I discovered that the problems appear to be a little simpler to describe than I first thought. The system has the speakup kernel and it begins talking as soon as it can during boot. You get to the start of gnome and speakup stops. A few seconds later, orca gives the "welcome" prompt and presents a login window which you can use and appears to work properly. I even gave incorrect information and it re-prompted. As soon as I gave it the correct user ID and password, things were locked up. I would be happy if I could keep the speakup kernel but boot without speakup because I bet orca will then work. If necessary later, speakupcould be temporarily re-enabled if needed to provide command-line access. I don't want to loose speakup completely, just not start it on most boot sessions. Martin
