Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
First thing, I want to say, I am really fond of GRML because of it's accessibility features. As the Manager of High Performance Computing at the Math Department of the University of Wisconsin, I was responsible for a beowulf cluster of 6 to 8 small super computers and about 100 Linux desktops. GRML saved my bacon many times. However, I do have a dream. I would like to building a bootable ISO that starts speech automatically during boot.
To start speakup, you have to load a kernel module, speakup_soft. Then you have to run a program, espeakup. I know it is possible to configure that in an initrd file. But I have no idea how to go about doing it with GRML.
Any idea would be most greatly appreciated.
Hi John,
* John G. Heim [Tue May 06, 2025 at 08:11:14PM -0500]:
First thing, I want to say, I am really fond of GRML because of it's accessibility features. As the Manager of High Performance Computing at the Math Department of the University of Wisconsin, I was responsible for a beowulf cluster of 6 to 8 small super computers and about 100 Linux desktops. GRML saved my bacon many times. However, I do have a dream. I would like to building a bootable ISO that starts speech automatically during boot.
To start speakup, you have to load a kernel module, speakup_soft. Then you have to run a program, espeakup. I know it is possible to configure that in an initrd file. But I have no idea how to go about doing it with GRML.
Any idea would be most greatly appreciated.
I like your idea and feature request, and have your latest mail with subject "Loading a kernel module at boot?" flagged as important in my mailbox. I just haven't the opportunity yet to look into it.
We've had a swspeak boot option in the past, but as nobody was using/testing that, it got dropped several years ago. But if we know that there are users out there who make actual usage of it, we should change that. :)
We'll figure something out and keep you in the loop! :)
regards -mika-
We've had a swspeak boot option in the past, but as nobody was using/testing that, it got dropped several years ago. But if we know that there are users out there who make actual usage of it, we should change that. :)
We'll figure something out and keep you in the loop! :)
regards -mika-
I don't remember hearing about the swspeak option. I will admit that I sometimes was slow to test the accessibility features of each new release. Often, a development release would be announced and by the time I got around to testing it, it was already production. Sorry about that. But I always just checked if I could get speech after it was done booting. Which has always worked. I do try to test every release. You might recall that last fall I posted that the musical tone wasn't working. But it turns out it just wasn't working on one machine.
BTW, the speakup developers tell me that you can't activate the speakup drivers on the Linux kernel command line unless they are compiled into the kernel. So that is never going to work. Well, you could compile the speakup drivers into the GRML kernel (instead of compiling them as loadable modules) but even I think that's a bit much. The main reason I don't think that is worth while is that nobody has a hardware synth any more. Well, I do but I'm very much not typical. Software speech would be way more useful to the vast majority of blind sys admins.
Yeah, so if you could add a kernel parameter, similar to ssh=password, that enabled software speech during boot, then a blind sysadmin could use grml2iso to make a customized version that automatically started talking during boot. It would be like a dream come true for me. I don't know if you've ever had a crashed authentication server but it's not a good time to have to press a key at exactly the right time or to have to type exactly the right thing in order to get speech. I'll bet I typed modprove instead of modprobe (or speakup+soft instead of speakup_soft) a million times in my life when a key server was down. 100 professors and TAs can't log into their computers and I'm like, "Calm down, deep breaths. Slow but steady wins the race."
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* John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 12:00:58PM -0500]:
We've had a swspeak boot option in the past, but as nobody was using/testing that, it got dropped several years ago. But if we know that there are users out there who make actual usage of it, we should change that. :)
We'll figure something out and keep you in the loop! :)
I don't remember hearing about the swspeak option. I will admit that I sometimes was slow to test the accessibility features of each new release. Often, a development release would be announced and by the time I got around to testing it, it was already production. Sorry about that. But I always just checked if I could get speech after it was done booting. Which has always worked. I do try to test every release. You might recall that last fall I posted that the musical tone wasn't working. But it turns out it just wasn't working on one machine.
The swspeak boot option existed until 2011, so it's quite some time that passed since then. :)
And no worries about the testing, we had more active and also more inactive times ourselves. If we know whom to reach out and if maintenance isn't too much of a burden, we should be able to manage that. :)
BTW, the speakup developers tell me that you can't activate the speakup drivers on the Linux kernel command line unless they are compiled into the kernel. So that is never going to work. Well, you could compile the speakup drivers into the GRML kernel (instead of compiling them as loadable modules) but even I think that's a bit much. The main reason I don't think that is worth while is that nobody has a hardware synth any more. Well, I do but I'm very much not typical. Software speech would be way more useful to the vast majority of blind sys admins.
Ah ok.
