"Tom Moore" writes:

The reason for Speakup spelling words has to do with the preempt kernel option being turned on in the default Grml kernel. If you compile a kernel with the Grml sources and turn this option off this will go away and Speakup will operate as you expect.

I am quoting a message from the archives that was posted last March. I downloaded the live CD grml_1.0.iso image and am experiencing this very problem with software speech.

Before reen venting any more wheels than necessary, is there any ISO image of this live CD that has the kernel compiled without the preempt option turned on?

Does this, itself cause any other side effects?

I am not afraid of building kernels but haven't built any ISO images before other than to use mkisofs to enshrine directories on a CDROM.

Another idea might be to have 2 kernels on the live CD and boot from, say, grml or grml-alt. Judging from the present size of this image, there might not be enough room for that, but it is a thought.

I tested the live CD on a Dell Enspiron2600 with a 1-gig Celeron CPU and 256-megs of RAM, and a ten-year-old Gateway Pentium with only 64 megs of ram and a 400-MHZ processor. Both had the spelling torture response and, surprisingly, both spoke at about the same speed. The Gateway probably would have worked just fine if not for the preemption issue. It probably wouldn't have had much memory left over for doing work with just the 64 megs.

The laptop delivered little bursts of good speech and then lapsed in to slow spelling any time it was doing other work such as scrolling the screen.

Thanks for any advice.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group