Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

whanake · 2022-10-02 22:35:49

Hi there,

I am legally blind, but currently have enough sight to use my computer comfortably. I went through the entire Arch installation process without issues. However, my vision is expected to degrade overtime, and I'm going through some processes to set myself up for when that happens (learning braille, learning and using TalkBack on my phone, etc.)

Here's my dilemma: I would like to use the espeakup package so I can use the speakup screen-reader on Arch with espeak, but the Arch Wiki's instructions only apply if I'm installing Arch from the original installation image. I could do that, but then I would have to go about reinstalling and re-configuring everything again, which is not ideal because I already have a large number of packages and a custom desktop configuration installed on my Arch machine.

How do I go about setting up and enabling espeakup without re-installing my entire OS?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

teckk · 2022-10-02 22:58:11

How do I go about setting up and enabling espeakup without re-installing my entire OS?

It's in the repo.

pacman -Si espeakup

https://archlinux.org/packages/?name=espeakup
https://man.archlinux.org/man/espeakup.8

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Instal … ty_options

Are you getting errors from:

pacman -S espeakup

whanake · 2022-10-02 23:50:41

I tried following along with these instructions and have everything installed.

espeakup.service

is enabled and starts on boot, but I'm not actually getting any audio output. I primarily use JACK for my audio as I am a music producer, but even before I start my JACK server I get nothing from espeakup. I looked at the Sound Card section of the wiki page, but

/etc/asound/conf

doesn't exist on my system so I can't copy it. Any advice?

Last edited by whanake (2022-10-02 23:51:49)

whanake · 2022-10-03 01:06:04

After a bit of troubleshooting I managed to sort out the issue. I started arch with speech from the installer image and configured my sound cards that way, then copied the generated asound.conf file over to my main Arch installation. I also didn't realise espeakup only worked in tty sessions, not graphical ones. I suppose that makes sense, though.

seth · 2022-10-03 07:00:42

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Access … assistance

For the big DEs:
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help … 1y.html.en
https://userbase.kde.org/Applications/A … lity#Jovie

Maybe https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/odilia

Arch Linux

#1 2022-10-02 22:35:49

Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

#2 2022-10-02 22:58:11

Re: Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

#3 2022-10-02 23:50:41

Re: Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

#4 2022-10-03 01:06:04

Re: Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

#5 2022-10-03 07:00:42

Re: Enable speakup screen-reader without re-installing entire Arch image?

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