I think I know what's going on, its quite common. Have you set speakup's default synth to something other than none in the kernel config? If so then it probably is what I am going to say. Speakup is outputting to the synth device node, and when this is full, it halts everything so that it can catch up (so if the synth is speaking it will speak everything). When you hit a key, it silences speakup, empties the device as that normally won't be spoken as it is now silenced. This means now speakup can allow things to continue. There are two solutions. 1. When the system starts loading, hit the silence until next keypress key (I thing numpad equals). 2. You can set the synth to none in the default in the kernel config, then just have in a start-up script (before speechd-up) "echo sftsyn > /proc/speakup/synth_name" (assuming sftsyn is the synth used). There is a third, but very undesirable, leave the system, it will load eventually as the emptying of the device will happen over time, but this will take a long time (I think this will happen). Hope this explains things. From Michael Whapples On Sun, 2007-03-04 at 22:57 -0300, Cleverson wrote: > Hello, > > Now I added speech-dispatcher to the boot runlevel of my Gentoo system, and > added speechd-up to the default runlevel as well. > > While booting, it displays some messages that I didn't take note, but they > are something like this: > > loading alsa modules > could not detect custon alsa settings > loading all detected alsa drivers > loading CMedia PCI (?) ... > loading: s > > Then the system freezes and I have to press any key for the boot to > continue. When I press some key, the boot goes ahead and eSpeak starts > speaking perfectly. > > For info, I have two soundcards in my machine. One is a Via AC-97 onboard; > another is an off board soundcard with CMedia chipset. > > I'm gonna have to learn how to set up the AC-97 onboard as my default > soundcard, as Gentoo has set CMedia by default. > > If someone has a tip to avoid this freezing at boot, I'll be grateful. > > Thanks, > Cleverson > > "Be realistic; ask for the impossible." > > > > > > > _______________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Mail - Sempre a melhor op??o para voc?! > Experimente j? e veja as novidades. > http://br.yahoo.com/mailbeta/tudonovo/ > >