Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp

[Michael Whapples]

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 
> 
> 
>