 5. I downloaded speech-dispatcher, compiled it, and installed it without
> any problems.
>    A. Anyone have problems doing this?
Not once the shared libraries issue discribed above was solved.

>
> 6.  speechd_up compiled and installed without problems also...
>    A. ...?
>
> 7. Just ran:
>    A. # speech-dispatcher
>    B. # speechd_up
> I had software speech working at this point...
No I did not, but I did not put sftsyn into my initrd.img as I am mainly 
using dectlk.  That might be the reason why I first have to echo sftsyn to 
/proc/speakup/synth_name.
  >
> I have repeated these steps on three different machines and they have all
> worked without a problem.
I have used the Fedora core 2 speakup modified fedora kernel.

The only thing I have not been able to do is
> compile flite from source.  However, the flite RPMS work very well...
An rpm is always easyer, so I am glad you found the right one.
At the mmoment, I some times succeed in crashing my kernel when switching 
back and forth between the soft and hardware synths.

>
> Thanx IA!
>
> David Bruzos
>
>
>
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