speakup, audio solutions

speakup, audio solutions

[Alonzo cuellar]

Hello,

This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are people
doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but is
there other work arounds?
This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
situations with their setups.

Alonzo

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

Pulseaudio doesn't work for me because I rely on Speakup pretty
thoroughly. I have several issues with it including very choppy speech
and stupid behavior over audio stopping play when I move out of the tty
where I invoked the audio.

I am about to go file an RFE with pulse to ask for an easy way to
configure pulse to leave any particular audio device alone. I know one
can terminate pulse on a per app basis, but that's too cumbersome, imo.
And, I think there should be something easier than writing a custom udev
rule to accomplish excluding some particular audio device from pulse.

Janina

Alonzo cuellar writes:
> Hello,
> 
> This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
> debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
> I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are people
> doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but is
> there other work arounds?
> This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
> something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
> situations with their setups.
> 
> Alonzo
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Doug Smith]

I really have quit a bit to say here.  I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system.  I have also terminated the entire 
graphical user interface with the same finality.  I am using debian testing without the desktop on it.  

The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound.  I have speakup system wide and I 
have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly.  I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I 
do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles.  Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my 
descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once.  



Hope this helps. 




-- 
Doug Smith: Special Agent
S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

Yes, screen rocks!

I do keep the gui, mainly for firefox even though it requires that I use
a second audio device.

Everything else is tty's and screen terminals. About half of my tty's
launch subject specific screen sessions with multiple terminals. In all
of those, I have aliases for mplayer to talk to several additional audio
devices, or ecaplay, or aplay. All works like a charm.

Janina

Doug Smith writes:
> 
> 
> I really have quit a bit to say here.  I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system.  I have also terminated the entire 
> graphical user interface with the same finality.  I am using debian testing without the desktop on it.  
> 
> The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound.  I have speakup system wide and I 
> have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly.  I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I 
> do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles.  Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my 
> descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once.  
> 
> 
> 
> Hope this helps. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Doug Smith: Special Agent
> S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
> Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Hart Larry]

Well Janina-and-All, an only issue here involving sound is if I am ripping audio 
and reading with the DecTalk U S B. The stream glitches, but not nearly as much 
a concern as when I had another PC in Fedora. I really wouldn't know how or why 
the DecTalk would at all get in the way of an Alsa action?  I am in Debian 
Testing 2.6.32
Hart

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Alonzo cuellar]

I understand. I never really figured out how to get rid of pulse audio on
fedora systems. I've always configured to use my arch installation with
alsa. I've not had a need for a second audio device. Though I do believe if
your doing some type of recording... A second audio device might be needed.
I think i read a few postings on how to disable pulse audio on Fedora a
while back. Which included touching
/usr/bin/pulseaudio
and removing pulseaudio and the pulse audio alsa plugins.
This is probably not the right way to do it though. I to rely on speakup
and haven't found a way to disable pulseaudio when installing fedora.
When I tried disabling pulse audio this way system audio would break and I
would not have speach.
Now if you have to configure aound.conf in /etc... I did not do so since I
only have one sound card on this system.
On my currently arch installation I have an .asoundrc file to have the
proper mic use for voice calls.
Any suggestions would be appreciated and perhaps I'll give fedora a try
once again.

Alonzo


On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 07:52:16PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Pulseaudio doesn't work for me because I rely on Speakup pretty
> thoroughly. I have several issues with it including very choppy speech
> and stupid behavior over audio stopping play when I move out of the tty
> where I invoked the audio.
> 
> I am about to go file an RFE with pulse to ask for an easy way to
> configure pulse to leave any particular audio device alone. I know one
> can terminate pulse on a per app basis, but that's too cumbersome, imo.
> And, I think there should be something easier than writing a custom udev
> rule to accomplish excluding some particular audio device from pulse.
> 
> Janina
> 
> Alonzo cuellar writes:
> > Hello,
> > 
> > This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
> > debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
> > I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are people
> > doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but is
> > there other work arounds?
> > This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
> > something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
> > situations with their setups.
> > 
> > Alonzo
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> -- 
> 
> Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> 			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
> 		Email:	janina@rednote.net
> 
> Linux Foundation Fellow
> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
> 
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
> 	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Rob Hudson]

