[raspberry-vi] Re: Welcome new joiners and progress with audio latency

  • From: Rill <starbasecafe@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: raspberry-vi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2014 08:27:20 -0600

Welcome!
I would add internet connectivity to the list via wireless or ethernet 
and headphones or a speaker.
Mike includes scripts with his images which makes set up much easier.
I am excited that so much progress has been made with pulse audio.
Rill
On 1/6/2014 8:10 AM, Mike Ray wrote:
> Come on now Mo...can't have any other devs coming in here stealing my
> glory.  Bow down before me mere snivelling mortals ;)
>
>
>
>
> On 06/01/2014 13:32, Mobeen Iqbal wrote:
>> hi mike. this is great news, i can't wait to test out the new image!
>> many thanks as always for all your hard work. its a shame we don't have
>> more devs on board to spread the load...
>>
>> Mo.
>>
>> On 06/01/2014 12:25, Mike Ray wrote:
>>> Hello list,
>>>
>>> We have a couple more joiners.  So welcome to them.  Please feel free to
>>> give us an intro if you haven't posted yet.
>>>
>>> The list can often be pretty quiet, with flurries of activity now and again.
>>>
>>> Audio latency...
>>>
>>> I have made some progress on finding a solution to the audio latency
>>> problems which plague us on text-to-speech, which in turn affects
>>> screen-readers etc.
>>>
>>> I have spent the last four days, and lots of the dark hours as well,
>>> getting to grips with pulseaudio.
>>>
>>> Up to now we have tried using espeak in it's default form, which uses
>>> the portaudio system.  It is this which is suffering latency problems
>>> and causing tts to stutter very badly and also to cause a kernel oops at
>>> regular but random points.
>>>
>>> When I re-compile espeak to use pulseaudio instead of portaudio, the
>>> stuttering is totally gone.
>>>
>>> Now I need to test Emacspeak and see if I can get SpeakUp and Emacspeak
>>> running side-by-side.  And it is looking good.
>>>
>>> I've been all round the houses with pulseaudio, and like so many things
>>> I have spent hours trying to understand how it all works and can now
>>> have it up and running in about ten minutes.
>>>
>>> Also, those who have been here for a while and have been following this
>>> thread will remember there was a problem with the previous version of
>>> our accessible Arch Linux image not booting on Pi boards equipped with
>>> 'Hynix' RAM chips.
>>>
>>> And the audio problems meant that we had to blacklist the kernel and
>>> firmware updates.  This locked us into kernel and firmware versions
>>> which were pre-April 2013.
>>>
>>> I'm pleased to say that the current image I am working on is totally up
>>> to date and is using kernel version 3.10.25, which is the latest Pi
>>> kernel version.
>>>
>>> So, in brief:
>>>
>>> 1.  pulseaudio seems to be solving the tts problems.
>>> 2.  The latest kernel and firmware will mean Hynix boards will boot.
>>>
>>> If I can't get Emacspeak to run alongside SpeakUp initially, I will
>>> release an image with just SpeakUp because I know some are waiting for
>>> this and are not that bothered about Emacspeak.
>>>
>>> Assuming this fixes the kernel oops, I will then go back to Raspbian and
>>> see if I can get SpeakUp to run on there with no crashes.
>>>
>>> I am not sure whether the Foundation's introduction of the 'Newbs' thing
>>> makes the latest Raspbian even less accessible because I think there is
>>> another menu to go through to select an operating system.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>> ===========================================================
>> 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

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