Show HN: TuxWhisper – Offline push-to-talk dictation for Linux, works on Wayland

A developer released TuxWhisper, an open-source offline push-to-talk dictation tool for Linux that runs speech recognition locally via faster-whisper and types text into any app on X11 and Wayland, including GNOME on Wayland. The tool transcribes in about half a second after key release on an NVIDIA GPU, requires about 1.5 GB of free VRAM (or CPU mode), and optionally routes transcripts through a local Ollama model for punctuation cleanup. TuxWhisper requires Linux with systemd, Python 3.12, uv, and xclip or wl-clipboard, and its first start downloads a roughly 1.5 GB Whisper model to ~/.cache/huggingface.

Offline, hotkey-driven dictation for Linux. Press a key, speak, and your words are typed wherever your cursor is: a browser text box, an LLM chat prompt, your editor or your terminal. Speech recognition runs locally with faster-whisper https://github.com/SYSTRAN/faster-whisper ; nothing is sent to the cloud. - Types anywhere. Works in any app that accepts paste, on X11 and Wayland, including GNOME on Wayland, where most typing tools don't work. - Fast. About half a second from releasing the key to text on screen, with an NVIDIA GPU. - Tap or hold. Tap to start and stop, or hold the key to talk and release it to transcribe. - Optional LLM cleanup. A second key passes the transcript through a local Ollama https://ollama.com model to fix punctuation and remove "um"s, without answering the questions you dictate. - Builds a voice dataset. One key saves the last recording with its transcript, ready for fine-tuning. - Leaves your clipboard alone. Whatever you had copied is restored after each paste. - Works on any keyboard layout. It pastes with Shift+Insert, which doesn't depend on QWERTY. Developed and tested on GNOME Wayland with an NVIDIA GPU, and in CPU mode. Other desktops should work but are untested; see Other desktops other-desktops . | Key | Action | |---|---| | F5 tap | Start recording. Tap again to stop, transcribe and paste. | | F5 hold | Push-to-talk: speak while holding, release to transcribe and paste. | | F3 | Same as F5, but the transcript is cleaned up by a local LLM before pasting. | | F4 | Save the last take audio + transcript to recordings/ . | The keys are only suggestions; you choose them when you set up the shortcuts. - Wait for the "🎙 Listening…" notification before speaking. The microphone takes about 0.3 s to open, and anything said before that is lost. - Very short clips are ignored. Anything under 0.3 s produces no text. The keys run small commands, which you can also use from a terminal or script: ./asr toggle start / stop dictation ./asr rewrite start / stop dictation with LLM cleanup ./asr save save the last take ./asr serve run the daemon in the foreground normally systemd does this Requirements: Linux with systemd, Python 3.12, uv https://docs.astral.sh/uv/ , an NVIDIA GPU with about 1.5 GB of free VRAM or see CPU mode cpu-mode , and xclip or wl-clipboard on Wayland without XWayland . 1. Clone and install git clone https://github.com/ialmajai/tuxwhisper.git ~/tuxwhisper cd ~/tuxwhisper uv venv --python 3.12 .venv uv pip install --python .venv -r requirements-cuda.txt no NVIDIA GPU: requirements.txt 2. Allow the virtual keyboard needs sudo once; read the security note security-note echo 'KERNEL=="uinput", TAG+="uaccess", OPTIONS+="static node=uinput"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/60-uinput.rules sudo udevadm control --reload && sudo udevadm trigger --name-match=uinput 3. Start the daemon at login cp tuxwhisper.service ~/.config/systemd/user/ systemctl --user enable --now tuxwhisper The service expects the repo at ~/tuxwhisper . If it's elsewhere, edit ExecStart in the copied file. The first start downloads the Whisper model about 1.5 GB to ~/.cache/huggingface , so it takes a while; after that, startup takes about 15 s. 4. Bind the keys. On GNOME: Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts. | Shortcut | Command | |---|---| | F5 | /home/<you /tuxwhisper/asr toggle | | F3 | /home/<you /tuxwhisper/asr rewrite | | F4 | /home/<you /tuxwhisper/asr save | Use the full path; shortcut commands don't expand ~ . For other desktops, see Other desktops other-desktops . 5. Optional: LLM cleanup. Install Ollama Linux install guide https://docs.ollama.com/linux and the cleanup model: curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh ollama pull llama3.2 Click into any text box, press F5 and speak. Tip Binding F5 overrides page refresh in browsers. Ctrl+R still refreshes. F3 sends the transcript to a local Ollama model llama3.2 by default . The model fixes punctuation and capitalization and removes filler words "um", "uh", "like" , repeated words and false starts. Whisper: um so can you like uh explain how the the attention mechanism works Pasted: So can you explain how the attention mechanism works? - It cleans; it doesn't answer. A dictated question is pasted as a question, not answered. - Speed: about 0.2–1 s once the model is loaded. The model unloads after 30 minutes idle to free GPU memory, so the next F3 takes a few seconds longer. - Always pastes something: if Ollama is unreachable, or the model doesn't fit in free GPU memory, the raw transcript is pasted and a notification says why. - Not perfect: it sometimes drops real words. Use F5 when the exact wording matters. Ollama can run on another machine; point OLLAMA URL at it see Configuration configuration . F4 saves the most recent take to recordings/ : recordings/ ├── 20260101-120000.wav 16 kHz, mono, 16-bit └── metadata.csv file name,transcription This is the Hugging Face audiofolder layout, ready for fine-tuning a speech model. - Only the latest take can