How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Chime Hart]

Hi All: I've asked others in other forums such as Slint-and-Debian 
Accessibility, but so far I am striking out. I have a DecTalk U S B, but last 
year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software speech. 
When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say. Making 
matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on this Debian 
Sid machine. Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must install and 
have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an embedded voice. 
When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a talk-with command to 
easily switch synths, but his script would need to be re written for Debian. In 
addition, 
if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't have speech, or would their be a way of 
having both DecTalk and software speech at the same time? So, can some1 please 
provide exact commands I can switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for 
softsynth  but nothing found. Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[K0LNY_Glenn]

I sure would like to get speakup using the Oralux Voxin Evan or Nathan as 
well
One suggestion I had was to install voxinup, but that may be an old 
unmaintained package.
Glenn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chime Hart" <chime@hubert-humphrey.com>
To: <speakup@linux-speakup.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2022 2:36 PM
Subject: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?


Hi All: I've asked others in other forums such as Slint-and-Debian
Accessibility, but so far I am striking out. I have a DecTalk U S B, but 
last
year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software 
speech.
When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say. Making
matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on this 
Debian
Sid machine. Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must install and
have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an embedded 
voice.
When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a talk-with command 
to
easily switch synths, but his script would need to be re written for Debian. 
In
addition,
if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't have speech, or would their be a way 
of
having both DecTalk and software speech at the same time? So, can some1 
please
provide exact commands I can switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for
softsynth  but nothing found. Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[K0LNY_Glenn]

I'm using raspberrypi's latest image on an RPI Zero.
I'm looking in:
/etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf
and the default synth is
espeak-ng
Above that line, it says you must use one of the names added with AddModule.
I don't find any other names even though I ran the Voxin-installer.sh for 
Evan.
Seems like this is how to get it going.
spd-say still uses espeak for me.
Glenn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chime Hart" <chime@hubert-humphrey.com>
To: <speakup@linux-speakup.org>
Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2022 2:36 PM
Subject: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?


Hi All: I've asked others in other forums such as Slint-and-Debian
Accessibility, but so far I am striking out. I have a DecTalk U S B, but 
last
year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software 
speech.
When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say. Making
matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on this 
Debian
Sid machine. Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must install and
have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an embedded 
voice.
When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a talk-with command 
to
easily switch synths, but his script would need to be re written for Debian. 
In
addition,
if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't have speech, or would their be a way 
of
having both DecTalk and software speech at the same time? So, can some1 
please
provide exact commands I can switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for
softsynth  but nothing found. Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 12:36:25PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> last year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software
> speech. When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say.
> Making matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on
> this Debian Sid machine.

This is contradictory. Having spd-say working implies a working and
installed speech-dispatcher. So, I will assume you have
speech-dispatcher installed and spd-say installed and working on one
machine, but not another. In that case saying speech-dispatcher won't
install doesn't help us help you.

> Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must
> install and have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an
> embedded voice.

If these voices interface through speech-dispatcher, then that would
make sense. However, the only way I know of to interface speakup to
speech-dispatcher right now is through speechd-up. So, it seems like
you would have to install speechd-up, get that working with
speech-dispatcher and espeak-ng, and once you have that working get
speech-dispatcher to use your purchased voices.

> When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a
> talk-with command to easily switch synths, but his script would need to be
> re written for Debian.

I can confirm the talkwith provided in the speakup-tools package for
debian bullseye seems to be broken. Issuing talkwith soft comes back
with:

/usr/sbin/talkwith: 88: shift: can't shift that many

I took a look at the script, but don't see where the problem is.

> In addition, if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't
> have speech, or would their be a way of having both DecTalk and software
> speech at the same time?

No, you can't have both your dectalk and software speech at the same time.

> So, can some1 please provide exact commands I can
> switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for softsynth  but nothing found.

No surprise. What you want is the speakup_soft module. You would as
root load that with:

modprobe speakup_soft

then start espeakup or speechd-up, depending on which one you use. I
think that would be something like:

systemctl speechd-up start
or
systemctl espeakup start

I'm not a systemd user, so someone else can correct the above if
they're not correct.

