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Installation

Prerequisites

  • Modern linux distribution with PulseAudio or PipeWire (default on modern Ubuntu)
  • ffmpeg
  • Python 3.10+

Install

1) System packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ffmpeg pipx
pipx ensurepath

2) Install sys2txt from PyPI with pipx, which installs the CLI into its own isolated environment automatically (no manual venv needed):

pipx install "sys2txt[faster]"   # faster-whisper (recommended, best for CPU and NVIDIA)
pipx install "sys2txt[openai]"   # openai-whisper (reference implementation)
pipx install "sys2txt[all]"      # install both engines
pipx install sys2txt             # no Python engine (use whisper.cpp instead)

The tool auto-selects faster-whisper when available, falls back to openai-whisper, then falls back to whisper.cpp.

Alternative: install into a virtual environment

If you're contributing to sys2txt or want it installed into a shared/managed environment instead of pipx's isolated one:

sudo apt install -y python3-venv python3-pip
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install sys2txt[faster]   # or [openai], [all], or no extras

AMD GPU (or other non-CUDA GPU)? faster-whisper/openai-whisper only accelerate on CPU or NVIDIA CUDA — skip the extras above (pip install sys2txt with no extras is enough) and use the whisper.cpp + Vulkan backend instead; see Engines & devices.