Yeah, so if you could add a kernel parameter, similar to ssh=password, that enabled software speech during boot, then a blind sysadmin could use grml2iso to make a customized version that automatically started talking during boot. It would be like a dream come true for me.
Sure, let's get this done. :)
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
I don't know if you've ever had a crashed authentication server but it's not a good time to have to press a key at exactly the right time or to have to type exactly the right thing in order to get speech. I'll bet I typed modprove instead of modprobe (or speakup+soft instead of speakup_soft) a million times in my life when a key server was down. 100 professors and TAs can't log into their computers and I'm like, "Calm down, deep breaths. Slow but steady wins the race."
Hehe, I can very well imagine!
regards -mika-
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
===
Systems-Facing call, 2025-05-15 @ 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT**
*Topic*:*Accessibility Tools for Linux System Administrators***
This session will explore various tools and workflows that extend the capabilities of system administrators in GNU/Linux environments. This session will share methods for navigating server hardware, performing maintenance tasks, and managing installations using both talking and automated installers. The talk will provide an overview of console and graphical screen readers like Speakup and Orca, as well as hardware and software speech synthesis from a system administration standpoint.
*Speaker:*
* John G. Heim, System Engineer University of Wisconsin
*Slides & Links:*
*
*Announcements:*
*
*Zoom Meeting Room:*
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When: Thursday, May 15, 2025 12:00 PM – 12:50 PM Organizer: CaRCC People Network 6i9b3nn38sn7a1s1fh12cidkl8@group.calendar.google.com Description: Systems-Facing call, 2025-05-15 @ 1p ET/ 12p CT/ 11a MT/ 10a PT Topic: Accessibility Tools for Linux System Administrators This session will explore various tools and workflows that extend the capabilities of system administrators in GNU/Linux environments. This session will share methods for navigating server hardware, performing maintenance tasks, and managing installations using both talking and automated installers. The talk will provide an overview of console and graphical screen readers like Speakup and Orca, as well as hardware and software speech synthesis from a system administration standpoint.
Speaker:
* John G. Heim, System Engineer Emeritus, University of Wisconsin Slides & Links:
* Announcements:
*
Zoom Meeting Room:
https://utah.zoom.us/my/carcc?pwd=TjFuR3VVM2d5eE5zWnEvWWxDTFBCUT09 Meeting ID: 824 051 8198 Password: 31415926
One tap mobile +13462487799,,8240518198#,,#,31415926# US (Houston) +16699006833,,8240518198#,,#,31415926# US (San Jose)
Dial by your locationhttps://utah.zoom.us/u/afbtUZSFF +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Join by Skype for Business https://utah.zoom.us/skype/8240518198
-----Original Appointment----- From: CaRCC People Network 6i9b3nn38sn7a1s1fh12cidkl8@group.calendar.google.com Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2025 2:49 PM To: CaRCC People Network Subject: Synced invitation: CaRCC Systems-Facing Call @ Monthly from 10am to 10:50am on the third Thursday from Thu 20 Mar to Wed 16 Jul (PDT) (matthew.smith@ubc.ca) When: Thursday, May 15, 2025 12:00 PM-12:50 PM America/Chicago. Where:
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Attachments: about:blank Attendees:
* John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu
* John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
regards -mika-
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk
3. kernel module speakup_soft
4. espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_soft
3. Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
* John G. Heim [Fri May 09, 2025 at 12:23:16PM -0500]:
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
Alright, should not be a problem
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
Alright, also shouldn't be a problem either. Thanks!
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
So that should be 19:00 CEST then, let's see :)
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Hehe :)
regards -mika-
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk
3. kernel module speakup_soft
4. espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_soft
3. Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
_______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml join #grml on irc.freenode.org grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml join #grml on irc.freenode.org grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml join #grml on irc.freenode.org grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/
I'm getting HTML, not a script when I wget that link. But it is important to describe the process rather than to provide a script. The reason is that I want to document this so other people can use it in the future. It's one thing if the GRML developers change a flag in grml2iso, that kind of thing is going to happen and you have to fix your documentation when it does. But I don't want to tell people to download a script that may or may not be there in the future.
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options. I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Grml <grml-bounces@ml.grml.org> On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote: > * John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]: >> On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote: >>> To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is >>> relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like >>> speakup_dectlk? >>> >>> Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or >>> alike to get it working/useful for your situation? Personally, I would need the following: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk 3. kernel module speakup_soft 4. espeakup program/package The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech. >> I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware >> synth, >> you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason >> supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind >> friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So >> far, that >> has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I >> ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block. > Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, > but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours? For most users, this would be sufficient: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_soft 3. Espeakup program/package >> BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today >> on being >> a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium >> (https://carcc.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$>). Meeting details below. I will probably mention >> GRML but >> I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover. > That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone > right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern > Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST? > I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it. _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$> _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$>
Sorry, just saw your reply was in spam. You'd need to wget the github raw link instead of the regular one. The raw link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/refs/heads/main/m...
