Speech-dispatcher taking up my sound card

Speech-dispatcher taking up my sound card

[mikster4]

Hello,
I am using speech-dispatcher 0.6 for software output, with festival using 
ALSA. When ever I try and use any software that is using OSS for sound, it 
always complains that the sound card is busy. If I set speech-dispatcher to 
use OSS it stops anything else from using the sound card. This is so even 
when no speech is being produced (e.g. when I have silenced speakup). I 
don't remember this was so in speech-dispatcher 0.5, is there a setting I 
have not noticed in 0.6, or will my answer be to go back to 0.5?
From
Michael Whapples

Re: Speech-dispatcher taking up my sound card

[Gregory Nowak]

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I haven't used speech dispatcher for a while, but I'd recommend
switching to alsa, and using dmix if you're hardware isn't
multichannel.

Greg


On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 12:44:51AM +0000, mikster4@msn.com wrote:
> Hello,
> I am using speech-dispatcher 0.6 for software output, with festival using 
> ALSA. When ever I try and use any software that is using OSS for sound, it 
> always complains that the sound card is busy. If I set speech-dispatcher to 
> use OSS it stops anything else from using the sound card. This is so even 
> when no speech is being produced (e.g. when I have silenced speakup). I 
> don't remember this was so in speech-dispatcher 0.5, is there a setting I 
> have not noticed in 0.6, or will my answer be to go back to 0.5?
> From
> Michael Whapples
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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Re: Speech-dispatcher taking up my sound card

[Hynek Hanke]

mikster4@msn.com píše v Pá 03. 02. 2006 v 00:44 +0000:
> I am using speech-dispatcher 0.6 for software output, with festival using 
> ALSA. When ever I try and use any software that is using OSS for sound, it 
> always complains that the sound card is busy. 

This is a permissions bug in ALSA, it was reported and it has been fixed
since then. Basically only the first user to connect to dmix
could mix sound (if you are running speech-dispatcher, this will likely
be the user speech-dispatcher or root) and the other users got refused
by dmix.

You need to upgrade your libasound, I think.

> If I set speech-dispatcher to 
> use OSS it stops anything else from using the sound card. This is so even 
> when no speech is being produced (e.g. when I have silenced speakup). I 
> don't remember this was so in speech-dispatcher 0.5, is there a setting I 
> have not noticed in 0.6, or will my answer be to go back to 0.5?

This should not happen. The device is normally openned just before
playing a sound and closed just after the playing finished in OSS mode.
I just tested it.

I guess ALSA is still mixing in and giving you problems somehow.
Cannot it be that you are also loading flite output module and flite
loads ALSA and you run into that ALSA dmix permissions problem described
above? Try to disable all other modules than festival in speechd.conf
(option AddModule). (But this is just for curiosity, I recommend fixing
ALSA and using ALSA if possible.)

Have a nice day,
Hynek