Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp

Paul Hunt huntp at ukonline.co.uk
Sun Feb 1 11:27:09 EST 2009 

Hi James,

I'm wondering how far you've got with your quest to get Speakup working?

The only answer I got to my own request for help with Speakup was off-list 
but it was good enough to get me going  so I'm wondering if you've had any 
off-list help?

The first thing you'll need to do is get the Speakup modules built on your 
machine and then decide what kind of interface between Speakup and your 
synth you're going to use.  Either espeakup, the IBM tts connector or 
speech-dispatcher/speechd-up.

Paul

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James & Nash" <james.austin1984 at googlemail.com>
To: "Paul Hunt" <huntp at ukonline.co.uk>; "Speakup is a screen review system 
for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp


> Hi Paul,
>
> I would very much appreicate any help you can provide
> I really have no idea where to begin with SpeakUP. I am only just getting 
> to grips with the comand line, although I think it is something that I'm 
> going to use more and more as time goes on once I can iron out one or two 
> problems I'm having with Linux and Skype.
> Thanks
>
> James.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Paul Hunt" <huntp at ukonline.co.uk>
> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 5:40 PM
> Subject: Re: Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I got speakup working via speech-dispatcher and speechd-up mostly because 
>> I had started trying to figure this out before I'd heard about espeakup 
>> or the ibm tts specific connector.
>>
>> I'm now running the ibm tts voice via gnome-speech for orca and espeak 
>> via speechd-up in the console.  They don't seem to be interfering with 
>> each other and it seems to be nice and responsive.
>>
>> Just a few things left to figure out now, such as how to get speakup and 
>> speechd-up running automatically when I boot up.
>>
>> I'll do my best to help out anyone wanting a similar setup to mine now 
>> I've got it going.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples at aim.com>
>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 5:30 PM
>> Subject: Re: Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp
>>
>>
>>> Hello,
>>> One thing I forgot to mention, if you are planning to use espeak or
>>> IBMtts (viavoice) then I recommend using espeakup or the ttsynth speakup
>>> connector as these reduce the dependencies for getting the software to
>>> work. You can still use those synths through speech-dispatcher and
>>> speechd-up if you want, but using the specific connector software will
>>> save the fustration if for some reason speech-dispatcher doesn't start
>>> (eg. incorrect configuration, problem with install or even simply
>>> forgetting to start it (I have done that, wondering why the system
>>> didn't come up talking only to find I forgot to add speech-dispatcher to
>>> the start up scripts)).
>>>
>>> Hope you get started with speakup and the command line fine, I believe
>>> the command line is where the real power of Linux is released.
>>>
>>> Michael Whapples
>>> On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 11:20 +0000, James & Nash wrote:
>>>> Thank you Michael, you've been very helpful.Nice to see you on this 
>>>> list as
>>>> well as the Orca list.
>>>>
>>>> Take care
>>>>
>>>> james
>>>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>>>> From: "Michael Whapples" <mwhapples at aim.com>
>>>> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
>>>> <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 10:21 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > Hello,
>>>> > You are correct about the software speech output for speakup, it 
>>>> > depends
>>>> > on which synthesiser you want to use as to what software you will 
>>>> > need
>>>> > to get it. If you want to use espeak, then use the espeakup software. 
>>>> > If
>>>> > you have IBMtts (viavoice) then there is a speakup connector for it 
>>>> > at
>>>> > the ttsynth website. If you want to use another synthesiser supported 
>>>> > by
>>>> > speech-dispatcher then you will need speech-dispatcher and 
>>>> > speechd-up.
>>>> > My experience is that you can use any of the above solutions and 
>>>> > still
>>>> > run orca without problems in the graphical console (at the moment I 
>>>> > am
>>>> > using espeak as the synth and espeakup to connect speakup to it and
>>>> > gnome-speech for connecting orca to espeak).
>>>> >
>>>> > As for adding speakup to ubuntu, if the kernel version is 2.6.26 or
>>>> > higher (use uname -r to get this information) then you can build 
>>>> > speakup
>>>> > as modules. I am not quite sure which ubuntu packages you need to 
>>>> > have
>>>> > installed to be able to compile modules hopefully either someone else
>>>> > will say or may be you know. You will then need to get speakup from 
>>>> > git
>>>> > or some recent copy of speakup (slackware has some snapshots of the 
>>>> > git
>>>> > repository on their ftp server
>>>> > ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/source/k/).
>>>> > Hopefully in that there will be sufficient information to tell you 
>>>> > how
>>>> > to perform the actual compilation of speakup as modules and how to
>>>> > install it.
>>>> >
>>>> > Sorry I can't be more detailed about how to install speakup on 
>>>> > ubuntu,
>>>> > this is partly because I don't use ubuntu and I am so used to 
>>>> > compiling
>>>> > speakup into the actual kernel rather than compiling it as modules.
>>>> >
>>>> > There are some additional things to consider. Ubuntu uses pulseaudio. 
>>>> > I
>>>> > feel ubuntu deals with pulseaudio in the wrong manner, sound is a 
>>>> > system
>>>> > resource and if pulseaudio is meant to be the way to access audio
>>>> > devices then it should be treated as a system service, they seem to
>>>> > think it is a gnome service. The short of this is that whatever 
>>>> > output
>>>> > software you choose for speakup will have to deal with pulseaudio
>>>> > running when you have a gnome session running and also cope with
>>>> > pulseaudio not running when there is no active gnome-session. You may
>>>> > (if you haven't) want to look at removing pulseaudio. You may want to
>>>> > look at other distros (like debian or GRML) which don't impose
>>>> > pulseaudio on you (GRML might be of particular interest as that has
>>>> > speakup and software speech output already configured).
>>>> >
>>>> > One final comment is that you asked whether the entire system will be
>>>> > accessible, this depends what you mean. Using software speech means 
>>>> > you
>>>> > will not be able to gain any speech output until the audio system is
>>>> > running properly, on a correctly configured system getting to a point
>>>> > where software speech output can run should not be a problem, but if 
>>>> > you
>>>> > are the sort wanting to compile custom kernels then you might get
>>>> > earlier problems. Like wise on the shutdown process you will only 
>>>> > keep
>>>> > speech output until the connector software is killed. Again no real
>>>> > problems should occur after that on a properly configured system, but
>>>> > rare things might happen particularly if you fiddle with some of the
>>>> > core components and make a mistake. So basically if you aren't going 
>>>> > to
>>>> > mess with things like the kernel you should have access to all you 
>>>> > need
>>>> > access to, but if you are going to delve into things like compiling
>>>> > custom kernels you may get problems outside where software speech can
>>>> > run.
>>>> >
>>>> > Michael Whapples
>>>> > On Thu, 2009-01-29 at 08:27 +0000, James & Nash wrote:
>>>> >> Hello. My name is James and I have just joined ths list. I hope I 
>>>> >> will
>>>> >> learn
>>>> >> a lot and hopefully contribute in time.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Am I correct in thinking that there is a software synthesizer for 
>>>> >> Speak
>>>> >> UP
>>>> >> and that you can have both Speak Up and Orca running on the same 
>>>> >> system?
>>>> >> If
>>>> >> so, how would I go about installing Speak Up in Ubuntu and does this 
>>>> >> mean
>>>> >> that I could have speech at start up and in every part of Linux with 
>>>> >> both
>>>> >> Screen Readers?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Thanks
>>>> >>
>>>> >> James
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
>>>> > 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
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>
>

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