If I'm not mistaken espeak is used to install debian. For that reason even if orca gets installed, orca has not yet been run on the hardware. For that reason it's entirely correct for anyone to get a silent desktop the first time they start the desktop up. Once orca is run inside a user account with the desktop running and orca accessibility gets turned on in accessibility settings the silent desktop should not happen on subsequent runs of the desktop after the system is rebooted. Since many accessibility needs exist running a gsettings command to enable orca when orca is installed isn't done in many linux installations. Slint has the orca-on and orca-off scripts available so a user can adjust this in the console before they start orca for the first time, but so far as I now know slint in that respect is unique. I hope this helps.
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