How to stop Ubuntu from talking to me?

Question

The title may sound silly, but on Ubuntu 13.10, I'm getting frequent audible notifications using text to speech.

Is this the "speech dispatcher" and how can I disable it?

Answer 1

Pressing AltSuperS will disable or enable speech dispatcher.

The last thing you should hear is "screen reader off" :-

ps. The Super key is the "windows" key...

Answer 2

Go to the Settings application. Select Universal Access. You will see a tab labeled "Seeing". In there should be Screen Reader. Turn that off.

Answer 3

I had the same problem maybe, starting with Ubuntu 15.04. The Screen reader is off, same with the dispatcher setting; but it keeps telling me what I'm typing.

I have running four dispatcher, all at the time that can't be killed because they're starting again directly. To solve my problem, I went to System Settings -> Sound. On Applications, I muted the four speech-dispatcher.

Answer 4

Do you want to change the systemwide settings for Speech Dispatcher? The (yes/no) systemwide settings for Speech Dispatcher can be changed by editing the /etc/default/speech-dispatcher file.

Open the terminal and from the terminal open the /etc/default/speech-dispatcher file for editing in nano text editor:

sudo nano '/etc/default/speech-dispatcher'  

Find the lines in speech-dispatcher that say:

# Set to yes to start system wide Speech Dispatcher
RUN=yes

...and change RUN=yes to RUN=no.

This will disable the system wide speech dispatcher audible notifications, if they have been previously enabled. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+O and after that press Enter to save the speech-dispatcher file. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+X to exit nano.

You can still toggle enable/disable the screen reader after it has been turned off systemwide by using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Super+S

Answer 5

Maybe "orca" has bean launched. Kill the "orca" (Screen Reader) process, then you should hear "screen reader off".

Answer 6

Go to universal access under settings then turn off the screen reader

Answer 7

I was also facing same problem with Laptop My solution was simple System -> Sound -> Application and then I muted all four Speech-dispatcher and it solves my issue.

Answer 8

You can disable it in following ways :-

Press Alt + Super + S

or goto System Settings > Universal Access > Turn Off Screen Reader

If you will check your System Setting > Sound > Applications then may be you can find that some instance of Speech Dispatcher is running. You can kill the running instances in this way:-

deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ ps aux | grep speech
deepak    2593  0.0  0.0 289004  5076 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_dummy /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/dummy.conf
deepak    2599  0.0  0.0 289004  5008 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_cicero /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/cicero.conf
deepak    2603  0.1  0.1 531004  9608 ?        Sl   10:10   0:03 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_espeak /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/espeak.conf
deepak    2632  0.0  0.0 289016  5024 ?        Sl   10:10   0:00 /usr/lib/speech-dispatcher-modules/sd_generic /etc/speech-dispatcher/modules/generic.conf
deepak    2635  0.0  0.0 104284  2320 ?        Ssl  10:10   0:00 /usr/bin/speech-dispatcher --spawn --socket-path /run/user/1000/speech-dispatcher/speechd.sock --port 6560 --communication-method unix_socket
deepak    4708  0.0  0.0  21292   944 pts/9    S+   11:05   0:00 grep --color=auto speech
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2593
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2599
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2603
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2632
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ kill 2635
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ 
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ ps aux | grep speech
deepak    4719  0.0  0.0  21292   944 pts/9    S+   11:06   0:00 grep --color=auto speech
deepak@SpiritualDixit-PC:~$ 

Answer 9

On my Debian 12 as root

apt remove orca

did the trick.

It probably works the same in Ubuntu.