Now, assuming you have both speakup_soft and speakup_dectlk kernel
modules loaded, you can switch between them as root with:

echo dectlk >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth

for the dectalk, and

echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth

for software speech. Remember that before switching to dectlk you
should stop espeakup or speechd-up, and after switching to soft you
should start espeakup or speechd-up. I seem to recall you use csh, so
maybe someone can roll all that into a csh script for you.

Greg


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Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Chime Hart]

Thank you Greg for your analysis. Yes I am in TCSH. When I run with
sudo echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
I get a permission error. As far as speechd-up  if I run an apt install in 
Debian, it tries installing a 0.5 version from 2011, but errors out. Here is an 
output
Preparing to unpack .../speechd-up_0.5~20110719-11_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking speechd-up (0.5~20110719-11) ...
Setting up speechd-up (0.5~20110719-11) ...
Job for speechd-up.service failed because the control process exited with error 
code.
See "systemctl status speechd-up.service" and "journalctl -xeu 
speechd-up.service" for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript speechd-up, action "restart" failed.
x speechd-up.service - LSB: Interface between speakup and speech-dispatcher
      Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/speechd-up; generated)
      Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2022-04-03 17:46:08 PDT; 82ms 
ago
        Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
     Process: 1576174 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/speechd-up start (code=exited, 
status=1/FAILURE)
         CPU: 37ms

Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: Starting Interface between speakup 
and speech-dispatcher : speechd-up
Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576190]: [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: 
Configuration has been read from "/etc/speechd-up.conf"
Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: Starting speechd-up...
Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: To work, speechd-up needs speakup 
and speakup_soft modules.
Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: They are loaded automatically. If 
you don't want, type
Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: rmmod speakup speakup_soft
Apr 03 17:46:08 chime speechd-up[1576300]:  failed!
Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: speechd-up.service: Control process exited, 
code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: speechd-up.service: Failed with result 
'exit-code'.
Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Interface between 
speakup and speech-dispatcher.
dpkg: error processing package speechd-up (--configure):
  installed speechd-up package post-installation script subprocess returned 
error exit status 1
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Processing triggers for install-info (6.8-4+b1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
  speechd-up
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Back again live. If this list thinks 54lines is too long, I can write you 
off-list with that output. Thanks in advance.
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 05:51:44PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> sudo echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
> I get a permission error.

I don't know how the echo in bash differs from the echo in tcsh if at
all. Did you modprobe the speakup_soft module?

>As far as speechd-up  if I run an apt install in
> Debian, it tries installing a 0.5 version from 2011, but errors out. Here is
> an output

You mentioned you had trouble installing speech-dispatcher. To work,
speechd-up requires an installed and configured speech-dispatcher. Do
you have speech-dispatcher installed and working with espeak-ng? If
you do, do you have a /var/log/speechd-up.log file? If yes, what does
it say?

Greg


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Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Chime Hart]

Hi Greg: I did not run any modprobe commands today. I guess unless I needed to 
string 2 of them together to switch off the DecTalk-and-enable soft synth, 
because otherwise I might not have speech. I suppose I could use 2 separate 
consoles for both commands. Anyway, here are the contents of 
/var/log/speechd-up.log
[Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Speechd-speakup starts!
[Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Error while openning the device in 
read/write mode 2,No such file or directory
[Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Trying to open the device in the old way.
[Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Error while openning the device in read 
mode 2,No such file or directory
[Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: ERROR! Unable to open soft synth device 
(/dev/softsynth)
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Joseph C. Lininger]

I think your permission error might actually be a shell thing, not a 
speakup thing. Allow me to explain. I'm not trying to be condescending 
if you already understand the mechanics here, but I need to explain for 
my explanation of the problem to make sense.

When you type:

sudo echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth

What you're doing is to run the command "sudo echo soft" as root, then 
telling your existing shell to redirect its output to the file 
/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth. Here in lies the problem; your 
existing (non-root) shell handles that file write operation. Only "echo 
soft" is actually run as root. The file 
/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth. can only be written by root, so you 
get a permission error. I tested this on my own system by creating a 
root-owned file, then trying "sudo echo test" and redirecting to that 
file. I got a permission error, as expected.

