Re: Almost decent working standard packaged emacspeak/eflite on Debian 7.2

["T. V. Raman" <tv.raman.tv@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Note that you're saying eflite, while others here are telling you
that espeak works -- I have no idea if eflite works any more or
to what degree.
>>>>> "Jerry" == Jerry Sievers <gsievers19@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
    Jerry> Hi Tim. Remarks below... Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>
    Jerry> writes:
    Jerry> 
    >> I agree. I use to have problems with pulse audio and
    >> speak, but that was some time ago with earlier versions of
    >> pulse audio which had problems with some sound cards -
    >> particularly emu10k1 based cards. I also found that speak
    >> worked much better provided it was compiled to use pulse
    >> audio rather than port audio.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> Upon first installing Debian on this new laptop, I
    Jerry> went ahead with the full graphical install and that
    Jerry> did include Pulse Audio and whatever else. And then
    Jerry> was intrigued with Orca and enabled it but found it to
    Jerry> be utterly useless and at this point,. emacspeak
    Jerry> didn't work at all or worked for just a few seconds
    Jerry> and thus the box not going to be useful.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> Running emacspeak is priority #1 and so I went ahead
    Jerry> with the same procedure that got eflite working
    Jerry> satisfactorily on setting up another laptop a few
    Jerry> years earlier. This was to remove Pulse Audio from the
    Jerry> system with no regard for whatever else would stop
    Jerry> working along with it.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> In fact, the Gnome desktop packages are still
    Jerry> installed but no longer configured to start at boot
    Jerry> due to them being retained for good measure but os of
    Jerry> little value to me.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> The aforementioned brute-force approach did result in
    Jerry> the emacspeak working well enough to begin using.
    Jerry> 
    >> Although removing all pulseaudio from the system is an
    >> option, I would not recommend it. Like it or not, it is
    >> the direction that Linux has decided to take for sound
    >> infrastructure and you will find increasing difficulty and
    >> loss of functionality without pulseaudio installed.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> Agreed but as already mentioned, emacspeak was the
    Jerry> priority and anything else that was working too just
    Jerry> an added bonus.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> As a user of both a Mac with Voice Over and a
    Jerry> Jaws/Windows system, I'm skeptical that the graphical
    Jerry> Linux environment is anywhere close to overall
    Jerry> functionality of these other 2 but will be glad to
    Jerry> realize my assumption is wrong... not even going to
    Jerry> try finding out as long as they conflict with
    Jerry> emacspeak.
    Jerry> 
    >> I do think that pulseaudio can be a bit of a resource hog
    >> and it certainly seems to perform much better on 64 bit
    >> systems than 32 bit. Therefore, I would only consider
    >> removing pulseaudio on older and slower hardware.
    >> 
    >> As to eflite, I'm not sure how well it is being
    >> maintained. Most people seem to have gone with eSpeak
    >> rather than flite. I would suggest trying eSpeak and see
    >> if that works better for you. However, my favourite speech
    >> server for Linux is still 32 bit ViaVoice. While this can
    >> be a bit of a pain to get working on a 64 bit system, it
    >> is not too bad - especially if you use the oralux package,
    >> which only costs a couple of dollars.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> I'll take that advice and try setting up espeak though
    Jerry> it will require me to install and probably build from
    Jerry> source, something I'm not unfamiliar with but is a
    Jerry> path of greater resistance.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> I did once a few years ago explore one of those Vinux
    Jerry> distros but aborted after some difficulties that I
    Jerry> don't remember and just at that time ran on a much
    Jerry> older laptop, also with eflite that was somewhat
    Jerry> unstable and after nuking Pulse Audio.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> I can scarcely justify the time it may take to deep
    Jerry> dive this sort of issue, preferring to be just flat
    Jerry> out productive which is what my employer reasonably
    Jerry> expects.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> At any rate, if I do make an interesting discovery
    Jerry> that may be of interest to this community, I'll report
    Jerry> on here with same.
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> Thanks
    Jerry> 