It's a bit to document. I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.
On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 12:07 PM John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
I'm getting HTML, not a script when I wget that link. But it is important to describe the process rather than to provide a script. The reason is that I want to document this so other people can use it in the future. It's one thing if the GRML developers change a flag in grml2iso, that kind of thing is going to happen and you have to fix your documentation when it does. But I don't want to tell people to download a script that may or may not be there in the future.
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When
I
ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$). Meeting details below. I will probably mention
GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$ join #grml on irc.freenode.org https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$ grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$ join #grml on irc.freenode.org https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$ grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$
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I added some documentation to mk.sh. Also, made sure it worked with Grml 2025.05.
On Thu, May 15, 2025 at 12:14 AM Kyle Sebion kyle@kylesebion.com wrote:
Sorry, just saw your reply was in spam. You'd need to wget the github raw link instead of the regular one. The raw link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/refs/heads/main/m...
It's a bit to document. I'll see if I can do that tomorrow.
On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 12:07 PM John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
I'm getting HTML, not a script when I wget that link. But it is important to describe the process rather than to provide a script. The reason is that I want to document this so other people can use it in the future. It's one thing if the GRML developers change a flag in grml2iso, that kind of thing is going to happen and you have to fix your documentation when it does. But I don't want to tell people to download a script that may or may not be there in the future.
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port.
When I
ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$). Meeting details below. I will probably mention
GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$ join #grml on irc.freenode.org https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$ grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$ join #grml on irc.freenode.org https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$ grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$
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I updated the script to support speakup_ltlk. ./mk.sh <grml.iso> ltlk
On Sun, May 11, 2025 at 12:19 AM Kyle Sebion kyle@kylesebion.com wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When
I
ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org). Meeting details below. I will probably mention GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml join #grml on irc.freenode.org grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml join #grml on irc.freenode.org grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/
Ah ha!
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings.
Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of hook for customization that I was unaware of.
I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter.
I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications to the script to make it a little more friendly and more generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code:
if driver is 'soft' then
generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh
fi
add speakup module to initramfs
Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup' instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge improvement but it's not nothin' either.
I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again.
And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting iso file. If you start with something like grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso.
It might be better to end up with something like grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the tab completion.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* family.
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options. I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Grml <grml-bounces@ml.grml.org> On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote: > * John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]: >> On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote: >>> To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is >>> relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like >>> speakup_dectlk? >>> >>> Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or >>> alike to get it working/useful for your situation? Personally, I would need the following: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk 3. kernel module speakup_soft 4. espeakup program/package The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech. >> I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware >> synth, >> you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason >> supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind >> friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So >> far, that >> has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I >> ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block. > Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, > but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours? For most users, this would be sufficient: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_soft 3. Espeakup program/package >> BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today >> on being >> a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium >> (https://carcc.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$>). Meeting details below. I will probably mention >> GRML but >> I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover. > That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone > right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern > Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST? > I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it. _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$> _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$>
Ah ha!
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings.
Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of hook for customization that I was unaware of.
I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter.
I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications to the script to make it a little more friendly and more generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code:
if driver is 'soft' then
generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh
fi
add speakup module to initramfs
Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup' instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge improvement but it's not nothin' either.
I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again.
And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting iso file. If you start with something like grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso.
It might be better to end up with something like grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the tab completion.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options. I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Grml <grml-bounces@ml.grml.org> On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote: > * John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]: >> On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote: >>> To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is >>> relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like >>> speakup_dectlk? >>> >>> Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or >>> alike to get it working/useful for your situation? Personally, I would need the following: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk 3. kernel module speakup_soft 4. espeakup program/package The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech. >> I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware >> synth, >> you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason >> supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind >> friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So >> far, that >> has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I >> ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block. > Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, > but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours? For most users, this would be sufficient: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_soft 3. Espeakup program/package >> BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today >> on being >> a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium >> (https://carcc.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$>). Meeting details below. I will probably mention >> GRML but >> I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover. > That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone > right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern > Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST? > I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it. _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$> _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$>
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso.