The only solution I know of is to create a shell script with the line

sudo echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth

Then run that using sudo. That causes the write to take place as the 
root user, which is what you want.

--
Joe

On 4/3/2022 8:51 PM, Chime Hart wrote:
> Thank you Greg for your analysis. Yes I am in TCSH. When I run with
> sudo echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
> I get a permission error. As far as speechd-up  if I run an apt 
> install in Debian, it tries installing a 0.5 version from 2011, but 
> errors out. Here is an output
> Preparing to unpack .../speechd-up_0.5~20110719-11_amd64.deb ...
> Unpacking speechd-up (0.5~20110719-11) ...
> Setting up speechd-up (0.5~20110719-11) ...
> Job for speechd-up.service failed because the control process exited 
> with error code.
> See "systemctl status speechd-up.service" and "journalctl -xeu 
> speechd-up.service" for details.
> invoke-rc.d: initscript speechd-up, action "restart" failed.
> x speechd-up.service - LSB: Interface between speakup and 
> speech-dispatcher
>      Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/speechd-up; generated)
>      Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2022-04-03 17:46:08 
> PDT; 82ms ago
>        Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
>     Process: 1576174 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/speechd-up start 
> (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
>         CPU: 37ms
>
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: Starting Interface between 
> speakup and speech-dispatcher : speechd-up
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576190]: [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] 
> speechd: Configuration has been read from "/etc/speechd-up.conf"
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: Starting speechd-up...
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: To work, speechd-up needs 
> speakup and speakup_soft modules.
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: They are loaded 
> automatically. If you don't want, type
> Apr 03 17:46:06 chime speechd-up[1576174]: rmmod speakup speakup_soft
> Apr 03 17:46:08 chime speechd-up[1576300]:  failed!
> Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: speechd-up.service: Control process 
> exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
> Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: speechd-up.service: Failed with 
> result 'exit-code'.
> Apr 03 17:46:08 chime systemd[1]: Failed to start LSB: Interface 
> between speakup and speech-dispatcher.
> dpkg: error processing package speechd-up (--configure):
>  installed speechd-up package post-installation script subprocess 
> returned error exit status 1
> Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
> Processing triggers for install-info (6.8-4+b1) ...
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  speechd-up
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
> Back again live. If this list thinks 54lines is too long, I can write 
> you off-list with that output. Thanks in advance.
> Chime
>

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Chime Hart]

Thank you Joe for a `wonderful explainer-and-I think you are most likely 
correct. We had similar results running an inflection script for the DecTalk.
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Joseph C. Lininger]

My explanation of how to fix it was slightly incorrect actually. I told 
you to run sudo under sudo, basically, which is not necessary. I've 
provided what should be a full working script below. Try this script. It 
won't matter that you're running this under tcsh, as long as you have a 
working bash on your system. I've set it up to automatically execute bash.

-- begin script --
#!/bin/bash
# Force a couple of environment variables to sane values for security 
reasons
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin
IFS=" \t\n"
# Change the synth
echo "soft" > /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
-- end script --

You could also add lines to the script to run whatever support programs 
you need to make the synthesizer work once you've switched it in 
Speakup. Don't add "sudo" to any lines in this script since it's already 
running as root. You'll run the script itself using sudo. For example, 
if you were to name the script enablesoft, and it were in your path, 
you'd type this.

sudo enablesoft

Assuming the rest of the parts are working, that should do it for you.

--
Joe



On 4/4/2022 2:17 PM, Chime Hart wrote:
> Thank you Joe for a `wonderful explainer-and-I think you are most 
> likely correct. We had similar results running an inflection script 
> for the DecTalk.
> Chime
>

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Chime Hart]

Thanks Joe, I put it in /usr/local/bin. An inquiree? Wouldn't I need to unload 
the DecTalk module before your script would work? Thanks in advance
Chime

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Didier Spaier]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4315 bytes --]

Well Chime_and_all, let me chime in.

1. Slint doesn't ship the talkwith script, but a different one, named speak-with.

2. talkwith can be found in the archive provided here:
ftp://linux-speakup.org/pub/speakup/speakup-3.1.6.tar.bz2
in the tools directory

I ran talkwith here (in a yet to be released Slint64-15.0) and it still works.
I attach a copy of the script.

