Hi, Adam. Well, it is a dectalk express and I have used speakup_synth=dectlk the same as I always have in the past. Actually, this speakup problem is totally new. I used Bill's 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 modified versions and wasn't having this problem. Now that I drop RH 8 on this error message problem appears. I wonder if Red Hat is using a cvs version of speakup which is broken?Perhaps Bill knows the answer to this.