Close. Nothing is resquashed. The unsquashed fs is used for collecting packages and generating a new initramfs, then deleted.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my
desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
If speakup_soft isn't loaded, then I'd guess something wrong happened during https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd38647446... (systemctl enable --now espeakup). What do systemctl status espeakup and journalctl -ab0 -u espeakup show?
I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special
case.
I did that to reduce the scope of my testing.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at
the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa
That sounds fine. Just make sure to adhere to the GPL2 license: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE.
On Sat, May 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
Ah ha!
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings.
Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of hook for customization that I was unaware of.
I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter.
I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications to the script to make it a little more friendly and more generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code:
if driver is 'soft' then
generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh
fi
add speakup module to initramfs
Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup' instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge improvement but it's not nothin' either.
I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again.
And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting iso file. If you start with something like grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso.
It might be better to end up with something like grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the tab completion.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When
I
ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$). Meeting details below. I will probably mention
GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$ join #grml on irc.freenode.org https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$ grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$
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I made an ISO file with your script, posted it on my web site, and somebody on the blind sysadmins list has already used it to rescue a down server. It works for him, he got speech during boot.
I am mostly testing on a laptop so maybe it's just that one machine. I As i said, i also tried it on my desktop early on and didn't get speech. But testing it on my desktop is a PITA because I have to reboot my desktop with every test iteration. It's hard to test even on my laptop because it takes a long time to try a modification, recreate the iso file, write it to a thumb drive, put the thumb drive in the laptop, and reboot the laptop. Each testing cycle takes like 15 minutes. Plus then if i don't get speech, i can't figure out what is wrong with speech. I have to ssh in and if that doesn't work for some reason, I've wasted 15 minutes.
But like i said, it works in a VM and it works for this other guy. I think we are due for some bad weather here in Wisconsin over the next few days. I'll just take my time and get back to you if i figure anything out.
No matter what, we are way better off than before you wrote the script. I tried many times over the years to rebuild the GRML iso with the hardware synth drivers loaded by default. I could easily enough figure out how to take apart the GRML iso but I could never figure out how to put it back together agin. I was always trying to resquas the file system and put that back in there. I didn't even notice you weren't doing that until you pointed it out. But I don't think that was where I was failing anyway. I think I was failing to rebuild a ISO from the iso file system. That's hard.
PS: We got into a bit of a discussion about hardware synths on one of the lists i am on for blind sys admins and seems like nobody still has their hardware synth but me. Man, I don't know though. That seems dangerous to me. I would not want to rely on software speech when the chips are down.
On 5/29/25 9:01 PM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso.Close. Nothing is resquashed. The unsquashed fs is used for collecting packages and generating a new initramfs, then deleted.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.If speakup_soft isn't loaded, then I'd guess something wrong happened during https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd38647446... https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd3864744664a40037726b2/mk.sh*L60__;Iw!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sLdl68NVQ$ (systemctl enable --now espeakup). What do systemctl status espeakup and journalctl -ab0 -u espeakup show?
I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case.I did that to reduce the scope of my testing.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* faThat sounds fine. Just make sure to adhere to the GPL2 license: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sJ9FBRegg$.
On Sat, May 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
Ah ha! I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings. Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of hook for customization that I was unaware of. I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great. But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange. Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter. I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications to the script to make it a little more friendly and more generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code: if driver is 'soft' then generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh fi add speakup module to initramfs Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup' instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge improvement but it's not nothin' either. I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again. And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting iso file. If you start with something like grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. It might be better to end up with something like grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the tab completion. How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$> It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes. I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working. On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM <tommym2006@gmail.com> wrote: Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options. I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly. Tom -----Original Message----- From: Grml <grml-bounces@ml.grml.org> On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote: > * John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]: >> On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote: >>> To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is >>> relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like >>> speakup_dectlk? >>> >>> Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or >>> alike to get it working/useful for your situation? Personally, I would need the following: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk 3. kernel module speakup_soft 4. espeakup program/package The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech. >> I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware >> synth, >> you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason >> supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My blind >> friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So >> far, that >> has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port. When I >> ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block. > Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, > but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours? For most users, this would be sufficient: 1. Kernel module speakup 2. Kernel module speakup_soft 3. Espeakup program/package >> BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today >> on being >> a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium >> (https://carcc.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$>). Meeting details below. I will probably mention >> GRML but >> I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover. > That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone > right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern > Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST? > I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it. _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$> _______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhstMPDMw$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbhf2s-evA$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbj2Y6uRBA$>_______________________________________________ Grml mailing list - Grml@ml.grml.org https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://lists.mur.at/mailman/listinfo/grml__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sJp0sqyOA$> join #grml on irc.freenode.org <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://irc.freenode.org__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sIyAMUXYQ$> grml-devel-blog: http://blog.grml.org/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://blog.grml.org/__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sL1DKtewA$>
I'm glad I could help some. Must have been meant to be because I got very lucky when I found the command to create the .iso file. That was the first time I've created a .iso file like that. And yeah, testing outside a vm is quite time consuming, even with good sight. I'll try to think of a better way to do it.
