[raspberry-vi] Re: How far did debian get to being a viable option for raspberry VI?
- From: Mike Ray <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: raspberry-vi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:39:03 +0100
Gina,
Raspbian was the first distro on which I tried to get SpeakUp going.
The SpeakUp source is included as a 'staging' module in the source tree
and I believe the modules are currently included in builds of the
Raspbian kernel.
However, SpeakUp does NOT work with any stability on Raspbian. It hangs
the OS every couple of minutes with a kernel oops.
This is caused by a null-pointer dereference within the vchiq (video
core hardware interface queue) mechanism.
This is the reason I stopped trying to get SpeakUp working in Raspbian
and switched to Arch.
Jason Miller originally got Emacspeak to work on Arch and I subsequently
added SpeakUp and brltty.
Currently, the Arch image that is on the web site has the firmware, the
kernel version and the alsa-utils package added to the 'ignorepkg'
switch of pacman to stop them being upgraded during running 'pacman
-Syu'. Thie is for the following reasons:
1. At approximately the end of April a change was made to the Broadcom
sound driver module for DMA. Unfortunately this caused espeak to
'stutter' very badly. So the freeze on kernel version was added.
2. The same change to the sound driver meant that the alsa-utils
package now deletes the file /etc/alsa/alsa.conf, which causes espeak to
stop working.
3. At some point in July, there was a firmware change which resulted in
the last syllable of any espeak utterance to be badly cropped. Stopping
this firmware version upgrade prevents this.
Further to this, there are a few more developments highlighted by Phil's
attempts with a Radiospares Pi recently...
It seems that Pi boards manufactured by Radiospares after about April
use a 'Hynix' RAM chip instead of Samsung. With this version of board,
there are problems with both booting and espeak, again connected with
the vchiq mechanism.
I am trying to find out how to solve these issues, but I'm thwarted all
the time by a lack of any consideration for accessibility from the wider
Pi community. In particular the lack of inclusion of tts in any tests
of changes to audio sub-systems.
There are a lot of variables to play with;
alsa/pulse/espeak/speech-dispatcher/espeakup/speechd-up etc.
I can compile bespoke kernels if needed. I first started doing this on
a Pi, but a kernel compile takes more than twelve hours on a Pi and
about sixteen minutes on my Arch quad-core desktop machine. But what I
don't have at the moment is much drive to do too many experiments.
There has been very little response to our efforts in the past. Most
people seem to be unwilling to use the command-line and even fewer
people seem to be willing to give any time to learning to use
Emacspeak. A pity because it is very good.
I will continue to experiment with the 'Hynix' chip problem, Phil and I
swapped Pi boards so that I would have a Hynix board and Phile a Samsung
to experiment with.
Mike
On 15/10/2013 15:23, Georgina Joyce wrote:
> Hello Mike,
>
> What ones have you tried with speakup?
>
> Gena
> Georgina Joyce
> Applied Psychologist
> Training and Coaching.
> Because individuals of groups matter!
>
>
> On 14 Oct 2013, at 22:40, Mike Ray <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Gina,
>>
>> Raspbian is basedon Debian, but I think there is also a version of
>> Debian closer to the main-stream distro.
>>
>> I have a massive list of distros that someone posted on facebook. I will
>> find it.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> On 14/10/2013 21:21, Georgina Joyce wrote:
>>> Hello Mike and All,
>>>
>>> As subject line. How far did you get with building speakup on the raspberry
>>> debian?
>>>
>>> Gena
>>> Georgina Joyce
>>> Applied Psychologist
>>> Training and Coaching.
>>> Because individuals of groups matter!
>>>
>>>
>>> ===========================================================
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>>>
>>> This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views
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>>> those of the Foundation.
>>>
>>> Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Michael A. Ray
>> Analyst/Programmer
>> Witley, Surrey, South-east UK
>>
>> I KEEP six honest serving-men, They taught me all I know. Their names are
>> What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
>> -- Rudyard Kipling (paraphrased)
>>
>> Interested in accessibility on the Raspberry Pi?
>> Visit: http://www.raspberryvi.org/
>>
>> From where you can join our mailing list for visually-impaired Pi hackers
>>
>> ===========================================================
>> The raspberry-vi mailing list
>> Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
>> Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>> Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
>> Foundation.
>>
>> This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
>> attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of
>> the Foundation.
>>
>> Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
>>
>>
> ===========================================================
> The raspberry-vi mailing list
> Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
> Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
> Foundation.
>
> This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
> attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of
> the Foundation.
>
> Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
>
--
Michael A. Ray
Analyst/Programmer
Witley, Surrey, South-east UK
I KEEP six honest serving-men, They taught me all I know. Their names are What
and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
-- Rudyard Kipling (paraphrased)
Interested in accessibility on the Raspberry Pi?
Visit: http://www.raspberryvi.org/
From where you can join our mailing list for visually-impaired Pi hackers
===========================================================
The raspberry-vi mailing list
Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of the
Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
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