Latest Lenny kernel and ltlk module crash my system

[Tony Baechler]

Gaijin wrote:
> 	My LTLK has never been able to handle lengthly outputs with any
> of the speakup kernels I've used, actually.  Long directory listings
> wouldcrash something )I couldn't tell you what), and the system could be
> crashed with a long directory lising.  The keys would become inoperative
> and the synthesizer would continue to speak until it finally stopped.
>   


Hi,

I have a couple of comments on this.  First, I'm using a Doubletalk LT 
and have had similar problems since DOS in 1996.  The problem seems to 
be that it has a small buffer.  In DOS with Vocal-Eyes, the buffer seems 
to be about 32 KB.  It was frustrating reading novels because it would 
stop after about 30 screens of text and I would have to page up usually 
twice.  What was strange is that even though speech would stop, the 
cursor didn't keep advancing.  I was using the view.exe program which 
comes with Vocal-Eyes.  It's nice because it automatically scrolls text 
so I don't have to press a key after every screen.  The scrolling would 
apparently stop as though something was locked up or put on standby, but 
in fact pressing the space bar to stop reading would cause no ill effect 
and let me page up to where it quit reading.  I read many novels that 
way, stopping about every 30 minutes to back up and reread after speech 
stopped.  The DEC-talk express doesn't have this problem and the old 
Echo GP didn't either.

Getting back to Speakup, I've used the same synthesizer on an almost new 
machine with two cores and a good motherboard and I have the same 
problem as Michael.  I'm not sure it's a Speakup problem, but if I read 
a very long directory listing, Speakup dies and speech won't shut up 
until the buffer is empty.  If I tap the print screen key a few times, 
I'll eventually hear the "I'm alive" message but it obviously 
reinitialized the synth.  I have to manually adjust the volume and rate 
up and back down a step to get the settings back where they should be.  
I don't know exactly how large the buffer is with Speakup before it 
dies, but I would say definitely more than a screen full but less than 
32 KB which is the internal synth buffer.  I would guess about 4 to 8 KB 
but that's a guess.  One thing that will definitely reproduce this 
problem is this command:

apt-cache search firewall

If you stop speech with the numpad enter quickly, no problem, but if you 
let it read the first 20 entries or so, it shuts down Speakup.  Usually 
I don't have a problem, only with very long command output like the above.