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The AppImage

The download on mauvely.com is a single-file AppImage:
Nothing to install, nothing to uninstall — delete the file to remove it.
There is no Flathub package and no .deb, .rpm or AUR package. The AppImage is the one Linux artifact.
The GPU backend is fixed when Sotto is compiled, not chosen at runtime. Check the bottom of the Settings window, which names the backend actually in use. If it says cpu, transcription will be much slower than it needs to be — build from source with the backend that matches your hardware.
Sotto needs a way to put text into other applications. On Arch:
Without either, Sotto can still transcribe — the text just ends up somewhere you have to fetch it from. See Dictating.

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Setting up ydotool

Once:
Your user needs write access to /dev/uinput; the ydotool package ships udev rules for that. If you would rather not run ydotool, Sotto can use the desktop’s RemoteDesktop portal instead — it asks for permission once and remembers it.

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Building from source

Building lets you pick the GPU backend, which is the single biggest factor in transcription speed.

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Dependencies (Arch)

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Pick a backend

On AMD, Vulkan is often within a few percent of ROCm for this workload and is far less fussy to set up. Try Vulkan first; only reach for ROCm if you have a specific reason.

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Build

whisper.cpp is fetched during configuration and linked statically, so the result is one binary.
ROCm and unsupported GPUs. If your card is not officially supported by ROCm, set HSA_OVERRIDE_GFX_VERSION before running — 10.3.0 works for many RDNA2 cards. If the ROCm build gives you trouble, Vulkan is a strong fallback.

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First run

1

Download a model

Settings opens automatically. Nothing works until a speech model is installed.Large v3 Turbo (~1.6 GB) is the recommended default on a discrete GPU. Small (~488 MB) if you want something lighter. See Speech models.
2

Confirm the shortcut

KDE asks you to confirm the global shortcut binding — Meta+Alt+D by default. You can change or disable it at any time; it also appears in System Settings → Shortcuts.
3

Try it

Focus any text field, press the shortcut, talk, and press it again. Watch the pill at the bottom of your active screen.

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Desktop support

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Verifying your GPU is being used

The bottom of the Settings window names the active backend. If it says cpu, transcription will be noticeably slow — rebuild with -DSOTTO_GPU=vulkan or hip.