    >> Tim
    >> 
    >> --
    >> Tim Cross IT Security Manager, Information Technology
    >> University of New England Armidale N.Sl.W. 2350
    >> 
    >> Email: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx Phone: +61 2 6773 3210 Mobile:
    >> +61 428 212 217
    >> 
    >> On 07/11/2013, at 6:34 AM, Christopher Chaltain
    >> <chaltain@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
    >> 
    >>> I use eSpeak with Emacspeak and PulseAudio with no
    >>> trouble. I used to compile eSpeak from source to use
    >>> PulseAudio without going through PortAudio, but with
    >>> Vinux 4, I no longer need to do this. I don't think
    >>> there's a problem with PulseAudio and the eSpeak
    >>> Emacspeak server. I think the issue lies in eSpeak when
    >>> it's configured to go through PortAudio to get to
    >>> PulseAudio.
    >>> 
    >>> 
    >>> On 11/06/2013 01:08 PM, Alex Midence wrote:
    >>>> You using Pulse Audio? That sounds a lot like what Pulse
    >>>> Audio does to the Espeak speech server for
    >>>> Emacspeak. I'm running Debian 7 as well and I just made
    >>>> absolutely sure my system was pulse free by doing some
    >>>> very painstaking and time-consuming installation
    >>>> wizardry but, because I did that, I stopped having
    >>>> trouble such as you described with the Espeak
    >>>> server. Perhaps, a similar approach/solution will work
    >>>> with eflite?
    >>>> 
    >>>> Alex M
    >>>> 
    >>>> -----Original Message----- From: Jerry Sievers
    >>>> [mailto:gsievers19@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Wednesday,
    >>>> November 06, 2013 12:57 PM To: emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx
    >>>> Subject: Almost decent working standard packaged
    >>>> emacspeak/eflite on Debian 7.2
    >>>> 
    >>>> Hi list. I've been running emacspeak happily since about
    >>>> the year 2000,. starting out on ViaVoice outloud and
    >>>> then eflite.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Eflite has become less reliable over time and I presume
    >>>> might not even be well supported lately, if at all.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Anyway, recently upgraded to a fresh Debian on Toshiba
    >>>> laptop and was pleased that all the standard packaged
    >>>> emacspeak goodies did work straight out of the box.
    >>>> 
    >>>> There is a problem however that is a nuisance but one
    >>>> that I've seen previously and just always tolerated. I
    >>>> felt like asking the brain-trust here though in case
    >>>> there's an easy fix.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Basically, the eflite driver or flite synth itself just
    >>>> plain chokes frequently and requires a restart.
    >>>> 
    >>>> I do not encounter the problem in top-down reading of
    >>>> larger chunks of text but it happens frequently when
    >>>> arrowing around.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Literally, it's like Mr. Eflite choked on a big piece of
    >>>> steak and his wind pipe closed entirely. It happens
    >>>> sometimes on text input as well and in fact I had to
    >>>> restart once while writing this.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Relevant versions shown below.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Anyone else who's ran across this and found a reliable
    >>>> fix or workaround, please advise.
    >>>> 
    >>>> Emacspeak 29.0
    >>>> 
    >>>> GNU Emacs 23.4.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version
    >>>> 2.24.10) of 2012-09-08 on trouble, modified by Debian
    >>>> 
    >>>> $ cat /etc/debian_version 7.2
    >>>> 
    >>>> $ eflite --version Eflite 0.4.1
    >>>> 
    >>>> $ flite --version Carnegie Mellon University, Copyright
    >>>> (c) 1999-2009, all rights reserved version:
    >>>> flite-1.4-release December 2009 (http://cmuflite.org)
    >>>> 
    >>>> 
    >>>> Thank you
    >>>> 
    >>>> --
    >>>> Jerry Sievers e: gsievers19@xxxxxxxxxxx p: 312.241.7800
    >>>> 
    >>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    >>>> 
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    >>> 
    >>> -- 
    >>> Christopher (CJ) chaltain at Gmail
    >>> 
    >>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    >>> address on the emacspeak list send mail to
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    >>> "unsubscribe" or "help".
    >>> 
    >> 
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> -- Jerry Sievers e: gsievers19@xxxxxxxxxxx p:
    Jerry> 312.241.7800
    Jerry> 
    Jerry> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Jerry> To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your
    Jerry> address on the emacspeak list send mail to
    Jerry> "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a subject of
    Jerry> "unsubscribe" or "help".

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

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