If you have gnome or a variant installed, my understanding is that you can't 
remove pulse audio without breaking stuff. If you install XFCE desktop, I'm 
told you can avoid installing pulse along with it. I haven't tried this yet 
though. I understand XFCE is only minimally accessible.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alonzo cuellar" <mariachiac@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." 
<speakup@linux-speakup.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2013 6:00 AM
Subject: Re: speakup, audio solutions


>I understand. I never really figured out how to get rid of pulse audio on
> fedora systems. I've always configured to use my arch installation with
> alsa. I've not had a need for a second audio device. Though I do believe 
> if
> your doing some type of recording... A second audio device might be 
> needed.
> I think i read a few postings on how to disable pulse audio on Fedora a
> while back. Which included touching
> /usr/bin/pulseaudio
> and removing pulseaudio and the pulse audio alsa plugins.
> This is probably not the right way to do it though. I to rely on speakup
> and haven't found a way to disable pulseaudio when installing fedora.
> When I tried disabling pulse audio this way system audio would break and I
> would not have speach.
> Now if you have to configure aound.conf in /etc... I did not do so since I
> only have one sound card on this system.
> On my currently arch installation I have an .asoundrc file to have the
> proper mic use for voice calls.
> Any suggestions would be appreciated and perhaps I'll give fedora a try
> once again.
>
> Alonzo
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 07:52:16PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
>> Pulseaudio doesn't work for me because I rely on Speakup pretty
>> thoroughly. I have several issues with it including very choppy speech
>> and stupid behavior over audio stopping play when I move out of the tty
>> where I invoked the audio.
>>
>> I am about to go file an RFE with pulse to ask for an easy way to
>> configure pulse to leave any particular audio device alone. I know one
>> can terminate pulse on a per app basis, but that's too cumbersome, imo.
>> And, I think there should be something easier than writing a custom udev
>> rule to accomplish excluding some particular audio device from pulse.
>>
>> Janina
>>
>> Alonzo cuellar writes:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
>> > debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
>> > I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are 
>> > people
>> > doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but 
>> > is
>> > there other work arounds?
>> > This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
>> > something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
>> > situations with their setups.
>> >
>> > Alonzo
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Speakup mailing list
>> > Speakup@linux-speakup.org
>> > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200
>> sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
>> Email: janina@rednote.net
>>
>> Linux Foundation Fellow
>> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup: http://a11y.org
>>
>> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
>> Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
>> Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Kyle]

One major problem I've had with disabling Pulseaudio on any system whose
sound card only handles a single audio stream is latency with regard to
the ALSA Dmix plugin. I do now have a system that probably runs best
with such a setup, but I have found the latency associated with Dmix to
be quite problematic, and haven't yet found a way to adjust it so that I
can mix multiple audio streams without causing delays when interrupting
speech or enduring a seemingly unresponsive system overall. ALso, I
generally run GNOME with a fallback to the command line, usually in
cases where I intentionally break something in the graphical environment
and need to fix it, which is quite a bit more likely on the old laptop I
would be using to test a setup without Pulseaudio than on my desktop,
which I use for everyday tasks that require a working system, and does
not give me the freedom to break things. I do, however, need access to
both Orca/speech-dispatcher and Speakup/Espeakup on this system, so it
would certainly help to be able to use Dmix or another method of
handling multiple streams at once using Alsa witout Pulseaudio, if it
wasn't for the latency issues I have. If anyone has multiple streams
playing through a sound card that normally only plays a single stream
and at the same time has figured out how to solve the latency problems
with ALSA/Dmix, and if anyone has figured out how to keep Espeak from
chopping words/letters in speech-dispatcher using ALSA directly, please
let me know how to make this setup work correctly. You may certainly
contact me off-list to help me personally with such a setup, but I'm
thinking that many on this list may also be able to benefit as well.
Thanks for any help.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
-- 
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Kyle]

Yes, XFCE will work without Pulseaudio installed. However, I have had
rather serious problems with speech-dispatcher dying as soon as Orca
starts when configured to speak using ALSA. Installing Pulseaudio seems
to actually help this, but it causes Espeak to chop the end off some
words and completely miss some letters on older systems, and of course,
Pulseaudio will completely stop Speakup from speaking until or unless it
is suspended. I haven't yet found the perfect solution for running
speech-dispatcher+Espeak+Orca on older systems and also running Speakup
on the same system.

