SSH Speak

Talk to a peer over SSH with espeak.

On Ubuntu/Debian or apt based distros:

sudo apt-get install espeak

On Arch based distros:

sudo pacman -S espeak

On Fedora or RPM based distros, e.g.

dnf install espeak

Then install the application

gem install ssh_speak --no-ri --no-rdoc

make sure you have the install directory in your $PATH, gem will warn you if you don't.

Basic usage:

ssh-speak [user]@[host]:[port] [options] [[-o] [espeak-options]]

• [user] is the user you want to speak to.
• [host] is the name of the machine you want to connect to
• [port] is optional, it will default to 22. Important if the user you're connecting to's sshd does not run on port 22.
• [options] include:
  • --playback which will make the program say back to you what you wrote.
  • --wait will make the console hang until espeak has finished talking on the other computer
• -o [options] this argument must always be last, every subsequent argument (option) after -o will be passed in to espeak, so you could say things like -v finnish to get a finnish voice; all such espeak options must come after -o

For example, speak to user albert on the server 68.179.53.103 on port 369

ssh-speak albert@68.179.53.103:369

and it will prompt you for Albert's password

If you'd like the messages you send to be played back to you, and you want to wait until it finishes speaking simply add the --playback and --wait options, e.g.

ssh-speak user@host:22 --playback --wait

As an example for the -o option, say you want to sound like a drunk Finnish person. Make sure you have slowed speech (-s 50, measured in words-per-minute, default is 175); you're loud (-a 200 amplitude, default is 100); you're rather low pitch (-p 20, pitch, default is 50); and of course, you're Finnish (-v finnish, voice, default is english):

ssh-speak $(whoami)@localhost --wait -o -s 50 -a 200 -p 20 -v finnish

and try it out (make sure you have sshd running for yourself here, at port 22):

(talk)> perkele