odd question?

[John G Heim]

There was only a very short period where most hardware speech 
synthesizers worked with standard linux kernels. For many years, you had 
to compile the kernel yourself to get speech at all regardless of 
whether you used hardware or software speech. Then for a brief period, 
support for the speakup screen reader was included in most stock kernels 
with support for hardware speech. Then somebody patched the kernel code 
deliberately to make hardware speech synths not work. This was done 
because the kernel developers disapproved of the way speakup talked to 
the hardware. I think the short period where stock kernels worked with 
hardware synths were numbered 2.3. That was several years ago.

Your best bet, if you want to use speakup with a hardware synth, is to 
compile the kernel after patching the code to re-enable hardware synths. 
I have directions for doing this on the web site of the International 
Association of Visually Impaired Technologists. 
http://www.iavit.org/~john/debian/build.html

Those instructions are kind of old and may not work on more recent 
kernels. Let me know if they need to be updated and I'll see if I can 
figure it out.

On 12/13/2015 05:13 PM, Karen Lewellen wrote:
> what i was asking in a way you answered, that new kernels, do not 
> support hardware speech.
> In a totally different thread you indicated the need to compile Linux 
> with an old kernel, as in not  the current one, for hardware speech.
> I am asking to confirm this in case I must explain why I do not want a 
> more current distribution with this Kernel problem.
> Software speech is a physical problem for me.
> Frankly the fact squeeze is about to stop being supported has no 
> impact on how  I intend using this Linux box, assuming it ever gets 
> off the ground.
> so to keep it simple, current kernels do  not support hardware speech 
> any longer Is this right?
>
>
> On Sun, 13 Dec 2015, Tony Baechler wrote:
>
>> I don't understand what you're asking.  I think you're asking if you 
>> need an older kernel for hardware speech.  If you're using a serial 
>> synth, the answer would seem to be yes, but there are patches for 
>> newer kernels which I haven't tested.  If you can live with software 
>> speech, you don't need an older kernel.  If you're only going to ssh 
>> to the machine and don't need speech, it makes no difference what 
>> kernel you're running.  I should mention that Squeeze will very 
>> shortly no longer be supported and will be removed from the archive.  
>> Kernel 2.6.32 had upstream support dropped this year. If you have a 
>> sound card and can tolerate software speech, that would be my 
>> suggestion. If you must have serial speech, maybe someone can compile 
>> a custom kernel for you, but you'd have to do the install with 
>> software speech, have someone else do it or do it over ssh.  What I 
>> did was install Squeeze, upgrade to Wheezy and keep both kernels.  
>> That way I could have hardware speech if I wanted, but I actually 
>> didn't mind ESpeak for the few times I actually sat at the machine.  
>> I did everything over ssh and I really didn't need speech except 
>> rarely.  Another thought I had is a serial console.  That might be 
>> better for you since you wouldn't need ssh, could access it from DOS, 
>> use hardware speech and I think D-I lets you install that way.  That 
>> also gives you boot messages which you don't get with software speech.
>>
>> On 12/9/2015 2:07 PM, Karen Lewellen wrote:
>>>  Hi all,
>>>  I hope I ask this clearly.
>>>  I *believe* I may have found a source for local Linux help here.
>>>  As I sated a while back  I intend using ssh telnet to reach this box.
>>>  However I may need to explain to the person helping me about the 
>>> changes
>>>  that I believe? now might require too much work to insure speech in 
>>> later
>>>  editions of Debian.  the need to compile or use an older Kernel?
>>>  I do not pretend to have that fact correctly, only I recall others 
>>> making
>>>  mention of this need.
>>>  I have no interest so much in using  speech on this box. still I 
>>> may have
>>>  a
>>>  strong argument for my older editions of Debian based on the older 
>>> Kennel
>>>  still existing in squeeze.
>>>  Thanks,
>>>  Karen
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>  Blinux-list mailing list
>>>  Blinux-list at redhat.com
>>>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>>
>> -- 
>> Tony Baechler, founder, Baechler Access Technology Services
>> Putting accessibility at the forefront of technology
>> mailto:bats at batsupport.com
>> Phone: 1-619-746-8310  Fax/SMS: 1-619-627-1696
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blinux-list mailing list
>> Blinux-list at redhat.com
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list