Furthermore, while XFCE itself is indeed minimally accessible, I find
that if you only use the graphical environment minimally, i.e. to run
Firefox, XFCE will most likely meet your needs without causing any major
slowdowns, even on old hardware.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
-- 
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Doug Smith]

That's good to hear.  I hope that, soon, I will be able to write a new web browser.  I have discovered a wonderful little gem that might assist in 
this.  

http://www.phantomjs.org

I download their archive, put the binary in my execution path and it works great.  I have to learn to use it, but I plan to use it as the javascript 
engine to make a new web browser.  

I will hopefully have something to tell all of you in the next little while, but more news is forthcoming.  



Glad to help. 





-- 
Doug Smith: Special Agent
S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Alonzo cuellar]

Yes,
XFCE can work for minimal things. However, for those who are sighted and
need a magnifier I'm not sure how to get that working. The only way I can
think is to run some part of gnome with xfce. Maybe gnome shell. However,
I'm not sure how to do that.
Another question is...
Does anyone know of a console magnifier this way one could have screen
access to the console when booting.

Alonzo



On Sun, Dec 01, 2013 at 03:11:56PM -0500, Kyle wrote:
> One major problem I've had with disabling Pulseaudio on any system whose
> sound card only handles a single audio stream is latency with regard to
> the ALSA Dmix plugin. I do now have a system that probably runs best
> with such a setup, but I have found the latency associated with Dmix to
> be quite problematic, and haven't yet found a way to adjust it so that I
> can mix multiple audio streams without causing delays when interrupting
> speech or enduring a seemingly unresponsive system overall. ALso, I
> generally run GNOME with a fallback to the command line, usually in
> cases where I intentionally break something in the graphical environment
> and need to fix it, which is quite a bit more likely on the old laptop I
> would be using to test a setup without Pulseaudio than on my desktop,
> which I use for everyday tasks that require a working system, and does
> not give me the freedom to break things. I do, however, need access to
> both Orca/speech-dispatcher and Speakup/Espeakup on this system, so it
> would certainly help to be able to use Dmix or another method of
> handling multiple streams at once using Alsa witout Pulseaudio, if it
> wasn't for the latency issues I have. If anyone has multiple streams
> playing through a sound card that normally only plays a single stream
> and at the same time has figured out how to solve the latency problems
> with ALSA/Dmix, and if anyone has figured out how to keep Espeak from
> chopping words/letters in speech-dispatcher using ALSA directly, please
> let me know how to make this setup work correctly. You may certainly
> contact me off-list to help me personally with such a setup, but I'm
> thinking that many on this list may also be able to benefit as well.
> Thanks for any help.
> ~Kyle
> http://kyle.tk/
> -- 
> "Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
> Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[John G. Heim]

I'm no expert in this area but don't you guys worry that you are trying 
to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon?  You can't fight the march of 
technology. If pulse is the wave of the future, I would tend to want to 
get started working with it rather than tossing it aside.

I just started working with sonar linux last week. I put it on my backup 
desktop at work. In my limited testing up to this point, it seems to be 
rock solid. I plan to continue trying it on my backup workstation at 
work and on my machine at home for a few more days before converting 
the machine I use to earn my bread and beer.

I can understand an attitude of saying that you need to postpone an 
upgrade because the technology just isn't there yet. That's why I'm 
typing this message on a machine still running debian squeeze.  But as 
soon as I am sure I can switch to a newer distro that works, I'm doing it.

On 11/30/13 22:38, Janina Sajka wrote:
> Yes, screen rocks!
>
> I do keep the gui, mainly for firefox even though it requires that I use
> a second audio device.
>
> Everything else is tty's and screen terminals. About half of my tty's
> launch subject specific screen sessions with multiple terminals. In all
> of those, I have aliases for mplayer to talk to several additional audio
> devices, or ecaplay, or aplay. All works like a charm.
>
> Janina
>
> Doug Smith writes:
>>
>>
>> I really have quit a bit to say here.  I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system.  I have also terminated the entire
>> graphical user interface with the same finality.  I am using debian testing without the desktop on it.
>>
>> The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound.  I have speakup system wide and I
>> have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly.  I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I
>> do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles.  Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my
>> descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Doug Smith: Special Agent
>> S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
>> Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

