Compiling programs

CptCharis

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Hello again ladies & gents.

I am trying to compile a TSS program.
I found a src folder among others in downloaded files and try to run ./confing command, without success, bcz configure file doesn't exist.

Screenshot at 2018-05-16 22-17-22.png


could somebody help me with compiling?

I know you will do and thanks in advance.
 


Hi Captain! As @Rob said, the readme file might give you the info you need to compile. But also, it is usually better to install software from the repositories unless you need to tweak the source code for special purposes. I did a search in Synaptic Package Manager in Mint, and it showed me that espeak was already installed. You may have it installed also and not even know it. You can try:
Code:
which espeak
and see if it returns /usr/bin/espeak like mine did.

I did have a little difference in versions... Synaptic says 1.48.04 like your source code, but I get 1.48.03 with this:
Code:
espeak --version

The version difference probably doesn't matter though.
 
Hello again ladies & gents.

I am trying to compile a TSS program.
I found a src folder among others in downloaded files and try to run ./confing command, without success, bcz configure file doesn't exist.

View attachment 3116

could somebody help me with compiling?

I know you will do and thanks in advance.

I know you have espeak installed already and no longer need help with compilation. But from a quick look at the sources, it looks as if the source ships with a makefile.

As long as you have all of the pre-requisite development libraries and headers installed, it should just involve running make. It doesn't look as if auto-tools (configure, m4 etc) are used.

Thanks @Rob & @atanere !!!

espeak is already installView attachment 3117

but how can I run it?

Open a terminal and then use:
Code:
espeak -z < /path/to/fileToRead

The -z switch causes espeak to end as soon as it finishes reading the last sentence, otherwise there will be a pause before espeak ends.
I'm impatient - so I often use the -z switch.

If you want the document read in a certain language/accent, you can change the voice.
e.g.
You can see a list of available voices by using:
Code:
espeak --voices

So to read a document in spanish (or with a spanish accent):
Code:
espeak -v spanish -z < /path/to/fileToRead

There are also parameters that will allow you to change the speed and pitch of the voice.

See man espeak for further details.

Also, I think there are some desktop applications and accessibility applications that can use espeak as a back-end for TTS.

For example, Okular (KDE/QT E-reader software) can be configured to use espeak to read books aloud.
 
Aha ok so its a CLI program, correct?
 
Guys something more, in case I use the CLI version can read from PDF or Word files ?
 
I'm just sittin' here sipping morning coffee and lapping this up :). Stan and Jas are SO knowledgeable (and I loved Jas' scripting posts elsewhere). I have even started bookmarking certain linux.org threads for later reference.

Love this place :cool:

Capta, if you have a need to install an app from a tarball (tar, could end in .gz or .bz2), you will likely find also the existence of makefile, readme and perhaps install.txt. These can assist you to build it/them.

Cheers and enjoy your Linux

Wiz
 
Guys something more, in case I use the CLI version can read from PDF or Word files ?
No, on the command line, it can really only deal with plain text.

In order to get espeak to read .pdf files, you would need to have a pdf-viewer that can deal with text to speech (like Okular).

Likewise, for word or libreoffice files, you would need some kind of plug-in that could extract the readable bits of text from the file-format.

I haven't really looked much at accessibility options in libreoffice, but I'm sure it probably has the ability to support TTS software like espeak.

A quick bit of duckduckgo-fu just revealed this:
https://extensions.libreoffice.org/extensions/read-text

So there is at least ONE libreoffice extension that supports TTS.
 
Some advice from the web... slow the speech down to make it more understandable. The default is 160 words per minute. Try 125:
Code:
espeak -s 125

That's another good point - I forgot to mention that option.
Actually, I kind of did mention it, but I didn't go into any detail. But the default speed is a bit pacey!
I usually have it set to 130-ish wpm.
 
Another update - it seems that Okular no longer supports TTS.

I just tried firing up Okular so I could tell CptCharis how to set it up, but the options to do so are no longer there.

It used to use Jovie with espeak to provide TTS - but I just checked Jovie's home page on the KDE website and for some reason the project is no longer maintained or distributed by KDE. Not sure exactly why - whether it was because there was nobody to maintain it, or because they have another project in the works to replace it - IDK!
ref:
https://www.kde.org/applications/utilities/jovie/

So it appears that I haven't had TTS in Okular since my QT apps were upgraded from QT4 to QT5! :/
Goes to show how often I use the TTS!
 
Still lapping it up, except Ive graduated from coffee to beer, a natural transition :rolleyes:

It used to use Jovie with espeak to provide TTS - but I just checked Jovie's home page on the KDE website and for some reason the project is no longer maintained or distributed by KDE. Not sure exactly why

Speculation, but as I understand it Linux Mint for one (& I know Jas is mostly Debian) is discontinuing shipping releases with KDE. Linux Mint 18.3 is the last.

I wonder whether KDE is undergoing any problems, and if Jovie is "collateral damage" in their having to reorganise their business model. Keep your eyes out on Kubuntu and other KDE offerings, I guess.

I won't go further here and derail Capta's thread, we can talk about it elsewhere.

Cheers all

Wiz
 
Another update - it seems that Okular no longer supports TTS.

I just tried firing up Okular so I could tell CptCharis how to set it up, but the options to do so are no longer there.

It used to use Jovie with espeak to provide TTS - but I just checked Jovie's home page on the KDE website and for some reason the project is no longer maintained or distributed by KDE. Not sure exactly why - whether it was because there was nobody to maintain it, or because they have another project in the works to replace it - IDK!
ref:
https://www.kde.org/applications/utilities/jovie/

So it appears that I haven't had TTS in Okular since my QT apps were upgraded from QT4 to QT5! :/
Goes to show how often I use the TTS!

@JasKinasis

I downloaded okular with same results, thanks for your time, if you have any update
Let us know.

I have a heavy seminar course to read for my job and I would prefer if so somebody read it for me:D
 
Hi Capta, I am looking into this at the moment, but am off for the evening imminently.

Are you looking at Greek being covered?

Cheers

Chris
 
From reading this:
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/27/linux-mint-kde-is-out-lmde-3-is-in/

It just looks like the mint devs are dropping the KDE flavour, because they themselves are more focused on GTK/Gnome based development, rather than QT.

But I'm sure that all of the QT/KDE applications will still be available in the repositories.
The KDE desktop may also be available in the Mint repositories - it just won't be available as a default desktop in any of their official versions.

So the mint devs are only dropping their official KDE re-spin of Mint - with KDE pre-installed.

The KDE project itself seems to be thriving still.
I'm not sure why Jovie got dropped.
All I can find out at the moment is that it never got ported from QT4 to QT5.

I didn't bookmark the site, but I read something last night about a Speech library that is built-in to QT5 - so perhaps that is why Jovie has been dropped.

KDE projects are all based on QT, so if QT has a library which natively supports TTS, then I suppose it makes sense to drop Jovie and use the QT TTS module instead.

Here's the home-page for the QT TTS module:
https://wiki.qt.io/QtSpeech
Looks like it's still a WIP.

I read a claim elsewhere that it is possible to manually re-compile Okular from source and enable TTS via the new QT5 TTS library by enabling the TTS option in the config before building.

But that article also claimed that adding TTS currently causes some instability in Okular, which is why most Linux distros are shipping their pre-built versions of Okular with TTS disabled.

So perhaps we will see the TTS support restored to Okular when/if it becomes more stable. IDK!
 

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