[orca-list] General orca questions with ubuntu hardy

[Farhan <i am farhan gmail com>]

Hello all, after playing with ubuntu hardy for a couple days i've noticed some strange things and have a 
couple questions that I hope someone can answer.
first, i'm running ubuntu in a windows vmware machine as i'm not ready to switch to linux full time and want 
to make sure everything works before I make that choice.
1. after freshly installing ubuntu hardy, running apt-get update apt-get upgrade and installing the 
speech-dispatcher package from the apt-repos and python-speechd I have some strange things going on.
I try  to start the /etc/ini.d/speech-dispatcher service and it lets me know that I have to change a value in 
/etc/default/speech-dispatcher to yes, I edit the file and successfully start the init.d speech-dispatcher 
service
I do a spd-say test and nothing happens.
I restart thinking maybe that might fix it, still nothing.
I stop the init.d service for speech-dispatcher and run
 speech-dispatcher -d as root
I do an spd-say test again and it works.
but now I have the following problem, if I want to use speech-dispatcher with orca I have to stop the init.d 
service and start the speech-dispatcher service as root manually each time
is this a problem with me or is there something i'm missing here.
2. after using espeak with speech-dispatcher or gnome-speech I realize that the responsiveness isn't what I 
thought it would be.
I know this is in a vm so I realize there will be a little bit of a delay, but is there something I need to 
modify in my speechd.conf or espeak module to make it more responsive?
failing this, can someone recommend me a more responsive speech synth and what speech system to use with it 
for the best results?
thanks, Farhan