found temporary fix for 2.6.10 and 2.6.11 software speech problem

[David Bruzos]

Hi Janina:
Use the "nice" and "renice" commands to change priorities.  The "nice" command is used to set the priority before you start 
the program and the "renice" command is used to set priority of an already running program.  So you can start 
"speech-dispatcher" and "speechd_up" with something like:

# nice -n -5 speech-dispatcher
# nice -n 5 speechd_up

Or, you can change the priority of speech-dispatcher and speechd_up after they are running by doing:

# renice -5 speech-dispatcher-process-id
# renice 5 speechd_up-process-id

When you use renice, you must specify the process ID of the program you want to modify.  The highest priority possible is 
-20 and the lowest priority is 19.  You can only increase 	the priority of a program as root.  The default priority when 
you log-in is 0.
As long as you set the priority of speechd_up lower than what your login is using, it seems to work well.  You don't want 
to make the priority too low, because then the speechd_up program will not be able to get any CPU time.  So, 5 for 
speechd_up seems to work well.  I increase the priority of speech-dispatcher to -5 to make my speech slitely more 
responsive.

HTH

DB

On Wed, Mar 23, 2005 at 10:31:05AM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Where do you set these priorities?
> 
> David Bruzos writes:
> > Hi all:
> > I had the same problem that some of you were discribing with the software speech and speakup.  The speech was extremely  
> > choppy and hard to understand.  Kirk said on another posting that the problem was a kernel configuration option 
> > called "Preempt The Big Kernel Lock".  This option is found in kernels 2.6.10 and 2.6.11.  I recompiled the kernel on my 
> > desktop without this option and speech improved, but I did not want to recompile on my laptop, so I started playing with 
> > other things.
> > I fixed the problem by changing the priority of my "speechd_up" and of "speech-dispatcher".  I am running "speechd_up" with 
> > priority 5 and speech-dispatcher with priority -5 and it works wonderfully.  I think my speech is more responsive than it 
> > ever has been.
> > Of course I have no idea why the changed priority helps with this problem, but it does.
> > 
> > HTH
> > 
> > David B.
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> -- 
> 
> Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.202.494.7040
> Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com
> 
> Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
> janina at freestandards.org		http://a11y.org
> 
> If Linux can't solve your computing problem, you need a different problem.
> 
> 
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> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup