Hi, Thanks to Willum I have the speakup modules built on my Ubuntu Intrepid system (at least I think I do - I didn't get any obvious error messages). I'm trying to get speech via speech-dispatcher and speechd-up with no luck yet. Can someone tell me if speech-dispatcher has to be run as a system process rather than a user one? I'm currently running it in user mode (starting it in the gnome session dialogue). I'm doing this because if I just install it and change the no to yes in /etc/default/speech-dispatcher then pulse can't start and so no Orca. When I do modprobe speakup_soft start=1 and speechd-up -d as indicated by Willum I don't get any errors but nothing happens if I try to switch to a console and type something. Any help appreciated. Paul