Re: [orca-list] Pulseaudio and speech-dispatcher/gnome-speech in Ubuntu.

[Hynek Hanke <hanke brailcom org>]

Luke Yelavich wrote:
> * Speech-dispatcher is configured to run system-wide, with espeak as the default driver, using ALSA. I did 
> not change this, because from what I have read in the past from this list, users are used to configuring 
> speech-dispatcher to their needs, which then lead me to believe that all who use speech-dispatcher, know how 
> to configure it, and know what they are doing.
No. We must always distinguish between the current and ideal state. The 
fact that many of the users know how to configure Speech Dispatcher is 
great and its to their benefit. This must however not lead us to believe 
that we should not aim to provide them with the best default setup or 
even expect them to fix problems with the default setup instead of us.
>  So if you wish to use speech-dispatcher with pulseaudio, you will need to edit 
> /etc/default/speech-dispatcher, dand set the variable there to no, so that it doesn't run system wide. You 
> will then need to set up the configuration for speech-dispatcher in your home directory per instructions in 
> the speech-dispatcher documentation, and configure things to use pulseaudio, and start speech-dispatcher at 
> login. This can be done in your .bashrc file.
>   
Ok, if PulseAudio would not the default solution for Ubuntu Hardy, I 
think it is OK to ask the users to do these things if they use PulseAudio.

I see however a big problem with this setup. Running Speech Dispatcher 
system wide with ALSA output prevents PulseAudio to start on one channel 
soundcards. This means, if I'm not mistaken, that installing Speech 
Dispatcher will effectively destroy all other sound output in Ubuntu 
Hardy. This seems to be a serious bug and it is important that it is 
fixed before the release.

Please try to think about it and to find some solution.

Thank you,
Hynek