I having both espeakup and speechd-up installed, As in the kernel I run
currently has the speakup drivers provided as modules, I first typed as root:
mopdrobe speakup_soft # this also loads the speakup module as a dependency
then to start espeakup:
talkwith soft espeakup
then to start speechd-up
talkwith spd
then to start a my (non existing) Dec Talk:
modprobe speakup_dectlk
talkwith dectlk
All worked, but I can't check the last command as I do not owning such hardware.

So no need to fiddle manually with /sys if you use talkwith.

I can't help with installating speechd-up in Debian that I do not use.

PS I also typed:
tcsh talkwith soft espeakup
which displayed:
Illegal variable name
So Chime, I know that tcsh is the shell you are used to, but you certainly would
do us a favor typing your commands from another one before requesting help.

Here I use the bash shell, you could probably use ash or dash as well.

Cheers,
Didier


Le 04/04/2022 à 02:37, Gregory Nowak a écrit :
> On Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 12:36:25PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
>> last year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software
>> speech. When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say.
>> Making matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on
>> this Debian Sid machine.
> 
> This is contradictory. Having spd-say working implies a working and
> installed speech-dispatcher. So, I will assume you have
> speech-dispatcher installed and spd-say installed and working on one
> machine, but not another. In that case saying speech-dispatcher won't
> install doesn't help us help you.
> 
>> Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must
>> install and have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an
>> embedded voice.
> 
> If these voices interface through speech-dispatcher, then that would
> make sense. However, the only way I know of to interface speakup to
> speech-dispatcher right now is through speechd-up. So, it seems like
> you would have to install speechd-up, get that working with
> speech-dispatcher and espeak-ng, and once you have that working get
> speech-dispatcher to use your purchased voices.
> 
>> When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a
>> talk-with command to easily switch synths, but his script would need to be
>> re written for Debian.
> 
> I can confirm the talkwith provided in the speakup-tools package for
> debian bullseye seems to be broken. Issuing talkwith soft comes back
> with:
> 
> /usr/sbin/talkwith: 88: shift: can't shift that many
> 
> I took a look at the script, but don't see where the problem is.
> 
>> In addition, if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't
>> have speech, or would their be a way of having both DecTalk and software
>> speech at the same time?
> 
> No, you can't have both your dectalk and software speech at the same time.
> 
>> So, can some1 please provide exact commands I can
>> switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for softsynth  but nothing found.
> 
> No surprise. What you want is the speakup_soft module. You would as
> root load that with:
> 
> modprobe speakup_soft
> 
> then start espeakup or speechd-up, depending on which one you use. I
> think that would be something like:
> 
> systemctl speechd-up start
> or
> systemctl espeakup start
> 
> I'm not a systemd user, so someone else can correct the above if
> they're not correct.
> 
> Now, assuming you have both speakup_soft and speakup_dectlk kernel
> modules loaded, you can switch between them as root with:
> 
> echo dectlk >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
> 
> for the dectalk, and
> 
> echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
> 
> for software speech. Remember that before switching to dectlk you
> should stop espeakup or speechd-up, and after switching to soft you
> should start espeakup or speechd-up. I seem to recall you use csh, so
> maybe someone can roll all that into a csh script for you.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 

[-- Attachment #2: talkwith --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 3730 bytes --]

#!/bin/sh
# 
# talkwith -- switches speakup synthesizers on the fly
# 
# Copyright (c) 2009 by  the Speakup Team
# Copyright (c) 2008, 2009 by  Charles Hallenbeck
# 
#  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.
#
#   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#   GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#
# Requirements: Linux speakup 3.1.0 or later
#
# To install, copy this script to a directory on the execution path
# e.g. /usr/sbin, or /usr/local/sbin.
# This script should be run as root.

