Speakup in user space, why or why not?

[Janina Sajka]

Well, I would expect the canonical answer to come from Kirk himself, but
I would expect it's more than just the boot up messages. There's also
the issue of ubiquitous availability, and persistence.

In other words, you get Speakup across any and all consoles that you
might open. In my case that's 24 consoles (or 23 on the machines where I
also have a GUI Desktop). Try that from user space. I don't think it
could be done.

Then there's persistence--meaning that your access continues to function
in the face of whatever might happen to an application you're running.
Not only kernel panics will talk, but any application gone awry can
often, nay usually, be brought under control from a second console.

Sina Bahram writes:
> Hi Janina,
> 
> The point is one of personal curiocity, questions about software
> engineering, and just general interest in why.
> 
> I really would like to know if something like this is possible, and if the
> only reason for having it in the kernel is for boot messages.