Numen

Numen is voice control for handsfree computing, letting you type efficiently by saying syllables and literal words. It works system-wide on Linux, and the speech recognition runs locally.

There’s a short demonstration on: numenvoice.org

Install From Source

go (a.k.a golang) is required.

The speech recognition library and an English model (about 40MB) can be installed with:

sudo ./install-vosk.sh && sudo ./install-model.sh

The dotool command which simulates the input, can be installed with:

sudo ./install-dotool.sh

Finally, numen itself can be installed with:

sudo ./install-numen.sh

Permission and Keyboard Layouts

dotool requires permission to /dev/uinput to create the virtual input devices, and a udev rule grants this to users in group input.

You could try:

echo type hello | dotool

and if need be, you can run:

sudo groupadd -f input
sudo usermod -a -G input $USER

and re-login and trigger the udev rule or just reboot.

If it types something other than hello, see about keyboard layouts in the manpage.

Getting Started

Once you’ve got a microphone, you can run it with:

numen

There shouldn’t be any output, but you can try typing hey by saying “hoof each yank”, and try transcribing a sentence after saying “scribe”. Terminate it by pressing Ctrl+c (a.k.a “troy cap”).

If nothing happened, check it’s using the right audio device with:

timeout 5 numen --verbose --audiolog=me.wav
aplay me.wav

and specify a --mic from --list-mics if not.

Now you’re ready to have a go in your text editor! The default phrases are in the /etc/numen/phrases directory.

Going Further

I just use Numen and the default phrases for all my computing, with keyboard-based programs like Neovim and qutebrowser. I also use a minimal desktop environment I made, called Tiles, that doesn’t require a pointer device for window management, file picking, etc.

The manpage covers configuring Numen.

Mailing List and Matrix Chat

You can send questions or patches by composing an email to ~geb/public-inbox@lists.sr.ht.

You’re also welcome to join the Matrix chat at #numen:matrix.org.

Support My Work 👀

Thank you!

License

AGPLv3 only, see LICENSE.