-- 
---
John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

Pulse may be some people's idea of the wave of the future, but Speakup
users aren't the only ones who find pulse very problematic. Also in this
category are:

*	People who do professional level work with audio composition.
*	These folks use jack, not pulseaudio. Jack was rejected for use
*	as a mainstream approach because it wasn't sufficiently
*	lightweight. I'll leave for others to judge whether pulse is
*	actually lightweight

	I've had conversations with Planet CCRMA people, for instance,
	so that I can categorically report that pulse is removed from
	all their computers at Stanford University. It only gets in the
	way.

	http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

*	People running games, where latency really matters. Of course,
*	latency also matters to us.

This second point may be an architectural failure on the part of pulse.
Well, what can I say? They never asked our requirements before they
designed and implemented pulse, so how can it be assumed that our
requirements are met? It's the old: "Nothing about us without us" that
got violated again.

Janina


John G. Heim writes:
> I'm no expert in this area but don't you guys worry that you are
> trying to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon?  You can't fight the
> march of technology. If pulse is the wave of the future, I would
> tend to want to get started working with it rather than tossing it
> aside.
> 
> I just started working with sonar linux last week. I put it on my
> backup desktop at work. In my limited testing up to this point, it
> seems to be rock solid. I plan to continue trying it on my backup
> workstation at work and on my machine at home for a few more days
> before converting the machine I use to earn my bread and beer.
> 
> I can understand an attitude of saying that you need to postpone an
> upgrade because the technology just isn't there yet. That's why I'm
> typing this message on a machine still running debian squeeze.  But
> as soon as I am sure I can switch to a newer distro that works, I'm
> doing it.
> 
> On 11/30/13 22:38, Janina Sajka wrote:
> >Yes, screen rocks!
> >
> >I do keep the gui, mainly for firefox even though it requires that I use
> >a second audio device.
> >
> >Everything else is tty's and screen terminals. About half of my tty's
> >launch subject specific screen sessions with multiple terminals. In all
> >of those, I have aliases for mplayer to talk to several additional audio
> >devices, or ecaplay, or aplay. All works like a charm.
> >
> >Janina
> >
> >Doug Smith writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>I really have quit a bit to say here.  I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system.  I have also terminated the entire
> >>graphical user interface with the same finality.  I am using debian testing without the desktop on it.
> >>
> >>The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound.  I have speakup system wide and I
> >>have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly.  I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I
> >>do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles.  Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my
> >>descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Hope this helps.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>Doug Smith: Special Agent
> >>S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
> >>Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>Speakup mailing list
> >>Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> >>http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> 
> -- 
> ---
> John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Gregory Nowak]

On Mon, Dec 02, 2013 at 09:44:18AM -0600, John G. Heim wrote:
> I'm no expert in this area but don't you guys worry that you are
> trying to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon?  You can't fight the
> march of technology. If pulse is the wave of the future, I would
> tend to want to get started working with it rather than tossing it
> aside.

I have to second what Janina said here. Your conclusion would be valid
if we were talking about m$ windows. In that world, if you want to
keep using windows, you have to go with the wave of the
future. However, we're talking about GNU/Linux here, where the end
user is supposed to be in control. If I don't want pulse on my system,
then I shouldn't be made to use it, just because I want to use gnome
for example. That's the windows way, not the linux way as far as I
figure anyway.

> I can understand an attitude of saying that you need to postpone an
> upgrade because the technology just isn't there yet. That's why I'm
> typing this message on a machine still running debian squeeze.  But
> as soon as I am sure I can switch to a newer distro that works, I'm
> doing it.

I have six machines (majority virtual) running wheezy here since end
of August. I honestly can't say that something doesn't work in
wheezy. Some things are different than they were in squeeze, but they
still work once you get used to the changes (E.G. gnome3).

Greg


-- 
web site: http://www.gregn..net
gpg public key: http://www.gregn..net/pubkey.asc
skype: gregn1
(authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)

--
Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager@EU.org

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

I only ever really worried about this in the rare instances that I've
been reduced to just one PC. Upgrade one at a time, is my motto.

