speech dispatcher not connecting to alsa

[Rob Hill]

Hello list,

I've as yet been unable to get orca working with speech dispatcher  on Intrepid.
I've tried permutations of system and user setup, different output
modules etc to no avail.  A typical output of the
var/log/speech-dispatcher/espeak.log file is:

 Tue Jan 13 14:49:13 2009 [528318] ALSA: Opening ALSA sound output
 Tue Jan 13 14:49:13 2009 [528379] ALSA: Opening ALSA device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2196:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM pcm.dmixer
 Tue Jan 13 14:49:13 2009 [531909] ALSA ERROR: Cannot open audio device 
pcm.dmixer (No such file or directory)
 Tue Jan 13 14:49:13 2009 [531937] ALSA ERROR: Cannot initialize Alsa device 
'pcm.dmixer': Can't open.


I usually hear the dummy module message.  My setup is as follows:

I have disabled pulseaudio according to the method given at:

http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/alsa-instead-of-pulseaudio-for-ubuntu-810-intrepid-a-non-destructive-way/

with all tabs in preferences-sounds-devices set to alsa, and all
system sounds disabled.  I use emacspeak from a console, with voxin
(ibmtts) and flite, which work perfectly.  When I use orca, it is via
espeak, which at the moment is very sluggish, but which does work via
gnome speech.  I use a .asoundrc file taken from the emacspeak
distribution, but removing it has no effect on whether speech
dispatcher works.  

I tried to install speech-dispatcher by installing the speech-dispatcher
and python-speechd packages, then using spd-conf.  

So the problem seems to be getting speech dispatcher to connect to
alsa.  All other audio on my system works fine, though.

any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Rob