Adjusting lightdm screenreader volume (How do I...)

[Linux for blind general discussion]

I know of two things you can do to set the speech volume in lightdm. The 
easiest option is to open Orca preferences and set the volume under the 
voice tab. However, this will only set the speech volume. Since this is 
all you really need here, it shouldn't cause a problem. It also has the 
benefit of setting the volume immediately right on the lightdm screen, 
so you won't have to reboot or log out of your session to wait for the 
change to be effective.


The other method is a bit more complicated, but it will set your system 
and application volumes, as well as your default device if you have more 
than one and want to use something else. First, login as your normal 
user and set your volumes the way you want them. Then as root, copy your 
user's .config/pulse to /var/lib/lightdm/.config like so, noting that 
the # at the beginning of this line represents a root shell and should 
not be copied:

# cp -R /home/<username>/.config/pulse /var/lib/lightdm/.config/

replacing <username> with the name of your normal unprivileged user. 
Now, also as root, run

# chown -R lightdm:lightdm /var/lib/lightdm/.config/pulse

This will set the ownership of that configuration folder to lightdm so 
that it will be able to read it. On the next reboot, lightdm should 
speak at a more acceptable volume. Hope this helps.

~Kyle