But, in truth, what seems to happen far more often than a machine being
down and unusable, is me doing something dumb that causes some
particular task to become nonfunctional. It's possible that a package
upgrade can do this, too. The result is that mail just becomes unusable
in the usual way, or my phones don't work, or I don't have the GUI so
don't have Firefox, or my web pages are down, something like that. When
these things happen the actual cause can be elusive.


A recent example is that I broke my TLS authentication chain in outbound
mail. Incoming was fine, but I couldn't respond to anyone except to
postpone my outbound mail and then rsync that mbox up to my data center
based server where I could call up the messages from the postponed mbox
and send them out. Clunky, and annoying.

It turned out that I had never fully established TLS authentication over
IPv6. Once I figured out that was the problem, it took a few hours to
get everything back on track. But figuring out that this was the problem
took days. The logs weren't of any help, neither were the error
messages.

However, now that it's solved, I have the confidence that my mail is
going out properly encrypted both from my office desktop and from my
traveling laptop. Worked like a charm from Shenzhen, China the other
week, for instance.

Janina

John G. Heim writes:
> I'm no expert in this area but don't you guys worry that you are
> trying to hold back the ocean with a teaspoon?  You can't fight the
> march of technology. If pulse is the wave of the future, I would
> tend to want to get started working with it rather than tossing it
> aside.
> 
> I just started working with sonar linux last week. I put it on my
> backup desktop at work. In my limited testing up to this point, it
> seems to be rock solid. I plan to continue trying it on my backup
> workstation at work and on my machine at home for a few more days
> before converting the machine I use to earn my bread and beer.
> 
> I can understand an attitude of saying that you need to postpone an
> upgrade because the technology just isn't there yet. That's why I'm
> typing this message on a machine still running debian squeeze.  But
> as soon as I am sure I can switch to a newer distro that works, I'm
> doing it.
> 
> On 11/30/13 22:38, Janina Sajka wrote:
> >Yes, screen rocks!
> >
> >I do keep the gui, mainly for firefox even though it requires that I use
> >a second audio device.
> >
> >Everything else is tty's and screen terminals. About half of my tty's
> >launch subject specific screen sessions with multiple terminals. In all
> >of those, I have aliases for mplayer to talk to several additional audio
> >devices, or ecaplay, or aplay. All works like a charm.
> >
> >Janina
> >
> >Doug Smith writes:
> >>
> >>
> >>I really have quit a bit to say here.  I have also terminated pulse with extreme prejudice on this system.  I have also terminated the entire
> >>graphical user interface with the same finality.  I am using debian testing without the desktop on it.
> >>
> >>The way it works is that, when you use the text-based installer to install the system, it uses alsa for the sound.  I have speakup system wide and I
> >>have a fully functioning sound system on here that performs perfectly.  I can use multiple audio sources, and I have nothing to worry about because I
> >>do not have to, if I do not want to, switch between consoles.  Where it works well, I just use screen and there is no problem for me to play my
> >>descriptive movie, program and whatever else all at once.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Hope this helps.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>--
> >>Doug Smith: Special Agent
> >>S.W.A.T  Spiritual Warfare and Advanced Technology
> >>Forever serving our LORD and SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST.
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>Speakup mailing list
> >>Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> >>http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> 
> -- 
> ---
> John G. Heim, 608-263-4189, jheim@math.wisc.edu
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

Some thoughts ...

1.)	Don't bother removing the pulseaudio packages. All that will do
is cause some future upgrade which has pulse listed as a dependency to
reinstall pulse. Of course, you could go through the trouble of listing
as packages to exclude. But, then packages that list pulse as a
dependency won't want to install, forcing you to do something like
install without dependency checking, which could cause the installs to
break over some other missing piece.

2.)	Instead, just delete /usr/bin/pulseaudio, then as root, touch
that file so that an empty text file is created at that location.
Lastly, mark it read only for root by doing chmod 444. After that, pulse
may think it's working, but it won't work.

Thereafter, you have to focus on your alsa configurations. Sound should
work perfectly well, but you will use aplay instead of paplay, for
instance.

There is more that can be done, but I find the above sufficient, and my
Orca runs just fine. I just don't have the earcons in the GUI, not a big
loss, imo.

