The Speakup User's Guide, official release

[Janina Sajka]

Hi, Gene:

I'm sorry, but there's one thing I wish I had caught sooner. I do think
it would be very helpful to make an additional edit to cover the
situation, because we're continuing to run into folks who get this piece
wrong.

It has to do with getting speech during boot when the Speakup drivers,
including speakupmain, are compiled as kernels.

The following statement from Section 7 is not correct:

7.  Loading modules

As mentioned earlier, Speakup can either be completely compiled into the
kernel, with the exception of the help module, or it can be compiled as
a series of modules that can be loaded after the system is booted up.
When compiled as modules, Speakup will not be able to speak the bootup
messages, and the modules can only be loaded after the file systems have
been checked and mounted. 

n fact, the modularized Speakup can be made to talk if properly
initialized. With the Speakup Modified Fedora, the method is to create
an initrd.img in order to get speech as early in the process as
possible. I would expect the same procedure would work with other
distros, though the steps for creating an initrd may be different than
those we describe in the Speakup Modified HOWTO.

So, you should point out that this is possible, and it's an installation
and configuration issue.

Lastly, I would think it appropriate to mention this in Section 1,
Starting Speakup, because it would seem to change a bit the guidance you
provide when you say:

>
> If your kernel has been compiled with Speakup, and has no default
> synthesizer set, or you would like to use a different synthesizer than
> the default one, then you may issue the following command at the boot
> prompt of your boot loader.
>
> linux speakup_synth=ltlk


Indeed, this will not work for modules--at least in some circumstances.
However, as I've already pointed out, a correctly provided initrd will
provide speech during the boot--there's just no opportunity to choose a
different synth for that spoken output.