Good Evening: I should have known: nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be. I made the boot disks for a talking Debian Woody install. After a lot of reading of the Debian docs (there is very nearly nothing in the way of speakup docs on the subject) for installations, I figured out that you have to boot from the non-aptly-named "rescue floppy". (Note that I plan to write a how-to on all of this, once I figure out how to do it.) I thus booted the rescue floppy. At the point where nothing was happening, and I thus assumed I was at the expected "boot:" prompt, I typed "linux dectlk". As best as I could tell from Debian: the default kernel was "linux". From the only speakup doc I found that discussed setting the speech output device, all I could determine was that you had to give the kernel a boot parameter, specifying the speech device, and that for the DEC Express, it was "dectlk". Nothing about specifying a port, or anything of that sort, so I guess there is a probe system. Anyway, I type "linux dectlk", press enter, and a lot of disk activity begins, sounding much like a kernel boot process. No speech yet. After this all stops, what vision I have, tells me that there is a lot of text on screen. I wait a while, then pull the "rescue" disk, and insert the root disk. I pressed enter, and nothing at all seemed to happen. I did so again, and after receiving no action of any sort, I rebooted, and am here contacting you all. Does anyone have any idea how I am supposed to get a DECTalk talking, with a Debian -> Speakup install? So much for getting it done tonight, I suppose. Thanks in advance. Luke
