speech-dispatcher 0.6.4 issue

[Lukas Loehrer]

I doubht your problem is specific to speech-dispatcher.

In general, it is true that multiple applications can play sound via
alsa at the same time using plugins like dmix. However, they will
still prevent OSS programs from accessing /dev/dsp. There appear to be ways of configuring alsa in
such a way that /dev/dsp goes through dmix as well, but I have never
managed to get this to work myself.

Your best bet is to use Alsa enabled applications wherever possible
and use aoss for the legacy OSS stuff.

As for the aoss command, it seems to depend heavily on the specific OSS
application whether or not you get usable results with it.

For flite, use a version of flite that contains my patch for alsa
support.

Best regards, Lukas

Chuck Hallenbeck writes ("Re: speech-dispatcher 0.6.4 issue"):
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> Jan and Willem, thanks for your suggestions.
> 
> And Jan, thanks for helping fix the speechd mailing list issue.
> 
> The aoss solution does not work for me. At least not completely. The
> test Willem made using the play command was not conclusive, since as I
> think I reported earlier, the play command continues to work when other
> oss applications, such as swift, madplay, and flite, all fail. 
> 
> I used aoss followed by examples of swift, madplay, and flite, with and
> without speech-dispatcher running. Here is what I find:
> 
> 1. madplay works as well with or without speech-dispatcher, so that
> seems to solve the issue for that application.
> 
> 2. swift and flite sound unacceptably distorted when used with aoss,
> with or without speech-dispatcher running. So while aoss seems to solve
> the speech-dispatcher issue, it cannot be used due to this serious
> distortion.
> 
> 3. Play works with or without aoss, with or without speech-dispatcher,
> and so is not a helpful application with which to test the problem.
> 
> Finally, I have found that if I add only one module to
> speech-dispatcher, the espeak-generic module, all my applications work
> correctly and none of them require aoss.
> 
> This behavior is new behavior for recent upgrades of speech-dispatcher
> on my system, but at the same time I have made so many other upgrades
> that I cannot say for sure where the problem lies. However, I do now
> have a solution: avoid adding the flite or festival modules when
> running speech-dispatcher. 
> 
> Chuck
> 
> - -- 
> The Moon is Waning Crescent (35% of Full)
> My new web site location is at: http://hallenbeck.ftml.net
> College, that fountain of knowledge, where everyone goes to drink.
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