Too much of a Good Thing

[Martin McCormick]

I have a cluster of older debian Linux systems, all with speakup
installed and working.  What I really like to do is use one
system as the talking terminal in to all the others so that
speakup and their local sound cards don't fight over the same
audio device which often results with neither one working right.

	It is still nice to have speakup handy in case something
happens to one of the systems and it can't get on to the network.

	This would also allow any of the systems to be the talker
if the talking terminal died so basically, is there a proper way
to keep speakup ready to run if need be but have it off most of
the time?

	All these systems are Dells and the on-board sound card
is a type that only permits one process to access it at a time.
Anything else trying to access it simultaneously gets a device
busy abort.  I have seen some external sound cards that allow a
bunch of simultaneous inputs which is quite good but one fights
the war with what one has rather than what we wish we had.

	I remember reading something that says that pulse can
emulate a multi-input sound card but I am not sure how to do that
so one could leave speakup alone and still get other sound if
that is possible.

	Basically, my problem is minor but I hate to lose a whole
sound card when things are working normally.

	I noticed that even a raspberry Pi with it's limited
sound device can do speakup and something else such as mplayer at
the same time.  It sounds a little weird but sometimes, one needs
something like that in a diagnostic or editing situation.

	Any constructive suggestions are welcome.

	Thank you.

	Martin McCormick WB5AGZ