On Sat, May 31, 2025, 11:34 John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
I made an ISO file with your script, posted it on my web site, and somebody on the blind sysadmins list has already used it to rescue a down server. It works for him, he got speech during boot.
I am mostly testing on a laptop so maybe it's just that one machine. I As i said, i also tried it on my desktop early on and didn't get speech. But testing it on my desktop is a PITA because I have to reboot my desktop with every test iteration. It's hard to test even on my laptop because it takes a long time to try a modification, recreate the iso file, write it to a thumb drive, put the thumb drive in the laptop, and reboot the laptop. Each testing cycle takes like 15 minutes. Plus then if i don't get speech, i can't figure out what is wrong with speech. I have to ssh in and if that doesn't work for some reason, I've wasted 15 minutes.
But like i said, it works in a VM and it works for this other guy. I think we are due for some bad weather here in Wisconsin over the next few days. I'll just take my time and get back to you if i figure anything out.
No matter what, we are way better off than before you wrote the script. I tried many times over the years to rebuild the GRML iso with the hardware synth drivers loaded by default. I could easily enough figure out how to take apart the GRML iso but I could never figure out how to put it back together agin. I was always trying to resquas the file system and put that back in there. I didn't even notice you weren't doing that until you pointed it out. But I don't think that was where I was failing anyway. I think I was failing to rebuild a ISO from the iso file system. That's hard.
PS: We got into a bit of a discussion about hardware synths on one of the lists i am on for blind sys admins and seems like nobody still has their hardware synth but me. Man, I don't know though. That seems dangerous to me. I would not want to rely on software speech when the chips are down.
On 5/29/25 9:01 PM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an
updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso.
Close. Nothing is resquashed. The unsquashed fs is used for collecting packages and generating a new initramfs, then deleted.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my
desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
If speakup_soft isn't loaded, then I'd guess something wrong happened during https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd38647446... https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd3864744664a40037726b2/mk.sh*L60__;Iw!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sLdl68NVQ$ (systemctl enable --now espeakup). What do systemctl status espeakup and journalctl -ab0 -u espeakup show?
I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a
special case.
I did that to reduce the scope of my testing.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at
the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa
That sounds fine. Just make sure to adhere to the GPL2 license: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sJ9FBRegg$ .
On Sat, May 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM John G. Heim jheim@math.wisc.edu wrote:
Ah ha!
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings.
Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of hook for customization that I was unaware of.
I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking. So that's strange.
Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter.
I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications to the script to make it a little more friendly and more generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code:
if driver is 'soft' then
generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh
fi
add speakup module to initramfs
Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup' instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge improvement but it's not nothin' either.
I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again.
And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting iso file. If you start with something like grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso.
It might be better to end up with something like grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the tab completion.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That way it fits into the grml2* fa
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John, I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file: https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$ It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify that it isn't doing anything malicious. To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso> It will create espeakup.iso. You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot espeakup.iso on. I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my hardware). You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud). You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working. That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain it, yet. Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM tommym2006@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, Some other dependencies for software speech would be: The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume set to 3/4 volume for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian installer has this functionality and if there's a way you could look at this you'd have a place to look as their install has had this for a few versions now working properly.
Tom
-----Original Message----- From: Grml grml-bounces@ml.grml.org On Behalf Of John G. Heim Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM To: grml@ml.grml.org Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
- John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe speakup" is relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like speakup_dectlk?
Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe speakup_soft" or alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_ltlk
kernel module speakup_soft
espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to access a text to speech engine for software speech.
I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use a hardware synth, you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is another reason supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is worth. My
blind
friends say the machines they work on do not have serial ports. So far, that has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a serial port.
When I
ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port header block.
Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or alike, but that might be relevant for users without hardware like yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
Kernel module speakup
Kernel module speakup_soft
Espeakup program/package
BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week from today on being a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing Consortium (https://carcc.org
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$). Meeting details below. I will probably mention
GRML but I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to cover.
That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing though. The meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so that's why it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll send the organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet should have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used to 3:00 AM being lunch time, so be it.
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Teilnehmer (4)
-
John G. Heim -
Kyle Sebion -
Michael Prokop -
tommym2006＠gmail.com