I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to
an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file
system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and
recreates the iso.
Close. Nothing is resquashed. The unsquashed fs is used for collecting
packages and generating a new initramfs, then deleted.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on
my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software
speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no
speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual
machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking.
So that's strange.
If speakup_soft isn't loaded, then I'd guess something wrong happened
during
https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd3864744664a40037726b2/mk.sh#L60
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/7d66206cccaadf9b7dd3864744664a40037726b2/mk.sh*L60__;Iw!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sLdl68NVQ$>
(systemctl enable --now espeakup).
What do systemctl status espeakup and journalctl -ab0 -u espeakup show?
I don't think there is any reason to make the speakup_ltlk driver
a special case.
I did that to reduce the scope of my testing.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math
Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for
documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help
more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That
way it fits into the grml2* fa
That sounds fine. Just make sure to adhere to the GPL2 license:
https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/LICENSE__;!!Mak6IKo!MqwfPPZFyi3KaXuLWXbkkqGKRSo2ryK-cn2Ksj8b76e69jieC2zJwKaY4kJpng5Nmo6hR4nJ5sJ9FBRegg$>.
On Sat, May 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM John G. Heim <[email protected]> wrote:
Ah ha!
I see that your script does the whole thing of copying the iso to
an updateable file system on disk, extracts the squashed file
system, modifies it, and then resquashes the file system and
recreates the iso. I didn't know you could do that last step all
in one swoop -- which is pretty cool. That is actually where I
always got stuck trying to do this myself in the past. That
xorriso command to regen the iso must have 20 settings.
Anyway, I also see that just documenting the process so others can
replicate it is not practical. I was hoping GRML had some kind of
hook for customization that I was unaware of.
I generated an iso file for grml and my synth that uses the
speakup_ltlk driver. It works. So that's great.
But the software speech iso did not work on either a laptop or on
my desktop. They booted into GRML just fine but the software
speech driver, speakup_soft, was not loaded and there was no
speech. Weird thing is that the same ISO worked in a virtual
machine. I booted a vm with the same iso and it came up talking.
So that's strange.
Volume is fine, btw, that doesn't really matter.
I am wondering what you want to do next. I made some modifications
to the script to make it a little more friendly and more
generalized. I don't think there is any reason to make the
speakup_ltlk driver a special case. If the user specifies anything
but software speech via the speakup_soft driver, it should just
add the speakup module dependency to initramfs, generate a new
initramfs, then overwrite the old initramfs with the new. With
that change, which is actually a simplification, the script works
for all hardware synths, not just the ltlk. Pseudo code:
if driver is 'soft' then
generate isofiles/scripts/grml.sh
fi
add speakup module to initramfs
Note that following the above pseudo code, the software speech
module, speakup_soft, would be added to the initramfs. But that's
good. because even if everything else goes wrong, to get speech
after the boot is finished, you only have to type 'espeakup'
instead of 'modprobe speakup_soft; espeakup'. It's not a huge
improvement but it's not nothin' either.
I also made it so it checks if the packages the script depends on
are already installed so it doesn't try to install them again.
And then I wrote some code to generate a name for the resulting
iso file. If you start with something like
grml-full-2025.05-amd64.iso you end up with something like
ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso.
It might be better to end up with something like
grml-ltlk-full-2025.05-amd64.iso. But during testing, I had too
many files starting with "grml-" and I got tired of ffilling the
tab completion.
How about if I put the modified script on my web site at the Math
Dept at the University of Wisconsin? I'll be responsible for
documenting, publishing, and maintaining it. That way it can help
more than just me. Oh, how about if I rename it grml2speak? That
way it fits into the grml2* fa
https://people.math.wisc.edu/~jheim/GRML/grml2speak
On 5/11/25 12:19 AM, Kyle Sebion wrote:
Hi John,
I made a script that sets up espeakup in a grml .iso file:
https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/KyleSebion/grml-espeakup/blob/main/mk.sh__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbipyT0jCQ$>
It isn't a very long script, so it shouldn't be hard to verify
that it isn't doing anything malicious.
