How to configure Qtspeech - actually configuring speech-dispatcher

[Gustav Degreef]

Hello,

I'm back home and I posted the problem on the opensuse list.  Yes, Vi is
the editor used by opensuse and the correct command to save the crontab
entry is [Esc] :wq [Enter ].  But festival still does not work.  So I
went back and ran "spd.conf" again.   This is the partial result:

Do you want to test the Festival synthesizer now? [yes] :
>yes
Testing whether Festival works as a server
ERROR: It was not possible to connect to Festival on the
given host and port. Connection failed with error 111 : Connection
refused .
Hint: Most likely, your Festival server is not running now
or not at the default port 1314.

Try /etc/init.d/festival start or run 'festival --server' from the
command line.
Festival server is not working.

The summary of the spd-conf diagnostics was:

Diagnostics results:

Speech Dispatcher not working through spd-say
Synthesizers that were tested and seem to work: []
Audio systems that were tested and seem to work: ['alsa']
Python Speech Dispatcher module is importable
End of diagnostics results
rada at linux-d8cz <mailto:rada at linux-d8cz>:~/.config/speech-dispatcher


So I followed the instructions -


~> festival --server
server    Thu Oct  3 00:10:37 2019 : Festival server started on port 1314

I ran spd-conf again (after starting festival server):

partial output -

Testing whether Festival works as a server

ERROR: Your Festival server is working but it doesn't seem

to load festival-freebsoft-utils. You need to install
festival-freebsoft-utils

to be able to use Festival with Speech Dispatcher.

Festival server is not working.


Obviously I am missing software that festival needs.  Unfortunately
opensuse does not provide it.  Can anyone suggest the best way to
install this on my distribution which is rpm based?  Also, it seems that
after I edited the crontab, festival server is still not running unless
I manually start it.  Any suggestions on what I can do to fix that?  I
hate to give up on festival.  Perhaps festival is not the best
alternative voice to espeak, but it is apparently one of the most
supported in linux.  I've learned a lot in the process of trying and I
feel trying is the best way forward.  Thanks for all the help till now. 
Gustav.




On 9/29/19 3:53 PM, Simion wrote:
>
> Hi, crontab command will use your default CLI editor, so is probably
> opening with vim, vim is notorious for  beeing imposible to exit from
>
....

> On 9/29/19 10:18 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>> Thanks for the explanation.  I get stuck in the same place.  When I run
>> the "crontab -e" command, I get a window where I can past the command
>> specified, but then I don't know how to proceed from there.
...
>> On 9/26/19 10:32 PM, Jeremy Whiting wrote:
>>> Hi Gustav,
>>>
>>> Just out of curiosity, which distribution and version of linux are you
>>> using?
>>>
>>> To answer your question though, crontab is an application that runs
>>> things at different times on a unix based system. crontab -e is a
>>> command to edit the cron table of commands. Running crontab -e and
>>> adding the line you mentioned:
>>>
>>> @restart /usr/bin/festival --server
>>>
>>> will make festival --server run at each boot of the computer I believe.
>>>
>>> Hope that helps. Another possibility according to arch linux's wiki
>>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Festival#Can't_open_/dev/dsp is
>>> to add some lines to the festival configuration to allow it to open
>>> the /dev/dsp
>>>
>>> BR,
>>> Jeremy
>>>
>>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:25 PM Gustav Degreef <gustav97 at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:gustav97 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hello folks,
>>>
>>>     I edited this thread some to make it easier to follow my current post.
>>>     It is not directed at Simion, though his comments are helpful to
>>>     make my
>>>     post clearer. 
>>>     As a result of these discussions I have more clearly understood
>>>     the role
>>>     of speech-dispatcher.  Since will be used with Qtspeech, it makes
>>>     sense
>>>     to work with it.   So,  Perching with google  I understood how
>>>     central
>>>     speech-dispatcher is to linux TTS.  I tried again to configure
>>>     Festival
>>>     with speech-dispatcher.  I want to try and configure a different
>>>     voice. 
>>>     I wan to try and experiment with different voices.  Espeak is OK,
>>>     but I
>>>     feel I have to move forward.  But again I am stuck.  Here is
>>>     where I am at.
>>>
>>>     I could never get speech output even on the CLI.
>>>
>>>     The error I would get was -festival: can't open /dev/dsp
>>>
>>>     It is due to a bug.   The workaround is:
>>>     Create ~/.festivalrc with the following content
>>>
>>>     ;use ALSA
>>>     (Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'Audio_Command)
>>>     (Parameter.set 'Audio_Command "aplay -q -c 1 -t raw -f s16 -r $SR
>>>     $FILE")
>>>
>>>
>>>     I then needed to configure speech-dispatcher, so I ran:
>>>
>>>     spd-conf
>>>
>>>     as a regular user.  It creates the speech-dispatcher global server
>>>     configuration file:
>>>
>>>     in ~/.config/speech-dispatcher/|speechd.conf|
>>>
>>>     This configures speech-dispatcher (interactively) with a number of
>>>     variables, the default voice is espeak.
>>>
>>>     I then edit speechd.conf, which allows for many different
>>>     voices.  I change:
>>>
>>>     |#AddModule "espeak" "sd_espeak" "espeak.conf"||
>>>     |
>>>     |AddModule "festival" "sd_festival" "festival.conf"|
>>>     |
>>>     |
>>>     |and|
>>>     ||||
>>>
>>>     |#DefaultModule espeak |
>>>
>>>     |DefaultModule festival The next step I do not understand: "|We
>>>     need to run |festival| as a server in order to make
>>>     |speech-dispatcher| use it as default. We can do that by adding
>>>     the following line at the end of the file that's open when we use the
>>>     command: |sudo crontab -e|:
>>>
>>>     |@reboot /usr/bin/festival --server"|
>>>
>>>     |||I can't understand the last step.  I've never used crontab
>>>     fore, any
>>>     help would be appreciated, Gustav.|
>>>     ||
>>>
>>>     ||
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     On 9/22/19 9:29 AM, Simion wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     snip
>>>
>>>     > As I said I suggest to get used of using faster and faster voices,
>>>     > your family will understand and you will read same texts 2 times
>>>     > faster so you gain time, at that speed any voice will sound robotic,
>>>     > this would not work if you want other to listen with you (but
>>>     you can
>>>     > have a normal speed and a fast speed talker in jovie)
>>>     >
>>>     >
>>>     > On 9/22/19 2:54 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>>>     >>
>>>     >> snip
>>>     >>
>>>     >>  From what you and others are saying and from what I've
>>>     read, I think I
>>>     >> understand better.  Correct me if I am wrong, but don't
>>>     you have
>>>     >> to tell
>>>     >> speech-dispatcher which voice (e-speak, festival, etc.) to
>>>     use?  If I
>>>     >> can figure out how to tell speech-dispatcher which voice to use
>>>     then
>>>     >> Jovie (or Qtspeech) will then output my choice?  I have
>>>     looked
>>>     >> into it,
>>>     >> and there are several (about 6 different) voices I can use in
>>>     Linux.
>>>     >>
>>>     >>
>>>     >>
>>>