Speech to Text

[AlerionTerolian]

Does anyone know of anything in the repository that can be used for text to speech? Most of wwhat I"ve found when searching online is text to speech stuff.

[pebcak]

First off, disclaimer:

I haven’t use any of the following programs so I couldn’t confirm their functioning well, let alone if they match your use case.

I just did a search for you and came up with:

GitHub - ideasman42/nerd-dictation: Simple, hackable offline speech to text - using...

This one is in the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nerd-dictation-git

Another one from Flathub:

Install Speech Note on Linux | Flathub

As always, do your own research and use what you can trust and works for you.

Good luck!

[AlerionTerolian]

Thanks for the heads up. I’m still trying to wrap my head around where and how to find and install things. Very different from the Windows .exe install. I find my biggest problem is finding things on the repositories.

[ddnn]

There should be a button to click in the EOS-Welcome app. Something like “List of apps”.
It will take you to this page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_of_applications

It’s a good list of many of the apps Arch users may want, and they are listed by both major and sub-categories. If the app is in the AUR, you’ll see a little “AUR” icon next to it.

[AlerionTerolian]

Thanks again for the heads up. One last question if you don’t mind. What difference, if any, is there between yay and pacman. Is there a situation where it would be better to use one or the other?

[ddnn]

@AlerionTerolian

What difference, if any, is there between yay and pacman

Pacman is used for installing apps that are available in the official Arch Linux repos (core, extra, multilib, and their testing branches). It can interface with the AUR as well, but this is seen as cumbersome for the average user. That’s where Yay comes in.

Yay is a “helper” that makes things generally more user-friendly and adds support for finding and installing AUR packages.

@AlerionTerolian

Is there a situation where it would be better to use one or the other?

If you want to install something from the AUR, use Yay. However, you can also use Yay to install anything from the official repos as well.

You can read more here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_helpers

[AlerionTerolian]

I see. So the helpers search the Arch repositories as well as do the install while pacman is used for specific installations. Can I assume both do functionally the same thing when it comes do updates or would pacman be better for it.

[ddnn]

@AlerionTerolian

the helpers search the Arch repositories as well as do the install while pacman is used for specific installations

Still not quite right.

Pacman — used for searching the Official Arch Linux repos and installing or updating apps from it as well.

AUR Helpers (Yay) — used for searching the AUR and installing or updating apps from it as well, but can also be used to do what Pacman does.

@AlerionTerolian

Can I assume both do functionally the same thing when it comes do updates or would pacman be better for it.

So, if it is that you would just like to use only one, then you need to use Yay.

Read through the links that have been sent. They explain everything. The wiki has it all.

[limotux]

@AlerionTerolian

Does anyone know of anything in the repository that can be used for text to speech? Most of wwhat I"ve found when searching online is text to speech stuff.

Hi @AlerionTerolian
I understand you want to dictate something. I have been for years trying to find something reliable.

The straight forward answer, what I myself actually do, I either open a google doc and dictate to it, or use my iPhone (mic option in keyboard) and dictate what I need.

Both are very reasonable and give me what I need. I understand what might some say about privacy! Sometimes I do part with google and another with iPhone so none of them will be having all of what I dictate (in case I feel like it).

I hope this helps.

[ddnn]

I thought of this (not exactly), but the OP said they wanted something installed on their device.

My method would’ve been to use my Android phone with FUTO Voice Input.
It can be downloaded directly or added to an F-Droid repo list.
It is source available and privacy-respecting.

What application have you recently discovered?

Yep. So far it’s equal to Otter, so now I will test out the slower, more accurate model to see if it can recognise when I am quoting someone. There’s a video related to it, by the way: [This voice application gives Google less access to your data] Still didn’t pick up on the quoted speech correctly, but the other punctuation and the words were 100% accurate. Goodbye, Otter.

[limotux]

@ddnn

but the OP said they wanted something installed on their device.

I understand that for sure.
But for me, I think of achieving the goal, this is the point!
I want to dictate something, I don’t really care if it gets done through an installed app, a web browser, mobile phone… the point is the goal I want to reach.

[SdW]

I have successfully installed nerd-dictation (tip: install python-vosk-bin from AUR first unless you have a speedy machine with tons of memory). I think there were some make dependencies missing, too, but commonly-used stuff, perhaps CMake.

Using the default 40MB database, it works pretty well. I haven’t pursued it much since, because I have few writing tasks right now.

Hope this helps.

Update: I see python-vosk-bin is marked out of date right now, so best to wait for an update.