Text to speak software with espeak and mbrola. Test on Raspberry Pi2 (Raspbian/jessie) and Pi4 (Raspbian/buster).

setup.sh

# install espeak
sudo apt-get install espeak

# install mbrola
wget http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola/bin/raspberri_pi/mbrola.tgz
tar xvzf mbrola.tgz 
chmod 755 mbrola
sudo mv ./mbrola /usr/local/bin/

# install voices for mbrola
wget http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola/dba/fr1/fr1-990204.zip
sudo unzip fr1-990204.zip -d /opt/mbrola
sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/mbrola/voices/
sudo cp -r /opt/mbrola/fr1/* /usr/share/mbrola/voices/

# test it !
espeak -s 125 -v mb/mb-fr1 'installation terminé. On peux maintenant utiliser espeak !'

# sample script  for use with python

# #!/usr/bin/env python
# # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
# 
# import os, time
# 
# var1 = 0
# 
# while True:
#     os.system('espeak -v mb-fr1 -s 120 \'variable var1 égale à %s\'' % var1)
#     var1 += 1
#     time.sleep(1.0)