Help with serial synths in 4.X kernels

[John G Heim]

Well, first of all, I didn't mean to say you shouldn't use a serial 
hardware synth. However,IMO, you would be wise to consider contingency 
plans. If your livelihood depends on that serial synth, you'd be wise to 
begin examining your alternatives.

Also, I can't promise to debug the kernel code. When I said check the 
syslog, I meant for you to check the syslog. If I can find the time to 
take a look at it, I certainly will but I can't promise that. I suspect 
that what's happening is that when speakup tries to "steal" the serial 
port, the return value is no longer just null. When I last traced back 
the functions that speakup was calling to steal the serial port, it was 
bullstuff. Speakup called a function that did nothing -- which isn't the 
fault of the speakup developers. I suspect that those functions now do 
something -- probably not what we want but something.

It has probably been a year since I last posted a rant on this list 
about the linux kernel developers. As I write this, I find myself 
getting all worked up about it again. The one good thing about Trump 
running for President is that now I have someone I find more arrogant 
and irritating than the linux kernel development team.



On 02/24/2016 08:29 AM, Tony Baechler wrote:
> On 2/23/2016 6:31 AM, John G Heim wrote:
>> You should check the syslog. There are almost certainly messages in 
>> there
>> reporting what is happening. I'll try to compile 4.3 kernels for 
>> ubuntu and
>> debian over the next few days. I had planned to automate the process. 
>> Every
>> time my ubuntu machines download a new kernel, generate a new patched 
>> kernel
>> package. I never got around to it though. I was using a sed command to
>> comment out the line that caused serial synths to not work so that
>> automation was possible. Part of the problem here is that I have kind of
>> given up on serial synths myself. I have been depending more and more 
>> on the
>> combination of a braille display and software speech.  It seems to me 
>> that
>> using a hardware speech synth is going against the grain these days.
>
>
> As Karen and others have pointed out, we all have our own personal 
> speech preferences. In my case, I have multiple reasons for wanting 
> serial speech to work. I find it easier to hear and understand for one 
> thing. There are some bugs in the DECtalk Express module which might 
> be easily fixed, but the last unpatched kernel I know of that actually 
> worked was 2.6.32 which is no longer supported. Anyway, as requested, 
> here is the dmesg output. I don't see anything helpful. I did the 
> following:
>
> service espeakup stop
> rmmod speakup_soft
> modprobe speakup_dectlk
> rmmod speakup_dectlk
> rmmod speakup
> modprobe speakup_soft
> espeakup
>
> [   11.336314] r8169 0000:02:00.0 eth0: link up
> [   11.336325] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready
> [   27.013903] releasing synth soft
> [   27.013975] unregistered /dev/softsynth
> [   32.824006] speakup: unregistering synth device /dev/synth
> [   56.630004] speakup: module is from the staging directory, the 
> quality is unknown, you have been warned.
> [   56.630896] input: Speakup as /devices/virtual/input/input7
> [   56.631031] initialized device: /dev/synth, node (MAJOR 10, MINOR 25)
> [   56.631055] speakup 3.1.6: initialized
> [   56.631057] synth name on entry is: dectlk
> [   56.639855] speakup_dectlk: module is from the staging directory, 
> the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
> [   56.640036] synth probe
> [   56.640039] Ports not available, trying to steal them
> [   56.640042] Unable to allocate port at 3f8, errno -16
> [   56.640044] Dectalk Express: not found
> [   56.640045] dectlk: device probe failed
> [   67.012005] speakup: unregistering synth device /dev/synth
> [   70.985966] speakup: module is from the staging directory, the 
> quality is unknown, you have been warned.
> [   70.986851] input: Speakup as /devices/virtual/input/input8
> [   70.986983] initialized device: /dev/synth, node (MAJOR 10, MINOR 25)
> [   70.987006] speakup 3.1.6: initialized
> [   70.987008] synth name on entry is: dectlk
> [   70.987055] speakup_soft: module is from the staging directory, the 
> quality is unknown, you have been warned.
> [   70.987193] synth probe
> [   70.987230] initialized device: /dev/softsynth, node (MAJOR 10, 
> MINOR 26)