Running Speech Dispatcher with ALSA?

[Milan Zamazal]

I use ALSA exclusively on my system, without OSS emulation in kernel.
I've got Speech Dispatcher 0.6 from Debian and I can't make it speak.  I
use the Festival output module.

When I put the following lines in
/etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/festival.conf:

  FestivalAudioOutputMethod "alsa"
  FestivalALSADevice "default"

Speech Dispatcher refuses to start with the following log messages:

  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 430865] speechd:  Speech Dispatcher Logging to file /var/log/speech-dispatcher/speechd.log
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 431091] speechd:  Initializing output module festival with binary /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules//sd_festival and configuration /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules//festival.conf
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 431114] speechd:  Output module is logging to file /var/log/speech-dispatcher/festival.log
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 432289] speechd:  Module festival loaded.
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 599505] speechd: ERROR: Module festival failed to initialize. Reason: 
  ---------------
  Communicating with Festival through a socket. Opening sound device failed. Reason: Couldn't open ALSA device.. Can't open sound device.
  ---------------

  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 599580] speechd:   Couldn't load specified output module
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 599823] speechd:   Reading configuration for pattern emacs:*
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 604625] speechd:   Reading configuration for pattern *:gnomespeech:*
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 604748] speechd:  Configuration has been read from "/etc/speech-dispatcher//speechd.conf"
  [Sun Jul  9 14:58:31 2006 : 604777] speechd: Error [speechd.c:446]:No speech output modules were loaded - aborting...
.

When I replace the line

  FestivalALSADevice "default"

with

  FestivalALSADevice "hw:1,0"

Speech Dispatcher starts and seems to operate normally except for its
output being completely silent, I can't hear anything.

I also tried CVS snapshot of Speech Dispatcher, but with the same
result.  Other applications work well with the default ALSA device on
the system.

Any idea what could be wrong in my setup?

Thanks,

Milan Zamazal
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