Actually, I didn't need to do any of that. The problem was that somehow my onboard sound card had gotten all its levels pushed down to 0. Using amixer (thanks to Samuel's recommendation) fixed it. I now get full-on speech right from boot, which I haven't had 'round here since I installed my first Fedora back in about 2003. On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 09:40:25 -0500 (EST), you wrote: >Please type modprobe speakup_soft and then type espeakup and let us know >what happens after that gets done. > >On Thu, 31 Dec 2015, Steve Matzura wrote: > >> Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2015 08:09:19 >> From: Steve Matzura <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> Reply-To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. >> <speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> Subject: Re: Getting speakup to run on debian >> >> Right. I tried installing the espeakup package and apt-get couldn't >> find it. I suspect I have a source problem in /etc/apt/sources.list. I >> suspect I should have been able to get it from the DVD distro, but >> darned if I know how to do that! I also made what apparently turned >> out to be an invalid assumption that, if the install talked, the >> system should, or could be made to easily. >> >> On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 07:32:59 -0500, you wrote: >> >>> You need a speech synthesizer, and that is not part of speakup. You >>> either need espeakup, or speechd-up and speech dispatcher, which has >>> worked great for me, although I mostly use hardware speech. >>> >>> Steve Matzura <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> >>>> I just installed a fresh Jessie yesterday. The install was assisted by >>>> Speakup, which I started at the install screen main menu by pressing >>>> s<ENTER>. I was quite impressed with the way it all worked, with one >>>> silly exception: There was a screen with 78 choices, one per line, and >>>> I couldn't figure out how to scroll the screen backward to read the >>>> first and second screens of choices, so I just went with the default >>>> choice, which turned out to be the correct one for me for the question >>>> being asked. Very impressive. No Orca, no forms, just straight CLI. I >>>> love CLI. >>>> >>>> Now then, the system is up and running, there's no desktop, I boot >>>> directly to the login prompt, and now I want to get Speakup working on >>>> the console terminals. Someone named Samuel from Debian accessibility >>>> told me I should install the espeakup package, but apt-get can't find >>>> it. What'd I do wrong? And why would I even need to be doing this >>>> since obviously Speakup is included in the install, you'd think, or at >>>> least I did, that it would already exist on the system and be able to >>>> be run. >>>> >>>> Thanks in advance for any and all assistance and advice. >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Speakup mailing list >>>> Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >>>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Speakup mailing list >> Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup