palmtops running linux

palmtops running linux

[Beth Wright]

Hi!  I know very little about either Linux, Speakup, or any other of the
speech systems that work with Linux.  In other words, I subscribed to this
list to get information, with little hope of being able to contribute.  But,
when I saw the posts about palmtops running Linux, I went to Amazon.com, and
saw that they were selling one by Sharp.  It's called the Zaurus SL-5600,
and costs around $500.00, I think.  Maybe some of you techies can look at
the specifications, and see if it would work with speech.  Speaking of
technical, I think this list is a little over my head.  Are there any lists
for blind people who are just starting to learn about Linux?  Thanks for any
help.

Beth Wright

Re: palmtops running linux

[Doug]

Beth,

Apparently the Flite (Festival Lite) speech synthesizer
has been run on Zaurus on Linux.

http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/
http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/packed/flite-1.1/aREADME.sharp.zaurus.SL5000

Speakup doesn't work on strongarm though, so there is no
console speech output. I personally think it would make
more sense to use the smallest x68-compatible laptop that
you can find, examples: toshiba libretto, palmax mini
notebook, etc. Then you can run full x386 linux and take
advantage of tons of software including speakup.

   -- Doug

Re: palmtops running linux

[Janina Sajka]

The $500 price is the new Zaurus. The older model can be had for around
$200..

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Re: palmtops running linux

[Kirk Reiser]

Doug <wearable@shawcable.com> writes:

> Speakup doesn't work on strongarm though, so there is no
> console speech output. I personally think it would make

Why doesn't it work?

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: palmtops running linux

[Doug]

Kirk,

 >> Speakup doesn't work on strongarm
 > Why doesn't it work?

Well, someone here on this list seemed to think that
there was some x86 specific stuff, in particular the
audio. I plan to try cross-compiling this to strong
arm but it won't be for a while yet. If anyone else
had tried speakup on strongarm please let me know.
Flite is already running on Zaurus, and the software
synth mods are intended to be generic, adaptable to
various synthesizers, so Flite plus Speakup would
be a nice combination for Zaurus and iPAQ. Does the
speakup code depend on hardware specific ioctls for
x86? Anyone else know why this should or shouldn't
work on stongarm? I assume that speakup depends on
/dev/audio and /dev/dsp etc which would probably
be implemented differently on the SA1111 companion
(audio codec).

   -- Doug

Re: palmtops running linux

[Janina Sajka]

Assumptions are not facts. Please, let's not state hearsay and
assumptions as fact. That's irresponsible.

As to the question at hand, I have no knowledge about any issues in
compiling Speakup to run on Strongarm, but I am writing this message to
you on a DEC Alpha processor with no video card in the machine. So, I
can assure you X86 specific is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

PS: If you assumed a dependency on /dev/audio, you don't know Speakup.

Doug writes:
> From: Doug <wearable@shawcable.com>
> 
> Kirk,
> 
> >> Speakup doesn't work on strongarm
> > Why doesn't it work?
> 
> Well, someone here on this list seemed to think that
> there was some x86 specific stuff, in particular the
> audio. I plan to try cross-compiling this to strong
> arm but it won't be for a while yet. If anyone else
> had tried speakup on strongarm please let me know.
> Flite is already running on Zaurus, and the software
> synth mods are intended to be generic, adaptable to
> various synthesizers, so Flite plus Speakup would
> be a nice combination for Zaurus and iPAQ. Does the
> speakup code depend on hardware specific ioctls for
> x86? Anyone else know why this should or shouldn't
> work on stongarm? I assume that speakup depends on
> /dev/audio and /dev/dsp etc which would probably
> be implemented differently on the SA1111 companion
> (audio codec).
> 
>   -- Doug
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Re: palmtops running linux

[Thomas Stivers]

On 04/23/03  6:25 PM -0400, Beth Wright wrote:
> technical, I think this list is a little over my head.  Are there any lists
> for blind people who are just starting to learn about Linux?  Thanks for any
> help.

There is the blinux-newbie list, you can subscribe to it by sending a
message with subscribe in the body to
blinux-newbie-request@braille.uwo.ca. I hope someone will correct me if
that address is wrong. That is a rather quiet list, but questions asked
there seem to get answers very fast. This list isn't always so technical
and has usually answered my questions to my satisfaction. Finally there
is the blinux list which you can subscribe to by putting subscribe in
the body of a message to blinux-list-request@lists.redhat.com. Imho
blinux isn't particularly newbie friendly, but has improved quite a bit
with the influx of blined linux users in the last year or two. I hope
this has been helpful, and more importantly I hope it doesn't go over
the 5kb msize limit. Good luck with linux.

HTH
-- 
Unix is a user friendly operating system. It just picks its friends more
carefully than others.
Thomas Stivers	e-mail: stivers_t@tomass.dyndns.org	gpg: 45CBBABD

palmtops running linux

[Ann Parsons]

Hi Beth,

No, you're in the right place.  We're not a techie exclusive list.  If
we were, I wouldn't be on here.  So, ask away.  We might tell you
where to get docs on a given question, or help you understand them,
but we'll never turn you away.

Ann P.

-- 
			Ann K. Parsons  
email:  akp@eznet.net 			ICQ Number:  33006854
WEB SITE:  http://home.eznet.net/~akp
"All that is gold does not glitter.  Not all those who wander are lost."  JRRT

Re: palmtops running linux

[Doug]

I wasn't thinking when I wrote this ...

 > I assume that speakup depends on /dev/audio and
 > /dev/dsp etc which would probably be implemented
 > differently on the SA1111 companion (audio codec).

Since speakup was designed for external synth I am
babbling nonsense ... sorry it's 4am and I have
been thinking too much about software synth. Well
if Flite already works on strongarm then perhaps
there is a good chance for porting speakup and the
software synth middleware.

   -- Doug


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