[pulseaudio-discuss] Using pulseaudio with speakup

[Bill Cox]

I was able to get to a semi-good state by not having pulseaudio
autospawn in /etc/pulse/client.conf.  The computer comes up silent
until I log into gnome, and Orca works.  When I switch to a console,
it's silent until I log in and restart speechd-up.

The problem is that there is no audio at the console until I log in.
There is also no audio at the gnome login.  Grr...

Isn't there any way to get audio working before a user logs in?

Bill

On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Bill Cox <waywardgeek at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am trying to get Ubuntu/Lucid working well with applications for the
> blind and visually impaired.  Orca is working quite well now with
> pulseaudio.  The other critical application is speakup, which reads
> text on the Ctrl+Alt+F1-6 consoles.  Speakup has issues with
> pulseaudio, and I need some advice about working them out.
>
> It is important, but not required, that speakup run before the user
> logs in, so it can read the login prompt and some system messages.
> Ideally, it does this with speechd-up which talks to speech-dispatcher
> which generates speech through pulseadio.  Thus, once speakup starts,
> it sounds like I need to somehow launch pulseaudio, as some user like
> gdm.  When the user logs in, speechd-up needs to switch to talking to
> that user's instance of pulseadio, so that speach from both the
> console windows and Orca can stream through the same instance of
> speech-dispatcher.  However, when I try this, the gdm version of
> pulseaudio seems to grab the sound card, and the second instance is
> mute.
>
> The obvious solution is for me to just run one copy of pulseaudio (as
> root?) at boot time and make all users access that copy, just like the
> older sound systems.  However, I understand that is frowned upon by
> the pulseaudio developers.
>
> What is the right solution?  Remember, I need sound both before
> logging in, and after, and they need to play nice, as the console
> windows may not be logged in, while the Gnome desktop is.  I also
> prefer sound from speakup to work as soon as the module is loaded.  I
> understand the old system for doing this, but not how to make it work
> with pulseaudio.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>