Re: Severe issue installing emacspeak for Ubuntu users

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The process speaker not running error usually means you have not got the text-to-speech synth layer installed/setup correctly or you have not told emacspeak which tts synth interface to use. There are clear instructions within the Makefile which tell you how to test the various components individually. You need to do this to work out where the error runs. 

Just for the record, I run emacspeak on Ubuntu 13.04, Kali Linux (Debian based), Linux Mint and Fedora with no issues (mainly 64 bit). Problems are almost always configuration/setup issues. Don't forget that you need to set some environment variables to tell emacspeak which tts synth you are using and remember that it is possible that once you have set these (usually in your .profile), you either need to source the updated .profiel to ensure those changes are added to your current shell (not forgetting that this will only set the required variables in the current session - people get confused about different console sessions or terminals, espeailly when running under X). Sometimes, just to simplify matters, I recommend after updating your .profile to reboot your system - this at least will ensure consistency. Above all, read and follow the recommendations in the Makefile and varify all your components are working correctly. If you still have problems, at least you will know exactly where they problems are and we will be able to provide more accurate assistance. 

Tim

On 17 August 2013 12:19, Bill Dengler(win8) <billkd2008@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Here are some notes for an accessible install from source that someone sent me on the Orca list.
Hope they help someone.
*** Installing Emacs 24

$ sudo apt-get install emacs24

If you want to install Emacs snapshots, which come out every couple of days, I came across the following. I didn't have any trouble with the snapshots, but I don't need to be on the bleeding edge when it comes to Emacs, and my apt-get upgrade runs more quickly if I just stick with Emacs24.

I got the following instructions from http://sinewalker.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/install-emacs24-snapshot-on-debian-ubuntu-and-windows-7/

Ubuntu

I’m running Ubuntu 11.10 in a VirtualBox on work’s Windows 7 machine. As mentioned at Julien Danjou’s page,
Damien Cassou makes a version of the same emacs-snapshot for Ubuntu, which is hosted at Launchpad. You add it and install simalarly:

Add the PPA (Personal Package Archive). This also imports the key:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cassou/emacs

Update your package database

$ sudo apt-get update

Install emacs-snapshot

$ sudo apt-get install emacs-snapshot

*** Installing Emacspeak

**** Getting and Making Emacspeak

I downloaded the latest Emacspeak, emacspeak-37.0.tar.bz2, from http://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/.

fter unpacking this file, I went into the resulting directory, i.e. emacspeak-37.0, and ran the following commands:

$ make config
$ make emacspeak

$ sudo apt-get install texinfo

$ sudo make install

Note that in the future I want to change the prefix to /usr/local before making Emacspeak, at least until I figure out how to package it.

I also went into /usr/bin/emacspeak and changed the last line to be:

exec emacs -l /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacspeak/lisp/emacspeak-setup.el $INITSTR $CL_ALL

**** Making the eSpeak Server

I installed the following dependencies:

$ sudo apt-get install tcl8.4 tclx8.4 tk8.4 tcl8.4-dev libasound2-dev

I got this list from the Voxin scripts, but I need to double chek it.

I also needed to install the following development package:

$ sudo apt-get install libespeak-dev

I went into /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacspeak/servers/linux-espeak and ran:

$ sudo make all

In the servers directory, I ran

$ ./espeak

to make sure the server was working.

Now

$ emacspeak -e

came up with emacspeak talking and using eSpeak.

**** Recompiling eSpeak to Use PulseAudio

Unfortunately, the last syllable spoken is always truncated making it unusable.

(Note to bill: I've heard this has been changed in newer versions of Debian/Ubuntu, so this step may no longer be necessary. If you don't have the latency problem with truncated final syllables, just skip this step.)

I fixed this by downloading the source code for eSpeak and compiling it for runtime, which uses PulseAudio if it's running and PortAudio otherwise.

I went to http://espeak.sourceforge.net/download.html and downloaded the file espeak-1.46.02-source.zip.

I had to install the library development packages for PulseAudio and PortAudio.

$ sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev libportaudio-dev

Now after unpacking the source code for eSpeak, I went into the source directory, espeak-1.46.02-source/src, and I made the following changes to the Makefile:

#DATADIR=/usr/share/espeak-data
DATADIR=/home/chaltain/Tools/share/espeak-data

#PREFIX=/usr
PREFIX=/home/chaltain/Tools

# 'runtime' uses pulseaudio if it is running, else uses portaudio
AUDIO = runtime
#AUDIO = portaudio

Now I run the commands:

$ make all
$ make install

This creates new eSpeak libraries and binaries, using the runtime option, and places them in my ~/Tools directory.

