I have set systemd up so that speech-dispatcherd.service starts automatically at boot. After logging in, I enable jovie in the accessibility setup and the jovie plasmoid appears in the system tray. I choose a voice in system settings/accessibility. I try to speak something, again, from accessibility/jobs, using the language and synthesizer as shown in the list. Only the dummy module is available. I am using Fedora 17 with Rex Dieter's kde-4.9.3 packages from the kdeforge-updates-testing repository. Reproducible: Always After this didn't work (for months and iterations of kde releases), I finally, today, modified /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf. I thought that perhaps jovie was unable to find espeak, so I put in the full path to sd_espeak: /usr/lib64/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak By default, the file contains only the line: sd_espeak The file comments state that both absolute and relative paths are acceptable. Neither works! Jovie cannot use espeak, only the dummy module.
Created attachment 75161 [details] speech-dispatcher log from my home directory
I don't know what happened. I have been fiddling with this for months, trying unsuccessfully to get it to work, and just a moment ago, it worked! I made another change to /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf, by putting the default module, espeak, into ""s. All options are quoted in the file, except for this one. I don't know if it is required. I also, in kde's system settings/accessibility module, opened the voice for editing, changed it to male 2, saved, then back to male 1, saved again, and now it works! I don't know what has changed. Was it the full path of the espeak module and listing the default module as "espeak"? Was there something wrong with my voice that got corrected, even though I have exactly the same settings as before? Will this continue to work, now that it does, or is it working just a fluke? Time will tell, but this is the first time it works for about a year.
And then it doesn't work and then it does, again. Jovie is very confusing and difficult to get working. Here is what I have learned so far: Go to the talkers tab and configure a voice. It has an option for voice type, whatever that means, and I selected male 1. After this is done, you must completely leave systemsettings/accessibility and then return to it, otherwise speech control on the jobs tab will be empty and you cannot do anything. So, having closed systemsettings/accessibility and returned, go to the jobs tab. You will now see a list of espeak voices (assuming espeak is your chosen backend). Select the desired language (English appears to be chosen by default). Here is the tricky part. Even though my voice type, as chosen on the talkers tab, is male 1, and even though the voice type on the jobs tab is also set to male 1, nothing happens! Here is what one must do: On the jobs tab, set voice type to male 2 and apply. Now, you can enjoy speech. You may also, after having selected and applying male 2, set it back to male 1 and apply again. There appears to be no change in the voice and this also works. So, I don't understand what this voice type setting on the jobs tab is supposed to do, since it does not respect the chosen voice type from the talker setup and it seems to have no effect. Also, choosing male 3 does nothing. There will be no output. This is so confusing, that I have not even ever tried to set up a male 2 voice in the talkers tab and tried to see what happens on the jobs tab, nor have I tried any female or children's voices. But, at least, despite the need to apply the wrong setting and then go back, reapply, etc., it does work, once one knows how to get it to do so. PS: I haven't tried the mbrola voices from Jovie, although they work fine through espeak on the command line.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=995639 This is the most recent bugzilla on the issue. I had some positive results, as indicated in comment #18 under that bug. I have not followed up on it since then and I don't have a clue about the status. I think I will close this, since what is here is so old that I doubt it is relevant any longer.