Now, I do like the notion of multiple sound cards. I work to have them
defined at particular locations and pay attention to make sure they're
loaded correctly when I boot every so often. Mostly I manage this in
/etc/modprobe.d/local.conf. If I were smarter, I'd do it in udev rules.

Here's my current list and what each does on my system. I also note what
each cost me for your information:

The following taken from "aplay -l |grep card' then edited:

card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
This is the default audio device, used mainly for Speakup which talks to
me over TTSynth and the Speakup Connector. If I want, I can aplay
through this device, but I don't usually do that.
Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 1: Generic [HD-Audio Generic], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
This is the digital output of my builtin audio card, the digital side of
Card 0 above. I don't use it currently. No plans to use it.

Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 3: Headset [Sennheiser USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
This card is very important to me. It's dedicated to sip phone calls. I
use it frequently and for long periods of time as much of my work
involves teleconferences.

Cost: About $80, but now priced somewhere over $100 when I look at
replacements.

card 4: Device [C-Media USB Audio Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]

This is the one reserved for Orca over Speech Dispatcher and Espeak.
Once Speech Dispatcher has this card in its grip, it will not share.
It's a one function device.

Cost: $15 approx.

card 5: AV710 [Chaintech AV-710], device 0: ICE1724 [ICE1724]
Currently this one drives fluidsynth software sound fonts which are
attached via aconnect and a USB midi cable to a small piano keyboard
that lives on my desk. I use it to double-check the key of something I'm
hearing, or to input midi for something I want to send to someone (via
arecordmidi).

Cost: $25 approx. This is a PCI card I bought years ago. It's a gem,
probably wasted on fluidsynth because it really sounds good. It uses the
snd-ice1724 driver, just like some high end audio devices.

Fluidsynth also doesn't share, so this card, too, is a one show pony
right now.

card 6: pcsp [pcsp], device 0: pcspeaker [pcsp]

Hey, beeps from the speaker are still important in my world. So, I make
sure the speaker has a device designation that doesn't compete with
other functions. BTW: I'm using snd-pcsp, but this could also be the old
pcspkr.

Cost: $0. It came with my mobo.

card 7: Headset_1 [Sennheiser USB Headset], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
This is just the usb dongle left over from an old Sennheiser headset. I
like the sound pretty well, so it's my main device to play music or
audio streams.

Cost: About $80 as above.

I need to pull this device when booting, or my linphone might confuse
the two Sennheiser devices.

I'm probably in the market for a higher quality DAC and some really
awesome speakers for my setup. These now exist and are worth checking
out, imo, for playing really high quality sound.

What ties all this together is a Mackie mixer. It lives on my desk where
most sighted people put a monitor, i.e. right in front of my face. To
adjust the eq, or push the volume of a particular card up or down, or to
direct Speakup to also talk into my Sennheiser headphones, useful when
I'm on a call, I just reach up and push buttons and twiddle knobs.

Cost: Mackie 1202 about $280 on Ebay.

I'm thinking of a bigger mixer--more inputs and especially more buses.
Currently, I have two speaker sets in the offce, a small pair of Roland
speakers on the desk for Speakup and Orca, and a largish pair of JBL's
behind me for music and such.

I have an old RME Multiface that's currently not working for some reason
I can't figure. But, that's another story. I have more devices to hook
up, so figuring out getting the Multiface working (as ALSA hw:8), or
replacing it is on the agenda.

Cost: Somewhere north of $1,400. Yes, the most expensive audio device I
own isn't currently working on my system. Go figure.

