Anyone know how to install TextAloud in Ubuntu?

[R Danner III]

Currently running a dual-boot on a Toshiba Satellite A505-S6005; dual-booting Windows 7 Home Premium x64 and Linux Mint 13 x64 (the Ubuntu-based one, not the Debian-based); I run in Linux 99% of the time, and using TAMP3 is much better than native apps for Linux, at least as far as I can determine thus far.

Can manage downloading whatever variant of WINE is needed, but would prefer that (if at all possible) instructions for PlayonLinux be given, since I am most comfortable with that wrapper for WINE. (Also: Have WINE v1.4 installed at the moment, if that helps.)

[Jim Bretti]

There are some old instructions at http://nextup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3349. The instructions there mention using Windows ME emulation, I have it working myself with Windows 7 emulation. So you may need to experiment with different settings for windows emulation.

Also, if you have any problems related to audio be sure to try some different Audio options in Winecfg. I don't remember exactly what problems I was having, but I did need to change the default output device. Some users running older Wine versions indicated that they had to reconfigure the sound drivers used by Wine. If TextAloud freezes at startup the problem can be driver related.

If you can't get it to work, try setting your Windows Emulation to Windows XP. Download the Sapi5 installer for US English http://www.webaloud.com/files/Microsoft ... TTS-51.msi, then install the free Mary and Mike voices for Sapi5 using the installer at http://www.nextup.com/files/MarMike5.msi.

If you have problems post them here and hopefully someone will be able to help.

[wtwhite]

On 32-bit Ubuntu the installation procedure with wine and MS SAPI files detailed elsewhere have worked for me. When installing AT&T voices from old CDs to 64 bit Ubuntu 13.10, wine defaults did not work -- the AT&T installer gave some error message about inadequate processor power and quit.
The FAQ on the wine website says that a 32-bit wine-prefix must be set to get true 32-bit emulation and everything must be installed to this wine-prefix. This must be done in command (terminal) mode!?! I chose wineta32 for the prefix name and was installing TextAloud version TA3056 and Microsoft-English-TT S-51.msi, which I keep in a folder named textaloud; your names will probably be different. Here are the steps that worked for me:

Enter command
WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=~/.wineta32 winecfg
This should bring up the configuration panel where you choose the Windows version. I chose ME
Enter 3 commands
cd nextup
WINEPREFIX=~/.wineta32 wine start Microsoft-English-TT S-51.msi
WINEPREFIX=~/.wineta32 wine TA3056.exe
This should install TextAloud and put its icon on the desktop. Double-click the icon and verify that TextAloud will work. Then exit TextAloud.
Enter command
cd /media/your-username (or just /media for earlier releases of Ubuntu)
The following steps will have to be done for each voice CD.

Load AT&T CD and note its name, which should start with NextUp. If the name or label of a CD has an embedded space, enclose it in apostrophes when using it in commands.
Enter 2 commands
cd noted-name-from-step-above
ls
Look for something like a setup file. In my case all the AT&T CDs had setup.exe (The Neospeech CD showed folders for Kate & Paul. In that case: cd Kate, command with setup as below, cd .., then repeat for Paul)
Enter command
WINEPREFIX=~/.wineta32 wine setup.exe
This should bring up the NextUp/AT&T dialog. Go thru it with normal responses.
Enter command (be sure to have a space between cd and ..)
cd ..
Right click CD icon & click eject. You can now start on your next CD.

That looks like work, but a long batch conversion job took only 27% of the time needed with 32-bit Ubuntu.

[smakarl]

I had it running well under WINE, It was a slightly older version of TextAloud. I do not know whether my instructions work with the newer versions.
I shared my instructions with Jim Bretti .
Good luck.

[Jim Bretti]

If you're installing TextAloud 4 on Ubuntu, the main difference is you'll need to install the dot net framework (4.0)

Here's how I configured on a system here:

Code: Select all

$ export WINEARCH=win32
$ export WINEPREFIX=~/win32
$ winecfg		// this will create the ~/win32 directory and do some setup. Just close the dialog displayed
$ winetricks speechsdk	// sets up Sapi5
$ winetricks dotnet40	// this displays a lot of errors but the install should work

After setting this up you should be able to run a TextAloud 4 installer.