speakup, audio solutions

Tue Dec 3 01:52:22 EST 2013

Some thoughts ...

1.)	Don't bother removing the pulseaudio packages. All that will do
is cause some future upgrade which has pulse listed as a dependency to
reinstall pulse. Of course, you could go through the trouble of listing
as packages to exclude. But, then packages that list pulse as a
dependency won't want to install, forcing you to do something like
install without dependency checking, which could cause the installs to
break over some other missing piece.

2.)	Instead, just delete /usr/bin/pulseaudio, then as root, touch
that file so that an empty text file is created at that location.
Lastly, mark it read only for root by doing chmod 444. After that, pulse
may think it's working, but it won't work.

Thereafter, you have to focus on your alsa configurations. Sound should
work perfectly well, but you will use aplay instead of paplay, for
instance.

There is more that can be done, but I find the above sufficient, and my
Orca runs just fine. I just don't have the earcons in the GUI, not a big
loss, imo.

Now, I do like the notion of multiple sound cards. I work to have them
defined at particular locations and pay attention to make sure they're
loaded correctly when I boot every so often. Mostly I manage this in
/etc/modprobe.d/local.conf. If I were smarter, I'd do it in udev rules.

Here's my current list and what each does on my system. I also note what
each cost me for your information:

The following taken from "aplay -l |grep card' then edited:

card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
This is the default audio device, used mainly for Speakup which talks to
me over TTSynth and the Speakup Connector. If I want, I can aplay
through this device, but I don't usually do that.
Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
This is the digital output of my builtin audio card, the digital side of
Card 0 above. I don't use it currently. No plans to use it.

Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 3: Headset [Sennheiser USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
This card is very important to me. It's dedicated to sip phone calls. I
use it frequently and for long periods of time as much of my work
involves teleconferences.

Cost: About $80, but now priced somewhere over $100 when I look at
replacements.

card 4: Device [C-Media USB Audio Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]

This is the one reserved for Orca over Speech Dispatcher and Espeak.
Once Speech Dispatcher has this card in its grip, it will not share.
It's a one function device.

Cost: $15 approx.

card 5: AV710 [Chaintech AV-710], device 0: ICE1724 [ICE1724]
Currently this one drives fluidsynth software sound fonts which are
attached via aconnect and a USB midi cable to a small piano keyboard
that lives on my desk. I use it to double-check the key of something I'm
hearing, or to input midi for something I want to send to someone (via
arecordmidi).

Cost: $25 approx. This is a PCI card I bought years ago. It's a gem,
probably wasted on fluidsynth because it really sounds good. It uses the
snd-ice1724 driver, just like some high end audio devices.

Fluidsynth also doesn't share, so this card, too, is a one show pony
right now.

card 6: pcsp [pcsp], device 0: pcspeaker [pcsp]

Hey, beeps from the speaker are still important in my world. So, I make
sure the speaker has a device designation that doesn't compete with
other functions. BTW: I'm using snd-pcsp, but this could also be the old
pcspkr.

Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 7: Headset_1 [Sennheiser USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
This is just the usb dongle left over from an old Sennheiser headset. I
like the sound pretty well, so it's my main device to play music or
audio streams.

Cost: About $80 as above.

I need to pull this device when booting, or my linphone might confuse
the two Sennheiser devices.

I'm probably in the market for a higher quality DAC and some really
awesome speakers for my setup. These now exist and are worth checking
out, imo, for playing really high quality sound.

What ties all this together is a Mackie mixer. It lives on my desk where
most sighted people put a monitor, i.e. right in front of my face. To
adjust the eq, or push the volume of a particular card up or down, or to
direct Speakup to also talk into my Sennheiser headphones, useful when
I'm on a call, I just reach up and push buttons and twiddle knobs.

Cost: Mackie 1202 about $280 on Ebay.

I'm thinking of a bigger mixer--more inputs and especially more buses.
Currently, I have two speaker sets in the offce, a small pair of Roland
speakers on the desk for Speakup and Orca, and a largish pair of JBL's
behind me for music and such.

I have an old RME Multiface that's currently not working for some reason
I can't figure. But, that's another story. I have more devices to hook
up, so figuring out getting the Multiface working (as ALSA hw:8), or
replacing it is on the agenda.

Cost: Somewhere north of $1,400. Yes, the most expensive audio device I
own isn't currently working on my system. Go figure.

hth

Janina

Alonzo cuellar writes:
> I understand. I never really figured out how to get rid of pulse audio on
> fedora systems. I've always configured to use my arch installation with
> alsa. I've not had a need for a second audio device. Though I do believe if
> your doing some type of recording... A second audio device might be needed.
> I think i read a few postings on how to disable pulse audio on Fedora a
> while back. Which included touching
> /usr/bin/pulseaudio
> and removing pulseaudio and the pulse audio alsa plugins.
> This is probably not the right way to do it though. I to rely on speakup
> and haven't found a way to disable pulseaudio when installing fedora.
> When I tried disabling pulse audio this way system audio would break and I
> would not have speach.
> Now if you have to configure aound.conf in /etc... I did not do so since I
> only have one sound card on this system.
> On my currently arch installation I have an .asoundrc file to have the
> proper mic use for voice calls.
> Any suggestions would be appreciated and perhaps I'll give fedora a try
> once again.
> 
> Alonzo
> 
> 
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 07:52:16PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Pulseaudio doesn't work for me because I rely on Speakup pretty
> > thoroughly. I have several issues with it including very choppy speech
> > and stupid behavior over audio stopping play when I move out of the tty
> > where I invoked the audio.
> > 
> > I am about to go file an RFE with pulse to ask for an easy way to
> > configure pulse to leave any particular audio device alone. I know one
> > can terminate pulse on a per app basis, but that's too cumbersome, imo.
> > And, I think there should be something easier than writing a custom udev
> > rule to accomplish excluding some particular audio device from pulse.
> > 
> > Janina
> > 
> > Alonzo cuellar writes:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
> > > debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
> > > I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are people
> > > doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but is
> > > there other work arounds?
> > > This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
> > > something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
> > > situations with their setups.
> > > 
> > > Alonzo
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> > > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> > 			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
> > 		Email:	janina at rednote.net
> > 
> > Linux Foundation Fellow
> > Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
> > 
> > The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> > Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
> > 	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina at rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/