Now to start Emacspeak with eSpeak and these new libraries, I run the commands:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/chaltain/Tools/lib
$ emacspeak -e

aNow Emacspeak comes up and I don't have the latency issues.

I ended up adding the line

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/chaltain/Tools/lib

to the file /usr/bin/emacspeak.

Note that I exported the variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH instead of running the following command:

$ sudo ldconfig /home/chaltain/Tools/lib

so that I'd only run emacspeak with this new library and not making the change globally, so as not to impact Orca if I did something wrong.

When using ldconfig, note you can use

$ ldconfig -p | grep espeak

to see which eSpeak library is being used.

**** Getting Emacspeak with eSpeak to use an US English voice

Based on a tip I saw in a mailing list thread, I went into the file /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/emacspeak/servers/linux-espeak/tclespeak.cpp, and I commented out the following line in the preferred languages section:

"en-uk", // english

and I added the following line:

"en-us", // english-us

I than ran $ sudo make.

After doing this, I no longer needed the line

(setq espeak-default-voice-string 'en-us)

in my ~/.emacs file.

Maybe if I'd just added the line for en-us then this variable setting might have been needed.

Bill

On 8/16/2013 9:22 PM, T. V. Raman wrote:

The emacspeak list is emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx -- you need to
subscribe to it. Copying this list on your message.

"cg" == cg  <cg@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

     cg> Dear Dr. Raman,
     cg>
     cg> I have two questions:
     cg>
     cg> 1) I tried to post the following on the emacspeak
     cg> mailinglist a few weeks ago. However, I wonder if it has
     cg> arrived at all, it seems the mailingserver isn't
     cg> working. I didn't receive any copies, and moreover, I do
     cg> not receive digest mails from the server at all. The same
     cg> holds for other people who I know have tried to use the
     cg> list.
     cg>
     cg> 2) I would be very grateful if you could look into the
     cg> issue (see below).
     cg>
     cg> Thanks in advance!
     cg>
     cg> Chide Groenouwe,
     cg>
     cg> from the Netherlands
     cg>
     cg> -------- Original Message --------
     cg>
     cg>                SUBJECT: Severe issue installing emacspeak for
     cg> Ubuntu users
     cg>
     cg>                DATE: 2013-08-03 21:15
     cg>
     cg>                FROM: cg <cg@xxxxxxxxxxx>
     cg>
     cg>                TO: emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx
     cg>
     cg> Dear Emacspeak developers, in particular Dr Raman,
     cg>
     cg> Are you already aware of the following severe issue for
     cg> Ubuntu users (and related Linux distributions), (posted
     cg> by someone else, but also affects me, and others):
     cg>
     cg> https://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/issues/detail?id=7&thanks=7&ts=1369589431
     cg> [2]
     cg>
     cg> Here a copy paste:
     cg>
     cg> What steps will reproduce the problem? 1. Install via apt
     cg> package 2. Run emacspeak &
     cg>
     cg> What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
     cg>
     cg> The expected output: 'a talking computer' But I see (and
     cg> three other people who tried it): process speaker not
     cg> running
     cg>
     cg> What version of the product are you using? On what
     cg> operating system?
     cg>
     cg> I am using the latest version in the apt repository of
     cg> ubuntu/linux mint. Details about my operation system:
     cg>
     cg> Linux Mint 14 - 64 Bit
     cg>
     cg> Please provide any additional information below.
     cg>
     cg> I'm wondering if this bug is known by the emacspeak
     cg> community. I asked three other people running ubuntu if
     cg> it worked 'out of the box', but they got the same error
     cg> messages. I think that an application in the apt
     cg> repository must be capable of running directly, without
     cg> user interaction to fix broken things (see:
     cg> http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/install-guide/troubleshooting.html
     cg> [1] ), I really like the opensource community and I have
     cg> a lot of respect for people who are programming in there
     cg> free time for others. I hope this bug can be fixed. Then
     cg> your product would be perfect!
     cg>
     cg> Thanks in advance,
     cg>
     cg> Chide Groenouwe
     cg>
     cg>
     cg>
     cg> Links: ------ [1]
     cg> http://emacspeak.sourceforge.net/install-guide/troubleshooting.html
     cg> [2]
     cg> https://code.google.com/p/emacspeak/issues/detail?id=7&amp;thanks=7&amp;ts=1369589431

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--
Tim Cross