modified fedora and software speech

[Michael Weaver]

I am thinking of switching from Ubuntu to Fedora as I am concerned
Graphical Web browsing is still in its early stages and maty need
Speakup if I want any kind of access to web pages as I am still a fair
newby to Linux.
I have downloaded the Speakup modified Fedora but what I would like to
know is can I use software speech if I install it without a hardware
synthesiser?
I know to do an eyes free installation and get all the bennifits of
bootup and shut down messages it requires a hardware synth but if I
don't have one or in my case I have lost what goes into the COM 2 port
or whatever it is called in Linux, can I still run Speakup if I get
the modified Fedora installed by a Sighted person ie if someone at one
of the LUGs I attend installs it for me?
I ask because this week I might be attending a meeting in Birstall
which is where one of the LUGs I attend is. I text someone who uses
Fedora with my questions but she might be busy as she still hasn't got
back to me on my latest messages and not being Visually Impaired she
might not know the answer anyway as she mo9stly uses the KDE
environment.
Hope someone can answer my question about the modified Fedora as I
tried to run Lynx with Orca from the Gnome terminal but I had problems
tracking the text on pages as it seems to repeat lines so far down
pages so it tries to read other stuff it has already read and I didn't
have much luck with w3m as the hotkeys don't seem to be verry clear or
they are assigned for a Japaneese rather than UK keyboard and I seemed
unable to enter forms using it because when I typed in the text field
it tried to activate commands.