* Martin McCormick martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu [20090629 02:10]:

Boot the CDROM and wait for things to settle down. type swspeak=espeak and hit Enter. Nothing.

I had a sighted person watch and the first thing to hit the screen is a picture of a keyboard and the boot prompt. If I then type swspeak=espeak or swspeak=speechd, the screen goes black and the CDROM drive runs for a few more seconds and then nothing.

Boot using 'grml swspeak' and then type just 'swspeak' when booting finished.

I even downloaded the medium image and tried it with the same results. Does the medium ISO image contain any software speech?

No, grml-medium doesn't provide software speech.

regards, -mika-

Hello, I think possibly the answer has been given, at the boot prompt where a keyboard is shown enter: grml swspeak

NOTE: espeak is the default for swspeak so no need for specifying espeak, although it won't hurt if you really want to add that.

I did an audio walk through for installing grml with software speech. Although it is for grml 2008.11 the process is the same for using and installing grml 2009.05 with software speech. You can either find it on www.blindcooltech.com or my website, here is the direct link http://www.mwhapples.plus.com/linux/audio/grml_install.ogg.

Also I discovered that with grml2usb you can create a bootable USB drive which will have all the swspeak and such like boot options by default, and then you don't need to enter anything at the boot prompt for that USB device. However it does require a machine capable of booting from USB.

Michael Whapples On -10/01/37 20:59, Martin McCormick wrote:

I have been trying to install grml_2009.05.iso on a Dell Enspiron laptop from the 2002 era. This computer does work as it does have the last edition of oralux on it with speakup. The speech and Ethernet functions work fine but such things as sound recording and serial communications do not work so I have been hoping that a newer distribution would bring more systems to life. I downloaded grml_2009.05.iso and did the following:

Boot the CDROM and wait for things to settle down. type swspeak=espeak and hit Enter. Nothing.

I had a sighted person watch and the first thing to hit the screen is a picture of a keyboard and the boot prompt. If I then type swspeak=espeak or swspeak=speechd, the screen goes black and the CDROM drive runs for a few more seconds and then nothing.

Am I forgetting something, possibly an en cantation over a frog killed in the first quarter of the Moon or what?

I even downloaded the medium image and tried it with the same results. Does the medium ISO image contain any software speech?

I did get a 2-year-old grml live CD to talk, but it began spelling any time one tried to go in to the installation routine so so much for that.

Any other suggestions as to what to try or do I have some part of the procedure wrong?

Many thanks.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ Stillwater, OK Systems Engineer OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group