# be sure we are root
if [ $(id -ru) -gt "0" ]; then
	echo "$(basename $0) must be run as root."
	exit
fi

# Define some variables
SPEAKUPDIR="/sys/accessibility/speakup"

# make sure speakup is loaded
if [ ! -d $SPEAKUPDIR ]; then
	echo "Speakup does not seem to be installed."
	exit
fi

# Check the command line for options

if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
	echo
	echo "Usage: $(basename $0) <synth> <daemon> [options]"
	echo
	echo "synth - any synthesizer supported by speakup"
	echo
	echo "daemon - for the 'soft' synthesizer, this should be either"
	echo "spd for speechd-up, or espeakup to run espeakup."
	echo "For the other synthesizers, this is ignored."
	echo
	echo "options - for a software synthesizer, the rest of the command line"
	echo "is passed on to the daemon; otherwise it is ignored."
	echo
	echo "Talkwith does not install or remove modules, so make sure any"
	echo "required driver modules are installed or built into the kernel"
	echo "before running talkwith."
	echo
	exit
fi
 
NEWMOD=$1
shift

# for backward compatibility
if [ "$NEWMOD" = "spd"  -o "$NEWMOD" = "espeakup" ]; then
	DAEMON=$NEWMOD
	NEWMOD=soft
fi

if [ "$NEWMOD" = "soft" ]; then
	if which espeakup > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
		HAVE_ESPEAKUP=1
	fi
	if which speechd-up > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
		HAVE_SPD=1
	fi
			
	if [ -z "$HAVE_ESPEAKUP"  -a -z "$HAVE_SPD" ]; then
		echo "no software speech synthesizers are installed."
		exit
	fi
			
	if [ -z "$DAEMON" ]; then
		DAEMON=$1
		shift
	fi

	if [ -z "$DAEMON" -a ! -z "$HAVE_ESPEAKUP" ]; then
		DAEMON="espeakup"
	elif [ -z "$DAEMON" -a ! -z "$HAVE_SPD" ]; then
		DAEMON="spd"
	fi
	
	if [ "$DAEMON" = "espeakup" -a -z "$HAVE_ESPEAKUP" ]; then
		echo "espeakup does not appear to be available."
		exit
	elif [ "$DAEMON" = "spd" -a -z "$HAVE_SPD" ]; then
		echo "speechd-up does not appear to be available."
		exit
	fi
fi

OLDMOD="$(cat $SPEAKUPDIR/synth)"
echo "$NEWMOD" > $SPEAKUPDIR/synth 2> /dev/null
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
	echo "Unable to switch to the $NEWMOD synthesizer."
	echo "This means that the driver is not built in, the module"
	echo "is not loaded, or $NEWMOD is not a valid synthesizer."
	exit 1
fi

if [ "$OLDMOD" = "soft" ]; then
	if [ -f /var/run/espeakup.pid ]; then
		kill $(cat /var/run/espeakup.pid) 2> /dev/null
		if [ -f /var/run/espeakup.pid ]; then
			rm -f /var/run/espeakup.pid
		fi
	fi
	if [ -f /var/run/speechd-up.pid ]; then
		kill $(cat /var/run/speechd-up.pid) 2> /dev/null
		if [ -f /var/run/speechd-up.pid ]; then
			rm -f /var/run/speechd-up.pid
		fi
	fi
	sleep 2
fi

if [ "$NEWMOD" = "none" ]; then
	exit
elif [ "$NEWMOD" = "soft" ]; then
	if [ "$DAEMON" = "espeakup" ]; then
		espeakup $*
	elif [ "$DAEMON" = "spd" ]; then
		nice -n 5 speechd-up $*
	fi
fi

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Didier Spaier]

