Hello, I wrote with the problem of getting speakup to load on my archlinux system, the problem still has not gone away. I decided to update a fairly old laptop today and the problem also shows on that computer as well (this time I am trying to use software synthesis, so its not a problem in the apollo driver). I know that others say they have speakup working fine, so I am wondering what might be the differences. I don't know what might be worth mentioning, however both the machines are 32-bit intel processors (one is pentium-4 and the other is pentium-m). Could you suggest any other information about the systems which may be useful in finding the problem. Michael Whapples