Well I don't know about redhat but I have used viavoice on slackware for a long time. All I ever had to do was use the --nodeps and --force flags with rpm, then either source /etc/profile or log out and back in. For example
rpm -ivh ViaVoiceTTS.rpm --nodeps --force
This seems to work on slackware 9, I used it on slackware 7, and I got it working on slackware 8 by copying a few shared libraries from slackware 7. People keep saying it only works on redhat, but I don't think that is true.
Also note that things are a lot more complicated for the dictation (recognition) stuff. The TTS (text to speech) part is quite small and doesn't need java. It takes me no time flat to get ViaVoice TTS working on slackware. I have used with emacspeak, but not with yasr. I wish that festival had better voices. If it had voices like via voice, then I'd stick with festival, since it has source code, and does get updates. It's really a shame that IBM discontinued viavoice for linux.
-- Doug
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.502 / Virus Database: 300 - Release Date: 7/18/2003