What Software Speech-enabled Linux Distributions Work Today?
Tony Baechler
tony at baechler.net
Thu Jun 12 16:11:16 UTC 2008
Martin McCormick wrote:
> So, I am ideally looking for a non-orphaned Debian
> distribution that uses a non-commercial speech engine that
> works.
>
Hi,
I'm not trying to insult you or anything, but to me, grml seems like the
obvious answer. I suppose you could wait for Lenny which will hopefully
have Speakup support in the installer and kernel, but for now I really
think grml might be worth trying to fix. I didn't have the spelling
problem with software speech but my computer is somewhat old and I have
a basic sound card. Specifically, I'm on a desktop with 256 MB of RAM,
a 1.7 GHZ processor and a Sound Blaster Live! sound card. I played with
grml 1.1rc1 and it worked fine for me. I can't stand software speech
for long periods of time so I primarily use my DEC-Talk Express, but
when I used the included software speech I had no problem, both at the
command line and from the Orca setup.
I haven't used any other versions of grml besides 1.1rc1, but if the
spelling problem is still there in the final 1.1 or whatever version you
tried, I would report it as a bug. The maintainer seems interested and
responsive to accessibility problems. He says that 1.1 includes a newer
git Speakup while 1.1rc1 didn't, so maybe try the older version. I have
the CD I burned if you want it. Again, you could always wait for Lenny
or try building your own kernel. I built Debian kernel packages with
Speakup built-in so maybe they would work, but it sounds like your
problem is in the speech engine itself, not Speakup. I would definitely
report the issues you're having to Mika, the maintainer. His email is
mika at grml.org or you can go to the web site. http://grml.org/ I
personally wouldn't recommend grml for a hard disk installation because
grml2hd has accessibility issues, but other than that, it's a fine
distro, especially as a live CD.
Probably none of this is of help to you, but I hope it does some good or
gives you an idea. I don't claim to be any kind of Linux expert, so
forgive me if I'm talking out of my hat. You're far more experienced
than I.
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