-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, May 15, 2007 at 01:24:45PM -0500, C.M. Brannon wrote: > The vendors of USB synths won't release their > product information, so these are unsupported. Thus, I'm not buying > one. Who wants to do business with people like that anyhow? I'm in full agreement with you there. I will personally not buy a usb synth, until I know that the manufacturer has released the specs for it without requiring an NDA to be signed. > So it > looks like software speech is the way of the future, at least for me. > Next, software speech is more convenient, especially when using a > laptop. You have to carry one less peripheral with you. > > The question to ask is this. Given the decline of hardware synthesis, > is it really necessary to have speech support within the kernel > itself? Software synthesizers run in user mode, so the benefits of a > speech-enabled kernel -- notably a talking boot process -- are lost. > I agree there with you also. Granted, once you have an installed distro, hardware speech isn't that vital. However, installation is still a big issue in that department. Yes, gentoo, fedora, can be installed over ssh. Grml, ubuntu can be installed with software speech. However, what if someone wants to install and use a distro like debian or slackware, that support neither option as far as I know? Yes, I suppose that one could use the grml livecd to install debian via debootstrap, however that procedure isn't for everyone, especially for a newby. So, the fact remains that until it is possible to install most distros either over the network or via software speech, hardware speech is still necessary. As for kernel-based screen readers not being usable during boot with software speech, the same is true for user space-based screen readers, such as jupiter for example, that would be using either hardware or software speech. So, arguably, kernel-based screen readers still very much have their own advantages, assuming one has access to a hardware synth of course, though I admit that advantage will become less, and less important as everyone moves to software speech eventually. Greg - -- web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) - -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager at EU.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGSgS27s9z/XlyUyARAigUAJsFghMQVZBSn/ZH04/mNo6s0kObcwCgrsh3 kiOXHOo0GjAUmAP5vuQN6vU= =yNvy -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
