I'm a newbie but quickly learning--I'm going on 3 weeks being microsoft free. Liberated and happy! I have a machine running Debian, and I want to run speakup on it. There is a kernel image with speakup available via apt-get (kernel-image-2.4.24-speakup). Questions: 1. Is there a software-only speech synth? 2. Once I do apt-get install, how do I tell lilo to run the new kernel? 3. What are the lilo boot parameters? 4. After this, can I boot without speakup and into X (without changing the kernel again)? Note: the install was done from a Knoppix CD. Nothing special, all the hardware was auto-detected and it boots into the Debian splash (X login). Sorry for all the questions, and thanks in advance for any/all help.... bithead