I just installed Linux kernel 2.4.21 and noticed something interesting. I believe that it was Gregory Nowak who stated that Linux 2.4.21 works with Speakup 1.5 despite one failed patch to miscdevice.h. I looked at miscdevice.h and was quite surprised to see this line of code. #define SYNTH_MINOR 25 This is the code to define /dev/synth which is a part of Speakup. This was before patching and still present in the .orig file after patching. In fact, the reason for the failed patch is that it is already applied. This makes the /dev/synth device part of the stock kernel source as of 2.4.21. Oddly, I found nothing about this in the ChangeLog-2.4.21 file. Are the kernel folks about to integrate Speakup in the kernel?
