Re: [orca-list] Speech dispatcher vs. gnome speech

[Jacob Schmude <j schmude gmail com>]

Hi
One major advantage to speech dispatcher is that it handles audio output directly rather than leaving it to 
the individual synthesizer. This means that synths such as ViaVoice which insist on using OSS as their output 
method instead will go through the output method that is set up in speech dispatcher, meaning they can go 
through ALSA or Pulseaudio without the stability issues that result when using wrappers such as 
libpulsedsp.so or libaoss.so. In synthesizers like espeak, with gnome-speech, the output method has to be 
compiled in and there can be only one, whereas with speech dispatcher this is not an issue.
Another advantage to it is responsiveness, there's no CORBA passing when using speech dispatcher which 
decreases certain lag issues dramatically.
That being said, there are still issues with speech dispatcher. Still, with CORBA being phased out, 
gnome-speech was on life support anyway, and it makes sense to go with a desktop-neutral solution with the 
migration to Dbus. Speech dispatcher does not require any GNOME libraries to function so, for example, when 
we have access to KDE it will still work withouth GNOME. The same can not be said of gnome-speech.


On Nov 10, 2009, at 09:55, Zachary Kline wrote:

> Hi All,
> As an ArchLinux user, I'm currently using Gnome 2.28 with gnome speech
> and espeak.  I'd just like to say, for the record, that I find this
> solution quite sufficient for my needs.  Speech-dispatcher has always
> seemed to be an extra layer of complexity for me, one which is unneeded.  
> There may be hidden advantages to it which I'm unaware of.  I'd be
> curious to hear someone else's take on this.
> All the best,
> Zack.
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