Gnopernicus Ubuntu Issues

[charles thewybles com]

           Hello everyone,

     I am working with a gentlemen who wants to use gnopernicus/ubuntu to
accomplish his daily tasks. I have installed ubuntu 5.1 (with latest
updates) and gnopernicus. I had it speaking when starting it from the
menu. After configuring it to:

 A. Launch when gnome starts (which works)
 B. Start via keystroke (which also works)

 speech no longer occurs. The program launches but no speech comes out. I
am able to play a wav file via XMMS and I am able to produce speech output
from festival. So I have ruled out issues with either the sound
daemon/gnome sound system and festival. I have also attempted to start
gnopernicus from the command line both by itself (which is how its started
from the menu [without arguments] and with the options --sound and
--enable-speech.

 Nothing works.

 I am a fairly advanced Linux guy, and the person I am working with is
also fairly technical. We both have tried to get this working and have
independently searched for solutions and now request your help.