espeakup and sound cards?

[Steve Holmes]

Yeah, I use the speech-dispatcher-git from AUR so when I built it, my
configuration did pick up the pulse libraries and the implied default
audio output method was indeed pulse.  From there, I could choose
between pulse or alsa from the speechd.conf at will.  Still, the sound
control sucked.  I just couldn't get my hands around keeping the
volume and sound quality from changing every time I restarted things.
It seems like you have to go exclusively pulse for *EVERYTHING* - even
at the console level; maybe then I might stabilize things with pulse.
I had it working pretty well with GNOME but other than that, I think I
will still wait a while.

On Sat, Mar 05, 2011 at 12:32:08PM -0800, Jacob Schmude wrote:
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> Hi Steve
> No, that's not the issue in your case. The volume bug exists when
> espeak outputs to Pulse, however speech dispatcher doesn't use
> Espeak's output routines. Sd interfaces to Pulse directly, uses
> libespeak to synthesize, then outputs the synthesized data itself. I
> haven't had any volume instabilities with speech dispatcher and
> Pulseaudio, but I did recompile speech dispatcher with pulseaudio
> support (the default Arch packages do not have it unless it was added
> within the last week). Did you recompile speeech dispatcher to have
> Pulse support? If not, you might be trying to use it through the ALSA
> plugin, which can create all sorts of wacky problems.
> As for OSS4, I wish it had lived up to what it could've been. The API
> is simpler, it's quick and responsive, and has a much better output
> routine than ALSA. Unfortunately, most of OSS4's drivers are buggy
> beyond belief, and USB microphones aren't supported at all. If you've
> got one of the cards which has a stable OSS driver and don't care
> about USB input, you can use it. I'm not so lucky, unfortunately, and
> all of the stable OSS4 cards have long since been discontinued.
> 
> 
> On 03/05/2011 09:05 AM, Steve Holmes wrote:
> > If GNOME3 is going exclusively pulse, that doesn't leave much
> > choice. I wasn't originally aware that espeak was maxing out the
> > volume in pulse; suppose that is the cause of our volume
> > instabilities then? Because at one point last week, I was in GNOME
> > and managed to have most other sounds going along pretty good
> > without distortion or crackling or any of that but it seemed that
> > as soon as I rebooted and brought up speech dispatcher then it all
> > went to hell and of course, speech dispatcher launches espeak; so
> > is that where the problem lies?
> >
> > As for other sound alternatives, whatever happened to OSS4. I had
> > heard comments that it was even better than pulse. I notice that
> > none of the speech systems I know of implement OSS4 AFAIK.
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 05, 2011 at 02:30:15PM +0000, Christopher Brannon
> > wrote:
> >> Jacob Schmude <j.schmude at gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> Hi Arch's espeakup packages, just FYI, are using the git
> >>> version of espeakup with the direct ALSA option. I'd be all for
> >>> getting rid of it,
> >>
> >> No, they aren't. Look more closely at the PKGBUILD. How did you
> >> come to this conclusion? If you're trying to use the "device"
> >> setting in espeak's configuration files to redirect espeak's
> >> output to another sound card, it won't work, because of an espeak
> >> bug. The option wasn't being parsed correctly. AFAIK, it is
> >> fixed in the testing versions of espeak.
> >>
> >> -- Chris _______________________________________________ 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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