Required hardware forSpeakup

[Janina Sajka]

I'm old enough to remember a day when this didn't work on Windows
either. Admittedly, that was some time ago.

Remember that the audio environment in LInux is still not fully settled.
The kernel moved from oss to alsa beginning with 2.6.x kernels.
Meanwhile, alsa continues to evolve so much so that it can feel like
quicksand with device name changes, .asoundrc syntax changes, and new
technologies like dmix arriving as recently as the current alsa version,
1.0.9.

On top of that there's esound, and there's arts, and there's mas, and
there's jack for the high-end, professional audio crowd.

If I were to hazzard an opinion, I would conjecture that sound support
is regarded as a consumer feature, and Linux has not necessarily been
consumer oriented. Of course for us it's much more than a nice to have
consumer feature, but that's another story.

Sina Bahram writes:
> Well, that is good to hear Janina ... I suppose I was just surprised at such
> a task being difficult. Not because of the nature of the task, but because
> it doesn't seem to be a problem elseware.
> 
> Take care,
> Sina
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Janina Sajka
> Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 8:32 AM
> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: Required hardware forSpeakup
> 
> I wouldn't want to hazzard an opinion on the degree of difficulty, but it's
> clearly been an issue for some time. Just as with modems (another "audio"
> device), processing has been exported from chips on the card to the host
> CPU. So whether it is difficult or straight forward simple, it does require
> management and some software.
> 
> What I am saying is that the dmix in ALSA, beginning in ALSA 1.0.9 is
> intended to address this.
> 
> Sina Bahram writes:
> > I can't understand this ... Are you telling me that having 2 or 3 or 4 
> > things talking to a sound card in linux, is that hard?
> > 
> > I want to be able to play mp3s, have software speech, listen to a 
> > blurb from a website, and hear operating noises all at the same time, 
> > on the same sound card.
> > 
> > I should not have to do a single extra thing to get something as basic 
> > as that to work.
> > 
> > Is it really that difficult?
> > 
> > Take care,
> > Sina
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca 
> > [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
> > On Behalf Of Lorenzo Taylor
> > Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 9:42 PM
> > To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> > Subject: Re: Required hardware forSpeakup
> > 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > Dmix does not, however, allow one to use flite for software speech and 
> > at the same time run mplayer or any other software that uses sound for 
> > that matter.  I have not been able to get flite to work with aoss yet, 
> > either using aoss or by any other means.  The best I got when I tried 
> > this was a slowed-down, distorted, garbled mess.
> > 
> > Lorenzo
> > - --
> > Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted
> before.
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux)
> > 
> > iD8DBQFDQIxKG9IpekrhBfIRAqJsAKDFHpsCYrgXiXdFWoabifhkQ4xoMQCgseE/
> > btcL/JEiFBUotnBf1Ih9CH4=
> > =y1eN
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> -- 
> 
> Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.240.715.1272
> Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com
> Bringing the Owasys 22C screenless cell phone to the U.S. and Canada. Go to
> http://www.ScreenlessPhone.Com to learn more.
> 
> Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
> janina at freestandards.org		http://a11y.org
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka				Phone: +1.240.715.1272
Partner, Capital Accessibility LLC	http://www.CapitalAccessibility.Com
Bringing the Owasys 22C screenless cell phone to the U.S. and Canada. Go to http://www.ScreenlessPhone.Com to learn more.

Chair, Accessibility Workgroup		Free Standards Group (FSG)
janina at freestandards.org		http://a11y.org