Hello and qeustion about SpeakUp

Fri Jan 30 12:40:58 EST 2009

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
>>
>>
>>
>
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