74 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
74 lines
4.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "How to switch to Pico TTS for Orca on Debian GNOME"
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date: 2025-12-21 19:15
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url: how-to-switch-to-pico-tts-for-orca-on-debian-gnome
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layout: post
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category: Tutorials
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image: /img/blog/how-to-switch-to-pico-tts-for-orca-on-debian-gnome_1.jpg
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description: "Improving Orca output voice on Debian GNOME wasn't quite straightforward"
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---
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[](/img/blog/how-to-switch-to-pico-tts-for-orca-on-debian-gnome_1.jpg)
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### Introduction
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Microsoft wants us to throw away working computers for [(opinionated) security benefits](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/tpm-2-0-%E2%80%93-a-necessity-for-a-secure-and-future-proof-windows-11/4339066). Most of people only want to browse the Web, read their e-mails, but more importantly, leverage the last computer they bought while it's still working : it's good for the planet and their expenses. Software shouldn't be the limitation here.
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Their risk assessment (which actually doesn't exist, because they have only few assets) couldn't care less about whether or not their motherboard or CPU offers a TPM 2.0. They only want a secure operating system to be protected from trivial malware, a secure Web browser to execute megabytes of third-party JavaScript, and a secure e-mail client to handle all the spams they receive.
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So here is yet another good time for most of humans to part away from [EEE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish) USA-giants, and opt for open (and free) alternatives (as GNU/Linux).
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### GNOME Orca default voice
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Among all humans, some are part of my family (no kidding !), for which I usually play the "IT technician" role :nerd_face:
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My grand-father is highly visually impaired, as [I previously wrote about when documenting how he used Android](https://geek-mexicain-archive.pages.dev/android-malvoyance-comment-vraiment-adapter-son-mobile), and has been really keen to try what screen reading feature Linux could offer, following Windows replacement.
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Windows... an OS he couldn't even use for the last decade due to successive UX breaking changes (XP, 7, 10) he couldn't adapt to, coupled to poor accessibility tools.
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[Orca](https://orca.gnome.org/) screen reader is integrated to GNOME desktop environment by default, and uses [speech-dispatcher](https://github.com/brailcom/speechd) (speechd) as an interface between screen readers and TTS (text-to-speech) engines for audio transcription.
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On a default Debian 13 (Trixie) install, the screen reading feature software flow looks like this :
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```
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Screen text content --> Orca --> speechd --> eSpeak NG --> Audio output
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```
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Unfortunately, it turns out default (and open-source) TTS engine [eSpeak NG](https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng) output voices were absolutely horrendous, and we couldn't get a clue of what they actually said. So we decided to give a try to SVOX Pico TTS engine, which is (proprietary but) publicly appreciated by the French community.
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As we couldn't find an up-to-date/working documentation, _here_ it is !
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### Switching to Pico TTS engine
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First you need to add `contrib` and `non-free` components to your apt sources list, for instance :
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{% highlight config %}
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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free
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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free
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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free
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{% endhighlight %}
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Then you have to install Pico utilities as well as speech-dispatcher Pico module :
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{% highlight bash %}
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apt-get update
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apt-get install -y libttspico-utils speech-dispatcher-pico
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{% endhighlight %}
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Eventually, we edited `/etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf` to enable Pico TTS by default :
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{% highlight config %}
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# ...
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DefaultModule pico
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# ...
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AddModule "pico" "sd_pico" "pico.conf"
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# ...
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# Note : you can replace below "fr" by "de", "en", "es" or even "it" for Italian !
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LanguageDefaultModule "fr" "pico"
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{% endhighlight %}
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Now you _only_ have to restart GNOME to make Orca properly use new speech-dispatcher configuration (restarting `speech-dispatcherd.service` didn't seem to be sufficient).
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### Conclusion
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SVOX Pico only proposes a single (female) voice, which is clearer and more importantly... understandable.
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And don't forget : an up-to-date and [secure](http://arstechnica.com/security/2025/12/microsoft-will-finally-kill-obsolete-cipher-that-has-wreaked-decades-of-havoc/) Windows, is a Windows which you've eventually got rid of ! :wastebasket:
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