Voxin was: Re: Switching to Linux

[Kyle]

According to Hart Larry:
# Actually I thought Voxen was just a re-packaging of IBM TTS, but not a
# screen-reader.

This is correct, which is what makes it so bad. Any way you look at it,
there is no usable source code for this synthesizer, which means that it
gets progressively harder and harder to keep the ancient binary code
working on modern hardware and software. It's like the whole car gets
newer, but you're trying to keep one old engine part going, even though
the engine itself keeps getting replaced and updated around it.
Eventually, even if the part lasts forever, it just won't fit anymore.

# And have only heard of Pico as an editor.

Pico is an editor, but there is also a speech synthesizer called Pico,
made by SVox, which is the speech data that can be downloaded on Android
2.2 and 2.3, and I think it runs on 2.1 as well. It has been built for
Linux, although I can't yet make it work on Arch now, because something
has gone wrong in the build system. It actually sounds rather good.
Debian derivatives have a package called libttspico0 and another called
libttspico-utils I believe, which provide this speech synthesizer.

# I rather like the sound of an Eliquence style voice,

I understand that some people prefer the way this voice sounds, although
it does hurt my head. To each their own, I guess. The main problem with
it is not the sound, or the fact that some people like the way it
sounds. The problem is that no voice that sounds like it can be made
more stable and less crash prone, and no voice like it can be updated to
support the latest libraries and sound API's, because the source code
has either been misplaced or has been locked away, and whoever owns the
rights to the actual code refuses to either release the code to those
who could clean it up and fix it or to clean it up and fix it
themselves, so it will eventually die a painful, albeit slow, death,
becoming more and more unstable and requiring more and more coaxing just
to get it installed and running until the final death occurs.

# also, wouldn't mind if we could run SAPI5 style voices.

Apparently this is being worked on, although I believe it needs a full
installation of Wine to make it usable. If you already have Wine for
something else, this isn't a real problem. I'm not absolutely sure of
the details, but there are a couple of projects to address SAPI, and I
believe they are trying to take advantage of speech-dispatcher in some
way to make your favorite voice speak. I'm not a huge fan of Wine, but
some of this stuff looks like it could work. I'll have to give it a
shot, although my Wine installation currently only has the old Microsoft
voices from XP and eSpeak.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
-- 
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"