Re: [gentoo-accessibility] Gentoo AMD64 live DVD and software speech

[John Robinson]

Hi William and many thanks for your e-mail in which you request the 
complete output of the LSPCI and AMIXER commands when using your test 
AMD64 live DVD.  I have just booted my system into this live DVD and 
would just like to re-iterate that, although all Alsa modules appear to 
have loaded successfully, all audio channels on my sound card appear 
muted whenever I run Alsamixer.  I hear no sound when trying to use 
programs such as Mplayer and I am having to use my Dectalk USB as a 
speech synthesizer, as I cannot get Espeak to speak through Alsa.  The 
complete output of the LSPCI command is as follows:


00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller 
Hub (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root 
Port (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High 
Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI 
Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI 
Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC 
Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE 
Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) 
SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller 
(rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72 [GeForce 7300 
SE/7200 GS] (rev a1)
02:02.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): NEC Corporation uPD72874 IEEE1394 OHCI 1.1 
3-port PHY-Link Ctrlr (rev 01)
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL-8110SC/8169SC Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)


The complete output of the AMIXER command is as follows:


Simple mixer control 'Master',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono: Playback 30 [97%] [-1.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Front',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 30 [97%] [-1.50dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 30 [97%] [-1.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Front Line',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Front Mic',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Front Mic Boost',0
   Capabilities: volume
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: 0 - 3
   Front Left: 0 [0%]
   Front Right: 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control 'Surround',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-46.50dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-46.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Center',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono: Playback 0 [0%] [-46.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'LFE',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono: Playback 0 [0%] [-46.50dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'CD',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 30 [97%] [10.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 30 [97%] [10.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
   Capabilities: volume
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: 0 - 3
   Front Left: 0 [0%]
   Front Right: 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Capture channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Default PCM',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
   Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Capture 0 - 31
   Front Left: Capture 30 [97%] [33.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Capture 30 [97%] [33.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',1
   Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Capture 0 - 31
   Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [-12.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [-12.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Beep',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',0
   Capabilities: cenum
   Items: 'Mic' 'Front Mic' 'Line' 'Front Line' 'CD'
   Item0: 'Mic'
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',1
   Capabilities: cenum
   Items: 'Mic' 'Front Mic' 'Line' 'Front Line' 'CD'
   Item0: 'Mic'

If you have any suggestions as to what can be done to make the test 
AMD64 live DVD speak using Espeak through Alsa, I would be very grateful.

Yours sincerely,

John Robinson





On 09/10/09 23:01, William Hubbs wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> We need the full output from the following commands:
>
> lspci -vv
>
> amixer
>
> Also it would help if you can tell us which channels on your sound card
> you usually unmute.
>
> Thanks,
>
> William
>
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:38:23PM +0100, John Robinson wrote:
>
>> Hi William.  All my sound card channels were still muted when I started
>> Alsamixer.  In case it's relevant, the LSPCI utility describes my sound
>> card as follows:
>>
>> 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High
>> Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
>>
>> Alsamixer reports that my soundcard is of type HDA Intel and that the
>> audio chip itself is a Realtek ALC883.  If you need any clarification or
>> further details, please let me know.  I would very much appreciate any
>> further suggestions or advice you may have.
>>
>> Yours sincerely,
>>
>> John Robinson
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 09/10/09 22:22, William Hubbs wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 09:55:01PM +0100, John Robinson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hi William and many thanks for your message.  I tried exactly what you
>>>> suggested, booting into the live DVD and typing 'gentoo
>>>> speakup.synth=dectlk nox' at the boot prompt.  My Dectalk USB started
>>>> speaking as it should, but after all Alsa modules were loaded, it
>>>> announced that no Alsa configuration was present and that I'd have to
>>>> unmute my card.  Sorry I couldn't record the exact message.  I then
>>>> launched Alsamixer, unmuting all channels and turning them up to full
>>>> volume.  After pressing 'Escape' to save the settings, I played an MP3
>>>> file with Mplayer to ensure that my card was unmuted.  This file played
>>>> successfully.  I next typed 'espeak "Hello,this is a test."' as you
>>>> suggested.  There was no error, but I heard no speech at all.  Finally,
>>>> I repeated the same procedure, but output the result to a Wave file.  I
>>>> played this successfully in Mplayer.
>>>>
>>>> In conclusion, Espeak appears to be able to creat Wave files on my
>>>> system, but does not appear to be able to speak through Alsa, even when
>>>> all my sound card's channels are unmuted.  I would very much appreciate
>>>> any advice you may have as to how to resolve this.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>    Ok John, we found this issue, and we are working on building another
>>>    image that will allow espeak to speak through alsa.
>>>
>>> The other thing I am concerned about though is your sound card.  When
>>> you started alsamixer was everything still muted?
>>>
>>> William
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>