HI Well Kirk, no luck. It compiles fine, but as soon as I attempt to boot the new kernel, the system hangs. Yes, I did start with a clean source, I did specify the synth properly, and I did make sure lilo was run. This is kernel v 2.4.0-test9. At first I thought it might be a problem with device probing, so I went in and changed the synth_portlist array in speakup_dtlk.c to only look on 0x29e. Still no luck. Here's what I get when I boot: LILO boot: linux uncompressing linux...ok, booting the kernel. Then, the system hangs. Not even control-alt-delete will reboot. I have to power the system down. Got any ideas? I'd really like to get speakup working with this kernel. And no, I won't go back to 2.2, I've made the 2.4 system upgrades already. Oh well, that's what happens to someone who beta tests devel kernels.