Hi all,
As many can attest to, the installing of speech on the latest Raspberry OS
dated 11 January 2021 is a bit of hit and miss. After many hours of writing,
rewriting and various different configuration options, I would like to
outline two approaches I used to get Speakup working. This also helps me to
document the steps I took in the event I need to use it in the future.
The first approach gets Speakup working but, it sounds like a smoker who has
throat cancer. So, here's the steps I followed:
1. Download the latest image from http://www.raspberrypi.org in this
case I chose Raspberry OS with Desktop.
2. I attached a card reader to my Raspberry PI and inserted a card I
wish to use.
3. I booted up the Raspberry PI. I already have a previous PI with
speech hence this approach.
4. I then used the following command to verify to which device I am
writing the image to:
Sudo fdisk -l
5. I used the "dd" utility to write the image on to a Micro SD card.
The command I used is:
Warning:
Please ensure you have the right card as the following step will wipe all
data from your card.
Sudo dd if=./2021-01-11-raspios-buster-armhf.img of=/dev/sda bs=250M
conv=sync,noerror status=progress
6. I then had to mount the boot partition to add the "ssh" file to get
headless access. To do this, I first had to create a mountpoint using the
following command:
Sudo mkdir /media/mydisk
7. Now I had to give the mountpoint the necessary permissions to be
able to read, write and execute by:
Sudo chmod 777 /media/mydisk
8. Now let's mount the boot partition by doing:
Sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/mydisk
9. Let's create the "ssh" file which allows us to be able to gain
headless access to configure our operating system. The command to do so is:
sudo touch /media/mydisk/ssh
10. Remove the card from the card reader and insert it into your PI and
reboot.
11. I used a Windows 10 machine using Putty to access the Raspberry PI
but, before we get there, we need to get the ip address of your newly booted
up PI.
12. I used a utility from https://www.nirsoft.net/ called
wnetwatcher.exe which scans your local network and provides you with all the
ip addresses connected to your network. If you wish to refresh the list of
ip addresses, press <f5>.
13. Using Putty, connect to your PI by providing the ip address,
username which is "pi" and the password which is "raspberry"
14. While all guides I have seen asks you to update and upgrade all
packages, in this case, we are not going to do that at present.
15. To be able to use the PI and get Orca installed, we need to install
a dummy display driver so, lets do:
# instead of have to prefix all commands with sudo, let's elevate privileges
to get necessary permissions to install packages:
Sudo su
# Now let's install the dummy driver.
apt install xserver-xorg-video-dummy -yq
# we need to configure the dummy display driver by creating a .conf file
echo -e "\nSection \"Monitor\"\nIdentifier \"Monitor0\"\nHorizSync
28.0-80.0\nVertRefresh 48.0-75.0\n# https://arachnoid.com/modelines/\n#
1920x1080 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 67.08 kHz; pclk: 172.80 MHz\nModeline
\"1920x1080_60.00\" 172.80 1920 2040 2248 2576 1080 1081 1084 1118 -HSync
+Vsync\nEndSection\nSection \"Device\"\nIdentifier \"Card0\"\nDriver
\"dummy\"\nVideoRam 256000\nEndSection\nSection \"Screen\"\nDefaultDepth
24\nIdentifier \"Screen0\"\nDevice \"Card0\"\nMonitor
\"Monitor0\"\nSubSection \"Display\"\nDepth 24\nModes
\"1920x1080_60.00\"\nEndSubSection\nEndSection\n" >> /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# Let's now ensure we are using the internal sound card.
Raspi-config
# select the first item called system options and press <enter>
# Now select the second option call "audio" and press <enter>
# Use your up or down arrows to select "1 Headphones" and press <enter>
# This places you back on the main menu of the "raspi-config utility".
# select the first option called "system options" and press <enter>
# Arrow down to the fifth option called "5 Boot / Auto Login Select boot
into desktop or to command line" and press <enter>
# Once the submenu opens, arrow down to "4 Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI,
automatically logged in as 'pi' user" and press <enter>
# This will bring you back to the mainmenu.
# press the right arrow twice to land on the "finish" button and press
<enter>
# You should get a prompt to reboot. Press <y> and <enter> If not, simply
type
Reboot
16. Once your PI reboots, you will get a message "screen reader on"
17. Press <ctrl+alt+space> to install Orca.
18. You will get messages to tell you that Orca is downloading and when
it is complete after which, the PI will reboot.
19. Now, you will get a message to tell you that you have ssh enabled
and that your password has not been changed simply press <enter>
20. After this, you will get the setup wizard this will speak with Orca
just go ahead and make your choices and complete the wizard which will place
you on the desktop.
21. Once you land on the desktop, press the <windows logo> key to bring
up the menu.
22. Arrow down to "accessories" and press <enter>
23. Now up arrow to "terminal" and press <enter>
24. Once the "terminal" opens, Orca will still speak so type:
Sudo modprobe speakup_soft
25. To check if the speakup modules are loaded type:
Lsmod | grep speakup
26. If you get modules bing listed, speakup is loaded.
27. Now install "espeakup"
Sudo apt install espeakup
28. This will give you speech but, you will also have Orca speaking at
this point. Use <insert+enter> on the numeric pad to silence speakup.
29. Typing "exit" will get you out of terminal and back to the desktop
and a clearer sounding espeak.
30. Pressing <alt+ctrl+del> will bring up the shutdown dialog. <tab> to
"exit to commandline and press <enter>
31. Now, press <insert+enter> to get your very sick sounding cancer
infected speech synthesizer.
Every time you boot up, you will have speech you can go back to the
"raspi-config" and use the first two options to login for the text console.
This message has been very long and I will follow it up with the second
approach in a separate message.
Thanks goes to Mike and Pranav for all the assistance over the years and
ideas here were adapted from both of them.
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