Problem with speakup software synthesis if speechd-up or espeakup not running

[Alastair Irving]

Hi All

I'm running speakup on a gentoo system under vmware, kernel version 
2.6.27-gentoo-r8, and the gentoo speakup ebuild which is revision 
2008.08.02.  I use the software synthesis module.

Everything is generally working fine, however, if I do anything that 
would cause speakup to speak when either speechd-up or espeakup is not 
running, (even just pressing a single key), the whole system crashes.  I 
assume its some kind of kernel pannic, I can no longer read the screen 
with brltty, or SSH in, or do anything, (so I don't know if any errors 
are printed to the screen at this point).  This is rather annoying as to 
start speakup I have to use sSSH to modprobe speakup_soft and load 
espeakup.  Once I've done this I can use the system normally and it 
speaks.  Similarly, before shutting down the system I have to SSH in, 
and unload espeakup and modprobe -r speakup_soft.  Otherwise, if I 
shutdown, espeakup is unloaded and then presumably speakup tries to say 
something and everything hangs.

I've looked in the syslog after rebooting, but no errors are shown.


Has anyone else experienced this?  It seems rather bizarre and I don't 
know what to try to resolve it.

Many thanks

Alastair Irving