be saved, and only once. Pressing F4 again shows "Nothing to save" until you dictate again. - The saved transcript is Whisper's raw output, even for F3 takes, because that's what matches the audio. Corrections you make in the text box aren't saved; edit metadata.csv if needed. Settings are environment variables. Add them to the Service section of ~/.config/systemd/user/tuxwhisper.service , e.g. Environment=ASR LANGUAGE=en . | Variable | Default | Meaning | |---|---|---| | ASR LANGUAGE | auto-detect | Language code, e.g. en . Setting it avoids misdetection on short clips. | | ASR DEVICE | cuda | cuda or cpu | | ASR MODEL | large-v3-turbo GPU , small CPU | Any faster-whisper model name or path | | ASR PROMPT | a short punctuated sentence | Style example for Whisper; keeps capitals and punctuation. Set to empty to disable. | | ASR PASTE KEY | shift+insert | shift+insert , ctrl+v or ctrl+shift+v | | ASR REWRITE MODEL | llama3.2 | Ollama model used by F3 | | OLLAMA URL | http://localhost:11434 | Ollama server used by F3 | Then apply the changes: systemctl --user daemon-reload && systemctl --user restart tuxwhisper Audio comes from your default input device, which you can change in your desktop's sound settings. Without an NVIDIA GPU, install from requirements.txt and set Environment=ASR DEVICE=cpu . TuxWhisper then uses the smaller small model: a 3–4 s clip takes about 1.4 s on a recent desktop CPU. The default, Shift+Insert, pastes in browsers, editors and terminals on any keyboard layout. If a particular app doesn't paste, try ctrl+v , which works in most GUI apps but not in terminals. Bind the same commands in your desktop's shortcut settings: | Desktop | Binding | Hold to talk | |---|---|---| | GNOME | Settings → Keyboard → Custom Shortcuts | ✅ Yes | | KDE Plasma | System Settings → Shortcuts → Add New → Command | ❔ Untested | | Hyprland | binde = , F5, exec, ~/tuxwhisper/asr toggle | ✅ Should work binde repeats while held | | Sway | bindsym F5 exec ~/tuxwhisper/asr toggle | ❌ Tap only | | i3 | bindsym F5 exec --no-startup-id ~/tuxwhisper/asr toggle | ❌ Tap only | Where holding doesn't work, tap to start and tap again to stop. The systemd service starts with graphical-session.target , which some window managers i3, or Sway without extra setup never start. On those, skip step 3 and start the daemon from your WM config instead, e.g. exec ~/tuxwhisper/asr serve . F5 / F3 / F4 ──▶ asr toggle|rewrite|save ──▶ Unix socket ──▶ asr serve daemon │ mic ──▶ record ──▶ faster-whisper ──▶ Ollama cleanup ─────┤ ▼ your app ◀── Shift+Insert virtual keyboard ◀── clipboard - Daemon: asr serve keeps the Whisper model loaded and listens on a Unix socket in $XDG RUNTIME DIR , which only your user can access. - Typing: Wayland doesn't let apps type into other windows, so the text goes on the clipboard xclip , or wl-clipboard without XWayland and a virtual keyboard /dev/uinput presses the paste key. The previous clipboard is restored about 0.3 s later text only; a copied image is lost . - Hold detection: while a key is held, the desktop re-runs the shortcut on auto-repeat. A burst of presses counts as a held key, and recording stops when the repeats end. Warning Step 2 gives your user write access to /dev/uinput . TuxWhisper needs it to press the paste key, but it also lets any program you run create a virtual keyboard or mouse and send input to any window , including terminals and password prompts. Tools like ydotool require the same access. The uaccess tag limits this to the user logged in at the active local session, and only while that session is active. Other user accounts don't get access, but every process running as you does, including ones started over SSH while you're logged in. If you don't want this, skip step 2: transcription still works, but the text isn't pasted. To undo it later, run sudo rm /etc/udev/rules.d/60-uinput.rules and reboot. systemctl --user status tuxwhisper is the daemon running? journalctl --user -u tuxwhisper -f live log: each transcription, timings and errors systemctl --user restart tuxwhisper restart the model takes ~15 s to load Nothing happens when I press the key Check systemctl --user status tuxwhisper . Right after login, the model may still be loading watch for ready in the log . If you see "daemon is not running", start it with systemctl --user start tuxwhisper . Also check that the shortcut command uses the full path. It transcribes but nothing is pasted Run getfacl /dev/uinput ; it should list user:<you :rw- . If not, check the udev rule from step 2, including the file name it must start with a number below 73 . It doesn't paste in one particular app That app may not treat Shift+Insert as paste. Try ASR PASTE KEY=ctrl+v . My old clipboard is pasted instead of the transcript The app read the clipboard after it had already been restored. Increase the 0.3 s delay in paste in asr.py . The daemon exits with "cuda unavailable" The GPU or the CUDA libraries couldn't be used. Check that you installed from requirements-cuda.txt and that nvidia-smi works, or switch to CPU mode cpu-mode . CUDA out of memory Another program is using the GPU. Free some memory, or run Ollama for F3 on another machine with OLLAMA URL . F3 pastes the raw transcript The notification says why: either Ollama isn't reachable check ollama list and OLLAMA URL , or there isn't enough free GPU memory for the cleanup model. asr launcher wrapper use this, not asr.py directly asr.py daemon and client commands tuxwhisper.service systemd user service template requirements.txt Python dependencies requirements-cuda.txt + NVIDIA CUDA libraries recordings/ saved takes created by F4, not committed MIT https://github.com/ialmajai/tuxwhisper/blob/main/LICENSE © 2026 Ibrahim Almajai