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[orca-list] Speeding up Espeak was Re: Short Jaunty alpha-3 impressions

Hi,
If you need espeak to speak faster than the 99 setting with Orca, you can try the following:
Make sure you are running espeak 1.40 or higher.  You can check this by typing:
espeak --help > tmp.txt
the first line of tmp.txt will have the version.
You can get the latest version from http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
Download the source version.  It's the first package listed on the downloads page.
Extract it and use terminal to get into the src directory.
On my system, I had problems getting it to install.  It wasn't detecting lportaudio.  The fix for this problem is pretty simple.  Just type the following line in terminal:
sudo ln /usr/lib/libportaudio.so.0  /usr/lib/libportaudio.so
To get espeak installed, while in the src directory, type the following:
make
It will do it's thing and when your prompt comes back up, type:
sudo make install
An important note, when I installed it, Orca changed languages on me.  I had to open preferences and switch back.  It was a little tricky.  You may be able to just close and re-open Orca to fix this problem.  I didn't think of trying that at the time.  But if you aren't comfortable guessing your way around the prefrences window, you may want to have a sighted assistant near by when doing this.
Now, for the speed boost.  In my case, I use en-us.  in the following example, if you use a different language, just replace the en stuff with your own language info:
sudo vi /usr/share/espeak-data/voices/en/en-us
This is the us english file.  At the very bottom of the file, on a new line, type the following:
fast_test 2 40 40
You can of course change the numbers.  This is as fast as I can comfortably understand it.  It's around 510 words per minute.
If you lower the numbers it goes faster, if you increase them it slows down.
Enjoy, and if there is a need for a more detailed guide let me know.
Storm

On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 06:52 -0500, Jacob Schmude wrote: 
Hi
My impressions are actually the opposite. I've got all updates applied  
as of a few minutes ago, and for me the 9.04 alpha release is blazing  
fast--faster, in fact, than any other gnome installation I've used.  
There's almost no delay at all opening up menus or with orca  
navigation, no matter what speech synthesizer or speech library I'm  
using. Speaking of which, I'm not sure if there's a speech dispatcher  
fix in 9.04 or if something else fixed this, but my issues with speech  
dispatcher seem to be gone, something I'm very happy about. When I use  
espeak, I use rate 99 and that's still not fast enough for me, so it's  
nice not to have any other responsiveness issues. Even the livecd I  
used, which is a few days old (it was a daily build from last  
Saturday) was lightning fast.
The language screen spoke fine for me during the installer, as did the  
manual partitioner for the most part--I used that because I wanted to  
install onto an ext4 partition. The one quirk I found in the manual  
partitioner was that, when creating a partition, the filesystem combo  
box didn't read properly, with each choice being identified only as  
"filesystem." This was easily worked around by creating the partition,  
then editing the partition I'd just created, as the edit partition  
dialog speaks perfectly including the filesystem/partition type  
selector.
I haven't noticed the system becoming bogged down, or any system  
resource allocation problems either. In fact, the resource usage is  
less while running 9.04 than it is in 8.10 for me.
I would have expected a very different result, seeing as how I'm  
simply running it in a virtual machine with 512mb of ram and one  
processor. Perhaps you're having hardware driver issues? In  
particular, check your video driver and X configuration, as that can  
often cause a lot of lag if not configured quite right.



On Jan 27, 2009, at 06:32, Hammer Attila wrote:

> Dear List!
>
> I tryed two day with Jaunty Alpha3 release, i would like writing my
> short impressions:
> Yesterday first, because espeak is not work nagively, I not want
> inserting manualy snd-pcm-oss and snd-mixer-oss
> modules and testing purpose I want makinfg different changes, I  
> making a
> custom live cd with trivial offficial accessibility changes with
> live.gnome.org/Orca page and following changes:
> 1. inserting the snd-mixer-oss and snd-pcm-oss modules with /etc/ 
> modules
> file.
> 2. Configuring default accessibility support to screen reader with
> following:
> When extracted the filesystem.squashfs file and chrooted the new  
> system,
> typing following commands:
> gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility true
> gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/applications/at/visual/startup  
> true
> I like this, because BeLin (similar release with Vinux) using this  
> method.
>
> I disabling pulse audio because lot of time my machine lost speech  
> Hardy
> and Intrepid. I using following documentation:
> http://idyllictux.wordpress.com/2008/10/29/alsa-instead-of-pulseaudio-for-ubuntu-810-intrepid-a-non-destructive-way/
>
> Yesterday impressions:
> When booting the live cd, it is very fast. Because inserting snd-pcm- 
> oss
> module and snd-mixer-oss module, the sound is correct work my desktop
> machine, but my notebook the sound is not working because I not have
> sighted assistance yet. The login sound is not played, but the Orca
> screen reader is starting automaticaly and talking correct.
> I found following problems, please anybody confirm:
> 1. When typing any application with my keyboard, Espeak saying later  
> the
> typed character, such as 2 second later when I pressing a letter for
> example. When moving a menu (for example the applications menu),  
> Orca or
> espeak is very slow, wait 1,5 or two second before speaking. I using
> 70.0 speech rate, it is very fast. :-):-)
> The latenci is very disturb when I trying fastest moving the menues or
> dialog controls with official
> navigation methods.
> I have got a Creative Audigy LS sound card my desktop machine.
>
> For example in Hardy or Intrepid, Espeak doing a little latency, but  
> lot
> of slowest with Debian Lenny. If I working in Lenny, the typing is  
> very
> fast, the moving operations is bigger fastest. If I known right,  
> Debian
> using
> oldest gnome-speech version. Possible fixing this latenci problem and
> fastest the speech latenci?
>
> 2. When I launching Mozilla Firefox, the heading navigations is not
> speeching. For example when I pressing h key, not spokening the actual
> heading level. Only speeching xxx heading level when i pressing for
> example the where am I key.
>
> 3. When I trying install with 9.04, I founding following problemsafter
> running Ubiquity:
> - Language list is not spokening yet.
> - partitioner manual setting is not working, my desktop machine.
>
> This is yesterday result.
>
> On thuesday, I looked originaly 9.04 current dayly live cd (I manual
> loaded snd-mixer-oss and
> snd-pcm-oss modules) producing very slow speech latency.
> I looked two machines, my desktop pc and my notebook.
> For example when I typing very fast the apple word, the speech
> sinthesizer (Espeak) says this:
> a    p    l    e
> When speech sinthesizer beginning says the a letter, the apple word
> already wroted.
>
> Another problem:
> When Orca is not running, the system monitor application is displaying
> the cpu usage is 4%.
> When Orca is running, the system monitor displaying 28% or larger cpu
> usage. (When I launched firefox, first cpu showing 35%, second cpu
> showing 50% I think).
> I have got an Athlon64 X2 processor and 2 GB ram of my desktop  
> machine,
> i think it is not good result.
> In Debian Lenny, when Orca is running, the system monitor application
> showing 4% cpu usage, this is correct.
>
> I known, 9.04 is an alpha state, but if not happen drastical think, I
> hope it
> is very stable release in final date.
>
> I have got a question:
> This speech latency is an Orca, gnome-speech or Espeak problem? I  
> tryed
> installed latest trunk version with Jaunty, the problem is present,  
> but
> only Jaunty, Debian Lenny, Intrepid, Hardy not producing this  
> drastical
> latency.
>
> I waiting alpha-4 release, because I very like testing development
> versions.
>
> Attila
>
> -- Ubuntu-accessibility mailing list
> Ubuntu-accessibility lists ubuntu com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-accessibility
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