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this week I found out that when you start the Debian Linux instaler with speech, and it detects multiple soundcards, it cycles between them and you can press enter to choose the one that actually works. Most installers just pick a random soundcard and send speech through it. Maybe it picks the internal speakers, maybe it picks the digital output that has nothing hooked up to it. If you can't hear your machine, you'll have no idea the installer started, and good luck switching soundcards after that. As far as I know, the Windows installer certainly doesn't have a soundcard selection for narrator.
This would never be a problem with Debian installations because it will just keep cycling through the soundcards until the speech becomes audible. I know we all love to hate on Linux accessibility, but sometimes the thought that goes into the design of the simplest things is really quite impressive. This is also very on-brand for Linux and I'm definitely here for it.
At the time when this happened, I was on a call with Aira and had forgotten to turn up my speakers, so I know the machine displays a "Press enter to select device 1", "Press enter to select device 2..." prommpt, but I can't 100% confirm that the speech follows along. It seems like a safe assumption though, and at some point I'll do a proper test with multiple outputs and make a recording.