Shaun: several of us have been working very hard at getting speechd_up to run; it doesn't work for everybody in the same way all the time. and not everybody has to follow your magic steps; the debian packages work fine without having to compile and install; I've never needed to use the -s flag either, though I'm not criticizing you if that helped you; I did it because it was a suggestion but it has never been necessary for me. As a matter of fact, I can load it fine by hand but it doesn't work for me from any script, before, during or after login. when somebody else had the same problem, i posted saying that was my experience too and of course when Chuck gave his suggestions about how it works for him, suggestions which I'd already seen and tried, but they are logical suggestions and I'm glad they work for him, I posted to say no, that wasn't my problem. Now if you want to consider it whining when people post that there's a problem and go back and forth trying to find out why, that's your prerogative. Some of us have a problem with running it from scripts; you may have a problem with something else some other day, but if you think we are just WHINING because we're trying to find out why and posting in case somebody else may come across the answer, just don't bother reading this thread. those of us who have a problem have probably not worked any less hard than you, and i truly don't appreciate your characterizations. I don't think anybody who has posted about this is WHININg; I don't think it's necessary for people to pretend everything is hunky-dory with a new program and I don't think it's some kind of disloyalty to bring it out in the open. there is obviously some kind of bug or glitch that some of us are experiencing and trying to get to the bottom of; it's not likely that we are going at this point to loook at somebody's steps and say, "Oh how stupid of me; I forgot something obvious" though it could happen and it never hurts to review the steps. The fact that you escaped experiencing this particular problem doesn't make the rest of us less competent or less hard-working than you, and it certainly doesn't make us WHINERS!!!!! !! It was nice of you to re-state your steps so concisely; had you done that without judging those of us who are having trouble and daring to post about it, there would have been nothing but appreciation from this quarter. I do indeed have a working speech dispatcher, a working speechd_up, and a working speakup, even though I have to avoid loading speechd_up via a script at this point; I even have them working to some extent with cepstral and I'm very pleased about that as I like those voices a lot. But as long as I have a problem using scripts with speechd_up, and as long as there's a chance somebody else has the same problem and/or may find the solution to it, I'm going to post on this subject. so when you see: subject: speechd_up Issues and my name, if you consider it whining, PLEASE, just SKIP IT. -- Cheryl "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."