[SOUND] speechd lets your Computer speak

Message

Tobi 2.4.20 · Post by **Tobi 2.4.20** » Sat Mar 29, 2003 5:31 pm

Hi!
This is how I set up speechd:

1. Become root

# su -

2. emerge needed Packages

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# emerge speechd

3. Init-Script:

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# vi /etc/init.d/speechd

and fill with:

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#!/sbin/runscript
 
start() {
        ebegin "Starting speechd"
        start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /var/run/speechd.pid --exec
/usr/bin/speechd
        eend $? "Failed to start speechdd"
}
 
stop() {
        ebegin "Stopping speechd"
        start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /var/run/speechd.pid
        eend $? "Failed to stop speechd"
 
        # clean stale pidfile
        [ -f /var/run/speechd.pid ] && rm -f /var/run/speechd.pid
}
 
restart() {
        stop
        start
}

4. make init-script executable

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# chmod 755 /etc/init.d/speechd

5. if you want to come up speechd at boottime type:

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# rc-update add speechd default

6. start speechd

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# /etc/init.d/speechd start

7. Test:

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# echo "Hello World" > /dev/speech

This works for me, and it's fun! I think the init-script isn't perfect, if anybody could post a better one, I would be happy.

For those of you who would like to hear a female voice, follow these additional steps:

8. emerge needed packages

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# emerge mbrola

9. edit the voices scheme

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# vi /usr/lib/festival/voices.scm

10. search for "us1_mbrola" and put it in top of the list and save the file.
Before:

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'(kal_diphone
    ked_diphone
    don_diphone
    rab_diphone
    en1_mbrola
    us1_mbrola
    us2_mbrola
    us3_mbrola
    gsw_diphone  ;; not publically distributed
    el_diphone)

After:

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'(us1_mbrola
    kal_diphone
    ked_diphone
    don_diphone
    rab_diphone
    en1_mbrola
    us2_mbrola
    us3_mbrola
    gsw_diphone  ;; not publically distributed
    el_diphone)

11. Test female:

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# echo "(SayText \"Hello World\")" | festival

(Note: #echo "Hello World" > /dev/speech will not work for female voice!)

That's it so far...

See ya, Tobi

bsolar · Post by **bsolar** » Sat Mar 29, 2003 5:47 pm

You might want to commit that to bugzilla.

Ivion · Post by **Ivion** » Sat Mar 29, 2003 8:53 pm

Is there also a way to let the 'voice' sound different? Like changing it to a woman's voice?

barlad · Post by **barlad** » Sat Mar 29, 2003 10:35 pm

I can't seem to be able to load festival in server mode to have speechd workds... keeping getting a "bind failed" error

I think you can change the voice in Festival btw

Tobi 2.4.20 · Post by **Tobi 2.4.20** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 11:32 am

bsolar wrote:You might want to commit that to bugzilla. :wink:

Do you mean the init-script? I've written it by myself and I'm not sure if it's ok, or not.

Ante · Post by **Ante** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 6:02 pm

Damn, this is hot

Extremley funny, gonna add this to my /etc/init.d/issue.
As mentioned, is it possible to change to voice?

EDIT: echo "Welcome to this Gentoo/Linux box of power, feel free to enjoy your self" > /dev/speech

Vagabond · Post by **Vagabond** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 7:46 pm

Hmm, I can't get speechd to talk by echoing to /dev/speech but I can get festival to manually speak by using (SayTest "blah") after initalizing festival.

Any ideas?

Vag

barlad · Post by **barlad** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 7:53 pm

Ya, check /var/log/speechd.
Most likely, it will tell you that it cannot connect to festival server.
Then stop the speechd service, try to run

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festival --server

See if it works, then run speechd again. It should work. If it does not, check again /var/log/speechd and see what's wrong.

Right now I can't run the festival server, it says something like "binding failed". I think there is something to set up somewhere so festival is allowed to use port 1034 and speechd is allowed to connect to it.
If you find... let me know please

Vagabond · Post by **Vagabond** » Sun Mar 30, 2003 8:18 pm

Yeah, I get the same error, damn.

Vag

link97381 · Post by **link97381** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:29 pm

Ya I get a "socket: bind failed" error.....anyone know how to fix it?

Lockup · Post by **Lockup** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:34 pm

if only we could use the at&t voices with that...

Tobi 2.4.20 · Post by **Tobi 2.4.20** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 6:30 pm

Ante wrote:Damn, this is hot :D Extremley funny, gonna add this to my /etc/init.d/issue.
As mentioned, is it possible to change to voice?

EDIT: echo "Welcome to this Gentoo/Linux box of power, feel free to enjoy your self" > /dev/speech

Hi dudes!

I've added a method how to let your computer speak like your girlfriend...just follow steps eight to ten!

See ya, Tobi

TheCoop · Post by **TheCoop** » Mon Mar 31, 2003 8:34 pm

that is absolutly wonderful, thankyou, how about including the rc script in the ebuild?

Tobi 2.4.20 · Post by **Tobi 2.4.20** » Tue Apr 01, 2003 6:07 am

TheCoop wrote:that is absolutly wonderful, thankyou, how about including the rc script in the ebuild?

