Hear Your Text Sing: Turn Fedora Linux into a Vocal Powerhouse

Imagine your Fedora whispering sweet nothings (or reading important documents) aloud. No need for fancy hardware! With a few simple steps, you can unlock the power of speech synthesis and transform your text into audible magic. Let’s explore your options and turn your silent system into a vocal powerhouse with espeak package!

Check Your Vocal Arsenal

Before diving in, let’s see what’s already available on your Fedora system. Open a terminal and enter espeak -v. This lists available voices (espeak being a popular text-to-speech synthesizer). If the list is empty, worry not! We’ll get you talking in no time.

Speak Up! Installation espeak time

Here are two popular options for enabling speech synthesis on Fedora:

• eSpeak: For basic needs, sudo dnf install espeak gets you started. Customize voices and settings with man espeak.
• Speech Dispatcher with Festival/eSpeak: For more control and high-quality voices, install sudo dnf install speech-dispatcher espeak festival. Configure Speech Dispatcher using spd-conf -u.

Additional Tools

• Festival: Offers advanced speech synthesis features like text-to-emotion. Install with sudo dnf install festival.
• Glate: A graphical application for easy text-to-speech and translation. Install from Snap Store with sudo snap install glate.

Enabling SpeechSynthesisUtterance in Chrome on Linux is slightly different than in Firefox due to browser-specific functionalities. Here’s what you can do:

Check Speech Dispatcher:

• First, verify if your system has Speech Dispatcher available. Open a terminal and type espeak -v. If this lists voices, you might have Speech Dispatcher already.

2. Install speech-dispatcher (if needed):

• If espeak -v displays no voices, install Speech Dispatcher with sudo dnf install speech-dispatcher.

3. Configure Chrome flags:

• Chrome requires launching with specific flags to enable Speech Dispatcher. Right-click the Chrome icon and select “Properties”.
• In the “Properties” window, find the “Command” field. Add the following flags to the end of the existing command, separated by spaces: --enable-speech-dispatcher --enable-features=TextToSpeech
• Click “Apply” and “OK” to save the changes.

4. Launch Chrome with flags:

• Close any open Chrome windows and use the shortcut you modified in step 3 to launch Chrome. This will activate the necessary flags.

5. Ensure Chrome has permissions:

• Go to Chrome settings (chrome://settings/) and navigate to “Privacy and security”.
• Click “Site Settings” and then “Sound”.
• Make sure “Always ask” is selected for “Ask before playing audio”. This allows Chrome to request permission for text-to-speech on individual websites.

6. Use Text-to-Speech on websites:

• Now, navigate to a website that offers built-in text-to-speech functionality or supports Text-to-Speech extensions.
• When prompted by Chrome, grant permission for the website to use audio.
• Activate the text-to-speech feature on the website or extension, and Chrome should utilize Speech Dispatcher and eSpeak for vocalization.