pulseaudio and espeakup

[john doe]

Hi Samuel,

Thank you for taking the time to do this! :)

On 5/3/2018 11:57 PM, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> john doe, le mer. 02 mai 2018 10:06:42 +0200, a ecrit:
>> On 5/2/2018 1:40 AM, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>>> I'm afraid the only solution we have is that both espeakup and
>>> speech-dispatcher just release the audio device when they think they
>>> won't have anything to speak in the close future.
> 
> FI, I have worked on the espeakup part, which is relatively
> straightforward: the speakup screen driver knows when the console is
> switched to a graphical VT, and tell espeakup to suspend itself, so the
> screen reader inside the Xorg session can (re)start speaking. The kernel
> part has just been submitted, so it will land at best in linux 4.18.
> 

Okay.

>> Or the user let them know using command line option.
> 
> That can not work for the initial console -> lightdm switch.
> 
>>> Of course if an application in Xorg is still
>>> using the audio card, pulseaudio will keep running the card and espeakup
>>> won't be able to take it. I don't think we have any solution against
>>> that.
>>
>> Can't a new option be added in pulseaudio to force the release of the
>> soundcard?
> 
> Actually there is already pulseaudio -k which terminates the pulseaudio
> server. That's a bit harsh though :)
> 

Yeah, that's why I didn't mention it.

> http://git.0pointer.net/reserve.git/tree/reserve.txt
> however documents how we can tell pulseaudio to release the soundcard.
> That could be implemented as a simple tool which can be called from the
> X session.
> 

Looks good to me.

>> Given that the delay option is not ideal an other thing that could be done
>> would be to implement a shortcut that would do the necessary step(s) to be
>> able to switch back and forth between the DM and the console.
> 
> Well, we'd rather see this automatic. Having to press two shortcuts to
> switch to the console would look odd.
> 

Fair enough.

Needless to say that when ever I can I would be happy to help/test for 
this or other project(s)! :)

-- 
John Doe