Voice-to-text anywhere on your Linux desktop. Press a key, speak, release, paste.
Uses faster-whisper for local, offline speech-to-text — no cloud transcription, no API keys. Whisper handles capitalization and punctuation automatically.
demo.mp4
git clone https://github.com/vimalk78/dictate.git
cd dictate
bash install.sh
Reboot or re-login once (for input group membership). That's it.
Two background services start on every login:
- dictate — daemon with Whisper model loaded in memory
- dictate-ptt — push-to-talk listener (system-wide keyboard detection)
The flow: press Right Ctrl in any window, speak, release the key. A bell rings when transcription is done. Press Ctrl+V to paste. Works in your terminal, browser, editor, Claude Code — anywhere.
No GPU required. On NVIDIA GPUs it uses the medium model for higher accuracy. On CPU (including Intel integrated) it uses the small model — still quite good for English. Works with your laptop mic, external mic, or AirPods.
The system-wide push-to-talk works directly with Claude Code — press Right Ctrl, speak your prompt, release, hear the bell, Ctrl+V into the Claude Code input. No special setup needed.
Optional: voice-enabled editor and /dictate command
Voice editor (Ctrl+G) — for longer prompts you want to review before sending:
EDITOR=dictate-editor claude
Press Ctrl+G to open nvim with voice keybindings (F5 record, F6 stop/transcribe, F7 spell check). Dictate in chunks, edit, then :wq to send.
/dictate command — speak directly into the Claude Code prompt:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/commands
cp dictate.claude-command ~/.claude/commands/dictate.md
Type /dictate, speak, pause when done.
Don't have a GPU on your laptop? Run the Whisper model on a GPU machine on your LAN and forward audio to it over TCP. The push-to-talk client doesn't know or care — it works exactly the same.
On the GPU machine (headless, no mic needed):
dictate --serve --listen 0.0.0.0:5555
On your laptop:
dictate --serve --server GPU_IP:5555
Or set the server permanently in ~/.config/dictate/config.toml:
server = "192.168.1.100:5555"Audio is sent as raw float32 over TCP (~64KB/s) — trivial on a LAN.
- Two background services — daemon (model loaded) + push-to-talk (keyboard listener). No terminal needed.
- System-wide key detection via
evdev— works in any window, any app. Detects keyboard disconnect/reconnect automatically (e.g. KVM switches). - Mic health monitoring — detects microphone disconnect/reconnect (e.g. USB re-plug, Bluetooth switch, KVM). Sends desktop notifications and re-calibrates automatically.
- Sound notifications — bell rings when transcription is done, so you know when to paste.
- Pre-loaded Whisper model — no startup delay per request. The model stays in memory.
- 1-second rolling pre-buffer — captures speech from the moment you press the key.
- Runs entirely locally — no internet, no cloud APIs, no data leaves your machine.
Switch transcription language on the fly — no restart needed.
dictate --lang hi # set language to Hindi
dictate --lang en # set language to English
dictate --lang # toggle through configured languages
The toggle cycles through languages in your config (default: ["en", "hi"]). A desktop notification shows the current language.
Note: multilingual transcription requires a model that supports the languages you want. The large-v3 model works well across languages. Smaller models like small are decent for English but weaker for Hindi and other languages.
Keyboard shortcut (recommended): bind dictate --lang to a key combo for instant switching:
# GNOME example: Super+F9
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys custom-keybindings "['/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/']"
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/ name 'Dictate Toggle Language'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/ command 'dictate --lang'
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybinding:/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/ binding '<Super>F9'
Or add it manually in GNOME Settings → Keyboard → Custom Shortcuts.
dictate --serve # start daemon (keeps model loaded)
dictate --ptt # push-to-talk via daemon (system-wide, sound notifications)
dictate --once # send one request to daemon, print text
dictate --lang [CODE] # set or toggle language (cycles through `languages` in config.toml)
dictate --stop # stop daemon
dictate --stop-recording # stop current recording immediately
dictate --key PAUSE # use a different trigger key
dictate --model small # smaller/faster model
dictate --model large-v3 # best accuracy (needs >4GB VRAM)
dictate --language hi # Hindi, or any supported language
dictate --cpu # force CPU inference
dictate --list-devices # show available audio input devices
dictate --serve --listen 0.0.0.0:5555 # headless TCP transcription server
dictate --serve --server IP:5555 # daemon forwarding to remote GPU
Edit ~/.config/dictate/config.toml:
language = "en" # default transcription language
languages = ["en", "hi"] # languages to cycle with: dictate --lang
model = "large-v3" # Whisper model (auto-detected if not set)
key = "RIGHTCTRL"
pre_buffer_secs = 1.0
silence_secs = 3.0
wait_secs = 10.0
server = "" # "HOST:PORT" for network transcriptionSwitching microphones — dictate uses PipeWire's default input source. To switch between mics (e.g. webcam mic vs AirPods), change the default input in GNOME Settings → Sound → Input, then restart:
systemctl --user restart dictate.service dictate-ptt.service
Whisper can struggle with technical terms — "Claude" becomes "cloud", "Kubernetes" becomes "kubernetes". Hints fix this.
Hints are loaded from two directories, merged together:
| Directory | Scope | Ships with |
|---|---|---|
~/.config/dictate/hints.d/ |
Global (always loaded) | install.sh |
.dictate-hints.d/ in CWD |
Project-specific | You or /dictate-hints |
Each file contains one term per line (# comments supported). All files in both directories are merged and deduplicated.
Global hints are installed automatically — includes common Claude, dev tooling, and language terms.
Project hints — create .dictate-hints.d/ in your project root and drop files in:
.dictate-hints.d/
project.hints # MyClassName, my_function, ProjectName
infra.hints # Terraform, Ansible, Helm
Or use /dictate-hints in Claude Code to auto-generate from your codebase:
cp dictate-hints.claude-command ~/.claude/commands/dictate-hints.md
Hints are sent per-request — no daemon restart needed when switching projects.
| Hardware | Default model | Compute | Recommended override |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GPU (4GB+) | medium | int8 (CUDA) | large-v3 or large-v3-turbo |
| CPU only (Intel, AMD) | small | int8 | — |
No GPU required. The small model on CPU is good enough for English dictation. NVIDIA GPU gives you the medium model for better accuracy. Set model = "large-v3" in config for the best quality if your GPU has enough VRAM.
- Linux with Wayland (tested on Fedora 43, Ubuntu 22.04)
- Python 3.10+
- A microphone (laptop mic, USB mic, AirPods — anything that shows up as an input device)
- NVIDIA GPU (optional, falls back to CPU)
- For Jetson (aarch64): build ctranslate2 from source first — see
build-ctranslate2.sh
systemctl --user disable --now dictate dictate-ptt
rm -rf ~/.local/share/dictate ~/.local/bin/dictate ~/.local/bin/dictate-editor
rm -rf ~/.config/systemd/user/dictate.service ~/.config/systemd/user/dictate-ptt.service
rm -rf ~/.config/dictate
- Fedora 43, NVIDIA GTX 1650 (4GB), Keychron K8, AirPods mic
- Fedora 43, Intel integrated (no GPU), laptop mic + AirPods
- Jetson Orin Nano (JetPack 6.x, 8GB), network transcription server