hth


Janina

Alonzo cuellar writes:
> I understand. I never really figured out how to get rid of pulse audio on
> fedora systems. I've always configured to use my arch installation with
> alsa. I've not had a need for a second audio device. Though I do believe if
> your doing some type of recording... A second audio device might be needed.
> I think i read a few postings on how to disable pulse audio on Fedora a
> while back. Which included touching
> /usr/bin/pulseaudio
> and removing pulseaudio and the pulse audio alsa plugins.
> This is probably not the right way to do it though. I to rely on speakup
> and haven't found a way to disable pulseaudio when installing fedora.
> When I tried disabling pulse audio this way system audio would break and I
> would not have speach.
> Now if you have to configure aound.conf in /etc... I did not do so since I
> only have one sound card on this system.
> On my currently arch installation I have an .asoundrc file to have the
> proper mic use for voice calls.
> Any suggestions would be appreciated and perhaps I'll give fedora a try
> once again.
> 
> Alonzo
> 
> 
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 07:52:16PM -0500, Janina Sajka wrote:
> > Pulseaudio doesn't work for me because I rely on Speakup pretty
> > thoroughly. I have several issues with it including very choppy speech
> > and stupid behavior over audio stopping play when I move out of the tty
> > where I invoked the audio.
> > 
> > I am about to go file an RFE with pulse to ask for an easy way to
> > configure pulse to leave any particular audio device alone. I know one
> > can terminate pulse on a per app basis, but that's too cumbersome, imo.
> > And, I think there should be something easier than writing a custom udev
> > rule to accomplish excluding some particular audio device from pulse.
> > 
> > Janina
> > 
> > Alonzo cuellar writes:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > This is just a question I have. For those using systems like fefora,
> > > debian, ubuntu, etc? How do you use speakup?
> > > I know pulse audio has problems with system-wide audio. So what are people
> > > doing these days? I can see maybe taking a seperate audio device, but is
> > > there other work arounds?
> > > This protains to those who use pulseaudio on their systems. It wa just
> > > something to ask the list since I'm sure many people face different
> > > situations with their setups.
> > > 
> > > Alonzo
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Speakup mailing list
> > > Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> > > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> > 			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
> > 		Email:	janina@rednote.net
> > 
> > Linux Foundation Fellow
> > Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
> > 
> > The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> > Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
> > 	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Janina Sajka]

Rob Hudson writes:
> If you have gnome or a variant installed, my understanding is that
> you can't remove pulse audio without breaking stuff.


Perhaps, but I don't find it has gotten in my way at all.

Maybe this is why I can't click on an audio stream in Firefox and have
it auto play, but this isn't how I want to use Firefox anyway. Instead,
I save the file on my hd and play it from one of my Speakup consoles
with mplayer. Frankly, I don't want FF playing music through the same
audio device I use for Orca. I understand there's configuration
somewhere in the gui for associating different types of audio streams
with different devices. I used to configure that. I don't bother
anymore.

Also, I know I don't have the earcons available in Gnome.

Orca itself works perfectly well, is very snappy, and just not a problem
in any way.

So, I can't say I mind whatever it is I've broken. It's just not
tripping me up yet.

Janina



-- 

Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
		Email:	janina@rednote.net

Linux Foundation Fellow
Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/

Re: speakup, audio solutions

[Willem van der Walt]

I have also taken out pulseaudio and all I had to do was to add all the 
users to the audio group, set speech-dispatcher to use alsa and all the 
things I tried to use worked with sound.
One can still assosiate the applications needed to open files using 
/etc/mailcap
One can even have one application opening the file in console mode and 
another one opening the same file in graphics mode.
This is done by adding a test line to the mailcap entry which test if the 
DISPLAY variable is set or not.
HTH, Willem


On Tue, 3 Dec 2013, Janina Sajka wrote:

>
> Rob Hudson writes:
>> If you have gnome or a variant installed, my understanding is that
>> you can't remove pulse audio without breaking stuff.
>
>
> Perhaps, but I don't find it has gotten in my way at all.
>
> Maybe this is why I can't click on an audio stream in Firefox and have
> it auto play, but this isn't how I want to use Firefox anyway. Instead,
> I save the file on my hd and play it from one of my Speakup consoles
> with mplayer. Frankly, I don't want FF playing music through the same
> audio device I use for Orca. I understand there's configuration
> somewhere in the gui for associating different types of audio streams
> with different devices. I used to configure that. I don't bother
> anymore.
>
> Also, I know I don't have the earcons available in Gnome.
>
> Orca itself works perfectly well, is very snappy, and just not a problem
> in any way.
>
> So, I can't say I mind whatever it is I've broken. It's just not
> tripping me up yet.
>
> Janina
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Janina Sajka,	Phone:	+1.443.300.2200
> 			sip:janina@asterisk.rednote.net
> 		Email:	janina@rednote.net
>
> Linux Foundation Fellow
> Executive Chair, Accessibility Workgroup:	http://a11y.org
>
> The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> Chair,	Protocols & Formats	http://www.w3.org/wai/pf
> 	Indie UI			http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> -- 
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