Emacspeak, Ubuntu And Software Dectalk

On the positive side with respect to software synthesis, the Software Dectalk does work out of the box on Ubuntu --- out of the box that is if you first install alsa-oss the ALSA->OSS compatibility layer. I've updated the Emacspeak speech server for Software Dectalk to use alsa-oss where available; performance is not as responsive as the Emacspeak Viavoice server using the native ALSA APIs, but it's a good backup option.