How do I do this? Is their any HowTo, man-page, whatever where ebuild-hacking is explained?
And: I think the script isn't quiet perfect, e.g. when you make # /etc/init.d/speechd restart their is some curious error I can't cope with.

bassvandijk · Post by **bassvandijk** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 6:01 pm

This is really cool!!!

Also nice:

forune > /dev/speech
or
dmesg > /dev/speech

bassvandijk · Post by **bassvandijk** » Wed Apr 02, 2003 7:08 pm

I have a weird problem:

When I do:
echo "Hello world" > /dev/speech

festival says "Hello world" but it says it way too fast.
Like playing a LP too fast...

bassvandijk · Post by **bassvandijk** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 12:33 pm

I solved the problem!

http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/cgi-bin/lists. ... speed.html

bassvandijk · Post by **bassvandijk** » Thu Apr 03, 2003 6:39 pm

If you rc-update this script to your default runlevel then your computer will greet you while booting and it will say goodbey when you halt.

Of course you will need the speechd rc-script also.

If you don't have fortune then just cut the fortune line out.

audio_message

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#!/sbin/runscript

#
# rc-script to let your gentoo-box speak at boot or halt time.
#
# Bas van Dijk basvandijk@home.nl
#

depend() {
        need speechd
}

start() {
        ebegin "Playing login audio message"

        date="$(date +%H)"
        user="$(whoami)"

        if [ "$date" -ge "6" -a "$date" -le "12" ]
        then
                say "Good morning $user"
        else
                if [ "$date" -gt "12" -a "$date" -le "18" ]
                then
                        say "Good afternoon $user"
                else
                        if [ "$date" -gt "18" -a "$date" -le "24" ]
                        then
                                say "Good evening $user"
                        else
                                if [ "$date" -gt "0" -a "$date" -lt "6" ]
                                then
                                        say "What are you doing up so late $user"
                                fi
                        fi
                fi
        fi
        say "Please pay attention to a few words of wisdom..."
        say "$(fortune)"
}

stop() {
        ebegin "Playing logout audio message"

        say "Thank you for using Gentoo Linux."
        say "Good by and farewell $(whoami)."
}

You will also need to this bash script:
/bin/say

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#/bin/bash

if [ -e "/dev/speech" ]
then
    echo "$1"
    echo "$1" > /dev/speech
else
    echo "Error! speechd not loaded!"
fi

BTW:
In the speechd script, festival doesn't get closed while stopping the service. So you will need to put a killall festival in the stop() function.

pubecon · Post by **pubecon** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 6:41 pm

so how do you set up the festival server so you don't get the binding error?

papabean · Post by **papabean** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 11:14 pm

I couldn't get redirection to /dev/speech working for me without sounding like a chipmunk on methamphetamines, but what did work after following the directions above was this:

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echo "Hello World" | festival --tts -

or:

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fortune | festival --tts -

Hope this helps anyone else.

Chewie · Post by **Chewie** » Mon Apr 07, 2003 11:24 pm

Hehe this is really cool, thanks dude.

Yinchie · Post by **Yinchie** » Tue Apr 08, 2003 12:33 am

bassvandijk wrote:If you rc-update this script to your default runlevel then your computer will greet you while booting and it will say goodbey when you halt.

Of course you will need the speechd rc-script also.

If you don't have fortune then just cut the fortune line out.

....................

BTW:
In the speechd script, festival doesn't get closed while stopping the service. So you will need to put a killall festival in the stop() function.

Kewl, thanks for this.
Going to try this out!

Ian · Post by **Ian** » Tue Apr 08, 2003 1:33 am

bassvandijk wrote:I solved the problem!

http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/cgi-bin/lists. ... speed.html

it says to change a file in "festival/lib" but i have one problem

can someone tell me where festival/lib is? heh, i know it probably sounds stupid, but i got everything to work (including the login/logout scripts), except that it's all highpitched/doublespeed.

i must say, even though this is the last thing i ever needed for my home server/linux experiment computer, it's probably the damn coolest thing on the computer

.

one slight problem i noticed with the stop script to say goodbye when halting, it takes long enough that speechd cannot be shutdown. i'm not sure if this is a problem, or if there's a way to pause the shutdown for a few seconds, so it can shutdown speechd correctly, but that's one thing that should probably be considered. then again, it might not matter, i'm not sure.

papabean · Post by **papabean** » Tue Apr 08, 2003 6:31 am

Ian wrote:it says to change a file in "festival/lib" but i have one problem

can someone tell me where festival/lib is? heh, i know it probably sounds stupid, but i got everything to work (including the login/logout scripts), except that it's all highpitched/doublespeed.

Sure. It's located in /usr/lib/festival/. I had to create the siteinit.scm file manually and emerge sox, but it works wonderfully now.

Gnufsh · Post by **Gnufsh** » Tue Apr 08, 2003 11:37 am

For some reason I get this:
# /etc/init.d/speechd start
* ERROR: "/etc/init.d/speechd" has syntax errors in it; not executing...