Correction:
instead of
talkwith spd
read:
talkwith soft spd

Le 04/04/2022 à 23:19, Didier Spaier a écrit :
> Well Chime_and_all, let me chime in.
> 
> 1. Slint doesn't ship the talkwith script, but a different one, named speak-with.
> 
> 2. talkwith can be found in the archive provided here:
> ftp://linux-speakup.org/pub/speakup/speakup-3.1.6.tar.bz2
> in the tools directory
> 
> I ran talkwith here (in a yet to be released Slint64-15.0) and it still works.
> I attach a copy of the script.
> 
> I having both espeakup and speechd-up installed, As in the kernel I run
> currently has the speakup drivers provided as modules, I first typed as root:
> mopdrobe speakup_soft # this also loads the speakup module as a dependency
> then to start espeakup:
> talkwith soft espeakup
> then to start speechd-up
> talkwith spd
> then to start a my (non existing) Dec Talk:
> modprobe speakup_dectlk
> talkwith dectlk
> All worked, but I can't check the last command as I do not owning such hardware.
> 
> So no need to fiddle manually with /sys if you use talkwith.
> 
> I can't help with installating speechd-up in Debian that I do not use.
> 
> PS I also typed:
> tcsh talkwith soft espeakup
> which displayed:
> Illegal variable name
> So Chime, I know that tcsh is the shell you are used to, but you certainly would
> do us a favor typing your commands from another one before requesting help.
> 
> Here I use the bash shell, you could probably use ash or dash as well.
> 
> Cheers,
> Didier
> 
> 
> Le 04/04/2022 à 02:37, Gregory Nowak a écrit :
>> On Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 12:36:25PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
>>> last year I purchased some hi quality voices from Oralux, which are software
>>> speech. When I have Allison installed, I can send her text through spd-say.
>>> Making matters more complex, speech-dispatcher will not seem to install on
>>> this Debian Sid machine.
>>
>> This is contradictory. Having spd-say working implies a working and
>> installed speech-dispatcher. So, I will assume you have
>> speech-dispatcher installed and spd-say installed and working on one
>> machine, but not another. In that case saying speech-dispatcher won't
>> install doesn't help us help you.
>>
>>> Guidance I've received from 2 sources, says I must
>>> install and have espeak talking before I can switch to Allison, which is an
>>> embedded voice.
>>
>> If these voices interface through speech-dispatcher, then that would
>> make sense. However, the only way I know of to interface speakup to
>> speech-dispatcher right now is through speechd-up. So, it seems like
>> you would have to install speechd-up, get that working with
>> speech-dispatcher and espeak-ng, and once you have that working get
>> speech-dispatcher to use your purchased voices.
>>
>>> When I was running Slint on a laptop, Didier had created a
>>> talk-with command to easily switch synths, but his script would need to be
>>> re written for Debian.
>>
>> I can confirm the talkwith provided in the speakup-tools package for
>> debian bullseye seems to be broken. Issuing talkwith soft comes back
>> with:
>>
>> /usr/sbin/talkwith: 88: shift: can't shift that many
>>
>> I took a look at the script, but don't see where the problem is.
>>
>>> In addition, if I unload the DecTalk module, I won't
>>> have speech, or would their be a way of having both DecTalk and software
>>> speech at the same time?
>>
>> No, you can't have both your dectalk and software speech at the same time.
>>
>>> So, can some1 please provide exact commands I can
>>> switch synths on the fly? I ran a locate for softsynth  but nothing found.
>>
>> No surprise. What you want is the speakup_soft module. You would as
>> root load that with:
>>
>> modprobe speakup_soft
>>
>> then start espeakup or speechd-up, depending on which one you use. I
>> think that would be something like:
>>
>> systemctl speechd-up start
>> or
>> systemctl espeakup start
>>
>> I'm not a systemd user, so someone else can correct the above if
>> they're not correct.
>>
>> Now, assuming you have both speakup_soft and speakup_dectlk kernel
>> modules loaded, you can switch between them as root with:
>>
>> echo dectlk >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
>>
>> for the dectalk, and
>>
>> echo soft >/sys/accessibility/speakup/synth
>>
>> for software speech. Remember that before switching to dectlk you
>> should stop espeakup or speechd-up, and after switching to soft you
>> should start espeakup or speechd-up. I seem to recall you use csh, so
>> maybe someone can roll all that into a csh script for you.
>>
>> Greg
>>

Re: How Can I Switch Synthesizers on the Fly?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sun, Apr 03, 2022 at 09:57:45PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Error while openning the device in
> read/write mode 2,No such file or directory
> [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Trying to open the device in the old way.
> [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: Error while openning the device in read
> mode 2,No such file or directory
> [Sun Apr  3 17:46:06 2022] speechd: ERROR! Unable to open soft synth device
> (/dev/softsynth)

It looks like modprobe speakup_soft would solve this.

Greg


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