Hi: You do have to recompile the kernel in order to update speakup, as speakup is part of the kernel and it's not possible to only compile bits of the kernel. However, unless it's clearly stated, you don't have to update your kernel version to take advantage of speakup updates. ** IMPORTANT **: As of Monday, speakup CVS was broken for the 2.2.x kernels. this may have been fixed, but I don't know that it has so you have been warned. Kirk would like to see this fixed, but he's away all this week so it almost certainly won't happen till he gets back, if it's not happened already. Geoff.