speech dispatcher not connecting to alsa

[Rob Hill]

Hello Bart and list,

No, emacspeak is definitely using alsa.  c-e c-s gives the message
"viavoice using alsa", and also the eflite_alsa binary works.  I
already have the libasound2-dev package installed, by the way.

Just to clarify, I'm very happy with how well the synthesisers work
with emacspeak on the console, or indeed via the gnome terminal.  My
goal is  to improve the performance of the synthesisers with orca, by
using speech-dispatcher.

Thanks,

Rob


Bart Bunting writes:
 > Hi,
 > 
 > Are you sure that emacspeak is using alsa?
 > 
 > If you do a c-e c-s does it say "viavoice using alsa" or just "viavoice"
 > If the latter then you are only using oss emulation.  If this is the case
 > speech dispatcher won't work as expected.
 > 
 > You should have an atcleci.so in the Linux-outloud subdir of the servers
 > directory in your emacspeak installation.
 > 
 > If you have this file and you are still hearing "viavoice" and not "viavoice
 > using alsa" the issue may be that you don't have the alsa headers installed.
 > The outloud script checks for the presence of one of the .h files to
 > determine if you have alsa available.
 > 
 > The easiest thing to do if this is the case is to install the libasound2-dev
 > package.
 > 
 > HTH
 > 
 > Bart
 > 
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: speechd-bounces at lists.freebsoft.org
 > [mailto:speechd-bounces at lists.freebsoft.org] On Behalf Of Rob Hill
 > Sent: Tuesday, 13 January 2009 1:12 PM
 > To: speechd at lists.freebsoft.org
 > Subject: speech dispatcher not connecting to alsa 
 > 
 > 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-ub
 > untu-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 
 > 
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