Skip to content

Getting Started

The work to integrate this application in the Flathub and the Snapcraft stores is underway. If you are familiar with either packaging format and would like to help, please reach out to the author. Support for other distribution methods like AppImage, Deb, or RPM is on the roadmap.

Manual installation

The following instructions assume an Ubuntu installation. The specific commands might change in other distributions.

Requirements

  • Java 25: required to run the application.
  • GStreamer: required for audio recording (usually preinstalled, installation docs here)
  • gdbus: required to trigger the keyboard shortcut (usually preinstalled, install libglib2.0-bin otherwise).

On Ubuntu LTS, you can install Java 25 (current LTS) and make it the default with:

sudo apt install openjdk-25-jdk
sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-1.25.0-openjdk-amd64

Download the app

Go to the GitHub releases page and download two files from the latest release:

  • speedofsound.jar: the application
  • trigger.sh: the script that triggers a recording from a keyboard shortcut (uses gdbus under the hood)

For example, download both files into $HOME/speedofsound/. Then make the trigger script executable:

chmod +x $HOME/speedofsound/trigger.sh

Set up a shortcut

In this step, you will assign a global keyboard shortcut that starts and stops dictation. The exact steps vary by desktop environment. On GNOME, for example:

  1. Open Settings and navigate to Keyboard.
  2. Click View and Customize Shortcuts.
  3. Scroll to the bottom and select Custom Shortcuts.
  4. Click the + button to add a new shortcut and fill in the fields:
    • Name: anything you like, e.g. Speed of Sound
    • Command: the full path to the trigger script, e.g. /home/your-username/speedofsound/trigger.sh
    • Shortcut: press your desired key combination, e.g. Super+Z
  5. Click Add to save.

You can add multiple shortcuts targeting the same trigger script if you wish to.