LinuxQuestions.org - How to make everything on stdout be read aloud (using eSpeak)?

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jmite

05-13-2013 01:40 AM

How to make everything on stdout be read aloud (using eSpeak)?

I've got the eSpeak TTS system up and running, and I like it quite a bit.

I'm wondering, is there a way to pipe EVERYTHING that gets printed to STDOUT to espeak? I'm trying to set up a system without a monitor that would speak the terminal output to me.

I've found the brltty-espeak package, but I have no idea how to set it up.

pan64

05-13-2013 01:59 AM

I do not know this eSpeak system, but I know every terminal has its own stdout and probably you do not really need all the stdouts, just some specific one. The normal approach is to attach TTS to a given terminal.
Based on the documentation you need to redirect stdout to espeak

jmite

05-13-2013 09:41 AM

Okay then, how do I redirect stdout to espeak? It seems to take normal pipe input like any other program, but how do I direct all of stdout on a terminal to espeak?

schneidz

05-13-2013 09:50 AM

Code:

echo hello world | espeak

i tired this but it is kinda buggy:

Code:

cat /dev/pts/1 | espeak

jmite

05-13-2013 10:26 AM

Is there a way to pipe every command to espeak without having to manually type it each time? My goal is to have a computer without a monitor which will read everything on stdout to me.

pan64

05-14-2013 12:33 AM

yes, there is a way (several ways). Actually I have no espeak, so I cannot test it, but in general it should work:

Code:

#you can create a fifo

ESPEAK_FIFO=/tmp/espeak_fifo

mkfifo $ESPEAK_FIFO

# start espeak in the background

espeak -f $ESPEAK_FIFO &

# or use tee to keep text on display too

cat $ESPEAK_FIFO | tee /dev/tty | espeak

# redirect stdout to fifo

exec >$ESPEAK_FIFO

this small script should be sourced in your terminal and afterwards everything displayed will be sent to espeak.

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