[u-a-dev] [Bug 84220] Re: No speech in totem using eSpeak w/ Orca

[Mikael Holmgren]

Hi!
i've done some testing with espeak and portaudio19 (both stable and
dev-release).
One problem seems to be that portaudio doesn't use the alsa "default"
device, but use the first working one it comes across.
As i understand it, the default device must be used for the alsa
softwaremixing to be done. 
If playing some music and telling espeak to say something:
- In the stable v19 that doesn't work, pcm_open_fail.
In the dev version there is a patch for that, but you still get a very
long delay, since portaudio seems to try devices until it comes to the
default device and then espeak speaks.
I then tried patching portaudio to open the default device directly (i
think that could be done from espeak's call to pa).
That kind of worked, however after a while sound could hang...
If this things could be sorted out, then i think we could have a working
software mixing (for soundcards that needs it).

/Mikael

tor 2007-02-22 klockan 19:45 +0000 skrev Jonathan Duddington:
> This sounds like it's caused by portaudio V18, which uses the OSS sound
> system, which can only by used by one program at a time.  Portaudio V19
> can use the ALSA sound system and can mix sounds from multiple sources.
> I believe eSpeak on Ubuntu is built to use portaudio V18.
> 
> Ubuntu could perhaps build eSpeak to use PortAudio V19, and also include
> the PortAudio V19 library in main?  It should be possible for both V18
> and V19 of PortAudio to be present, since V19 names its library as
> libportaudio.so.2 rather than libportaudio.so.0.
> 
> However there is a problem with PortAudio V19.
> 
> I noticed when I tried using eSpeak with PortAudio V19 from the command
> line, eg:
>   espeak "hello" 
> 
> that there was a loud click and a short pause before speaking, every
> time I did the command.  I don't know whether this effect depends on particular sound hardware.
> 
> -- 
> No speech in totem using eSpeak w/ Orca
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/84220
>