To use it, boot grml, download the grml .iso you want to use and
the script, then run: ./mk.sh <grml.iso>
It will create espeakup.iso.
You might need to make tweaks based on the hardware you boot
espeakup.iso on.
I did do a fair amount of testing though (tested using 4x
different grml .iso files with espeakup.iso as a cd/dvd in a vm
and with espeakup.iso written to a usb drive and booted on my
hardware).
You might also want to change the volume I set with amixer (I
cranked it to max because my speakers aren't very loud).
You probably know this already, but screen reading won't start
until some time after boot finishes.
I might look into getting speakup_ltlk working.
That is a bit more work because the initramfs doesn't contain
it, yet.
Could be fun, though, because, since I don't have the proper
hardware for it, I'd probably set up some other hardware so that
I have a good idea if it is working.
On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
Some other dependencies for software speech would be:
The espeak-ng package sound hardware configured and volume
set to 3/4 volume
for Mastre and PCM options.
I don't know how hard this would be to do, the Debian
installer has this
functionality and if there's a way you could look at this
you'd have a place
to look as their install has had this for a few versions now
working
properly.
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Grml <[email protected]> On Behalf Of John G. Heim
Sent: Friday, May 9, 2025 1:23 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Grml] Customizing GRML to start speech as early
as possible
On 5/9/25 11:32 AM, Michael Prokop wrote:
> * John G. Heim [Wed May 07, 2025 at 01:42:23PM -0500]:
>> On 5/7/25 12:14 PM, Michael Prokop wrote:
>>> To clarify the situation: for *you* only "modprobe
speakup" is
>>> relevant, or do you use any of the specific modules like
>>> speakup_dectlk?
>>>
>>> Do *you* need anything other than just "modprobe
speakup_soft" or
>>> alike to get it working/useful for your situation?
Personally, I would need the following:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_ltlk
3. kernel module speakup_soft
4. espeakup program/package
The espeakup program has to be running for the kernel to
access a text
to speech engine for software speech.
>> I mostly use the Litetalk driver, speakup_ltlk. But to use
a hardware
>> synth,
>> you have to have a machine with a serial port. This is
another reason
>> supporting hardware speech synths is more work than it is
worth. My blind
>> friends say the machines they work on do not have serial
ports. So
>> far, that
>> has not been a problem for me. Even my desktop has a
serial port. When I
>> ordered the mobo, I just made sure it had a serial port
header block.
> Alright, And you don't need anything extra like espeakup or
alike,
> but that might be relevant for users without hardware like
yours?
For most users, this would be sufficient:
1. Kernel module speakup
2. Kernel module speakup_soft
3. Espeakup program/package
>> BTW, if you are interested, I'll be giving a talk a week
from today
>> on being
>> a blind systems admin to the Campus Research Computing
Consortium
>> (https://carcc.org
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://carcc.org__;!!Mak6IKo!KRveEP_wSmqkGWjfMoJnuOGc6lW7lEHbwRT5N4XpDK8qH8tNxfcT3cyjCO3wR-YiS5miNMSyPbjP_dtPvg$>).
Meeting details below. I will probably mention
>> GRML but
>> I won't spend a lot of time on it since i have so much to
cover.
> That sounds interesting. :) Did I understand the date/timezone
> right, that your zoom meeting starts at 12:00 PM in ET (Eastern
> Time), corresponding to 6:00 PM AKA 18:00 CEST?
>
I am pretty sure it is at 1:00 Eastern. It is confusing
though. The
meeting was created by somebody in the Central time sone so
that's why
it says 12:00. That's his time but it's 1:00 PM Eastern. I'll
send the
organizer an email just to be absolutely sure
I am starting to think those people who say the entire planet
should
have one time zone are on to something. If I have to get used
to 3:00 AM
being lunch time, so be it.
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