another attempt to use speakup

["Bruce Noblick" <brunobrook@columbus.rr.com>]

Hello all,

I have pulled much of what I have done here from threads on this list but then I took a few leaps of faith on my own to get to a goal that has only very recently come into focus.  I will now explain.

I started with Ubuntu 8.04 and just recently upgraded to 8.10.
Then I opened a shell session with gnome-terminal.
Then I tried a variant on Kerry's instructions to get speakup working.  I built speakup as suggested, successfully.  Since I am using a DECTalk, I skipped the espeakup and did the modprobe and specified speakup_dectlk instead of speakup_soft.
It told me that it worked.
But then it was silent until I shut the computer down.
Then it talked while the computer was going down.
I had hoped that it would come up talking , even if only up to the login prompt, But it didn't.
Then I connected using ssh and had similar results when I did the modprobe command.
Then I saw the thread from just a few days ago about grml.  I downloaded and created the CD, found and read over the cheat sheet and attempted to boot with it and specified grml speakup_synth=dectlk.
I couldn't get that to work.
All I am trying to do now is get something to work with speakup.
I like the idea of a live CD That would allow me to get the best of the command line interface when I want it while allowing me to have the gnome environment.
I feel like I am close to it but I am apparently missing one or more steps.
Any thoughts are welcome.

Thanks!

Bruce Noblick