Version of Speakup in latest kernel

[Henrik Nilsen Omma]

Hi Garry,

(I replied to your email, but this is likely of general interest so I'll 
repost here.)

There are several problems with speakup in the kernel going forward. The 
crux is that the speakup project has not been following the mainline 
kernel development closely enough and has not managed to to integrate 
their work into the main line kernel code.

We have decided to drop support for speakup in the Gutsy kernel and I 
hear Gentoo is doing the same. I'm afraid it's simply too complex to 
maintain over time. There have been long debates about this on the 
speakup list already. I'm not sure speakup will even compile with the 
new 2.6.22 kernels (not just in Ubuntu; anywhere).

So you'll probably be able to compile a newer speakup version with a 
Feisty 2.6.20 kernel, and a .deb could be made, but going forward it 
will be tricky. My suggestion is to start looking at a user space 
solution, perhaps based on brltty.

Henrik

Garry Turkington wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm in a bit of a transition period as I move several machines over to 
> Ubuntu.  One is a VIA C3 box with no audio connection, I access it via 
> Speakup using a Dectalk Express.
>
> I was very pleasantly surprised to see the stock Ubuntu kernel comes with 
> Speakup pre-built, that at a stroke will make my life much easier. 
> However, due to interrupt changes in the 2.6.20 kernel the Speakup Dectalk 
> Express driver was broken for a while.  Downloading the latest Ubuntu 
> kernel sources it appears it's using Speakup from October 2006 - the 
> Dectalk Express fixes went in with the April 13 commit this year.
>
> So, are there plans for the stock kernel to update its included Speakup 
> version to the latest CVS?  Years of rpmbuild has clearly rotted my brain 
> as I have been encountering some ahem user error in trying to hand-update 
> the sources myself and rebuild.  Or is this a question best aimed at the 
> kernel list (assuming there is one)?
>
> Thanks,
> Garry
>
>