Files

T

40546e7f07 fix(uninstall): remove IBus data dir & stop app by PID file not pgrep -f (#597 )

* fix(uninstall): remove IBus runtime data directory on uninstall

Discussion #559 reported ~/.local/share/vocalinux-ibus surviving uninstall.
PR #569 fixed launcher wrappers but not this IBus IPC directory (socket,
PID file, stderr log). Stop the engine via engine.pid when present, remove
the directory regardless of --keep-data, and verify it in post-checks.

Co-authored-by: Jatin K Malik <jatinkrmalik@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(scripts): stop Vocalinux by PID file, not pgrep -f

pgrep -f vocalinux matches any process whose argv mentions the repo
path (editors, shells, test runners) and can kill unrelated local work.
AGENTS.md already warns against this.

- Prefer PIDs from instance.lock and vocalinux-ibus/engine.pid
- Verify each candidate via is_vocalinux_process (python -m vocalinux.main,
  ibus_engine.py under vocalinux, or argv0 basename vocalinux/vocalinux-gui)
- Narrow pgrep fallback only for those entrypoint patterns
- Drop the redundant stop_ibus_engine helper (engine covered via PID file)
- Still remove ~/.local/share/vocalinux-ibus on uninstall (#559)
- Align install.sh and correct the pkill tip in docs/UPDATE.md

Co-authored-by: Jatin K Malik <jatinkrmalik@users.noreply.github.com>

* fix(scripts): detect setuptools console-script Vocalinux processes

Real installs run as `python …/bin/vocalinux`, so argv0 is python and the
previous argv0-basename check missed the live app (instance.lock PID was
skipped). Scan all cmdline args for …/bin/vocalinux or …/bin/vocalinux-gui
instead, which still avoids matching a bare repo directory path.

Co-authored-by: Jatin K Malik <jatinkrmalik@users.noreply.github.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Cursor Agent <cursoragent@cursor.com>
Co-authored-by: Jatin K Malik <jatinkrmalik@users.noreply.github.com>

2026-07-26 21:14:19 -07:00

19 KiB

Raw Blame History

Updating Vocalinux

This guide explains how to update Vocalinux to the latest version.

What's New in v0.14.2

0.14.2 is a stability patch on the 0.14 series. The feature set is the same as 0.14.x; this release fixes IBus reliability and settings dialog sizing.

0.14 series highlights

Feature	Description
Configurable Shortcuts	Bind any modifier combination to a key — e.g. `Alt+R`, `Ctrl+Shift+V`, or `Super+F10`
FunASR / SenseVoice Remote API	Remote-API engine supports FunASR and SenseVoice via OpenAI-compatible endpoints
Flatpak packaging	Universal Flatpak (whisper.cpp) with sandbox-aware paths, global hotkeys, and Wayland paste injection
AUR package	Official Arch packaging and CI publish path
Layout-aware hotkeys	Combo keys respect non-US layouts
Wayland / IBus reliability	GNOME and KDE injection fixes, first-dictation FocusIn gate, engine process launch restored
Audio / hybrid-CPU	Recording device-index crash fixed; whisper.cpp no longer defaults to all cores on hybrid CPUs

Bug fixes in v0.14.2

IBus: Restore engine process launch after the Flatpak XDG path import change. start_engine_process and the IBus component exec run ibus_engine.py by path, so the relative import failed with ImportError and Vocalinux fell back to ydotool/clipboard paste (#534)
IBus: Wait for FocusIn before commit on scoped injection. Cold first activation on GNOME Wayland could commit before mutter bound a client context, so the first dictation of a session was dropped while logs still reported success (#533, fixes #523)
Settings UI: Wrap each notebook tab in a vertical ScrolledWindow so the dialog fits 1080p monitors instead of growing past the screen; forward wheel events from unfocused combos/spins to the tab scroller and drop nested Advanced ScrolledWindow shadows (#538, #541)

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.14.1

Highlights

Feature	Description
Flatpak packaging	Universal Flatpak (whisper.cpp) with sandbox-aware paths, global hotkeys, and Wayland paste injection
AUR package	Official Arch packaging and CI publish path
Layout-aware hotkeys	Combo keys respect non-US layouts
Installer / injection fixes	`sg` on Ubuntu 26.04/Debian 13; XIM `none` treated as unset

New Features

Flatpak packaging — GNOME Platform 50, whisper.cpp + Vulkan, ydotool/wl-copy injection, evdev global shortcuts; build via packaging/flatpak/ (#484, closes #167)
AUR release package — PKGBUILD and CI publish for Arch Linux (#518)

Bug Fixes

Hotkeys: Layout-aware combo keys for non-US layouts (#514)
Installer: sg not found on Ubuntu 26.04 / Debian 13 (#524)
Text injection: Treat XIM none as unset (#512)
Web: Dependabot npm alerts in package-lock (#515)

Docs

Refreshed v0.14 UI screenshots and website gallery (#521)
README Star History and related polish

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.14.0-beta

Highlights

Feature	Description
Configurable Shortcuts	Bind any modifier combination to a key — e.g. `Alt+R`, `Ctrl+Shift+V`, or `Super+F10`
FunASR / SenseVoice Remote API	Remote-API engine now supports FunASR and SenseVoice models via OpenAI-compatible endpoints
GNOME Wayland IBus Reliability	Text injection works again on GNOME Wayland with bare `xkb` layouts and engine restore fallbacks are fixed
Audio Crash Fix	Recording no longer crashes when the system audio device index changes between sessions
Hybrid-CPU Efficiency	whisper.cpp no longer defaults to all cores on hybrid Intel/AMD processors

✨ New Features

Configurable modifier+key hotkeys — The Settings dialog now lets you set custom shortcuts using any combination of Ctrl, Alt, Shift, and Super plus a letter/number key. The legacy defaults still work, and you can now bind combinations like Alt+R or Ctrl+Shift+V (#493)
Remote API FunASR/SenseVoice support — OpenAI-compatible remote endpoints can specify FunASR/SenseVoice model names (e.g. sensevoice) and return richer response shapes; SenseVoice metadata labels are stripped before text injection (#468)

🐛 Bug Fixes

GNOME Wayland/IBus: Restore text injection when only a bare xkb engine is configured; the engine restore fallback now picks the correct IM engine instead of silently dropping text (#506, #500)
KDE Wayland/IBus: Restore the KDE Plasma Wayland IBus text-injection path that was regressed in recent compositor-detection changes (#502)
Wayland injection: Wait for held modifiers (Ctrl/Alt/Shift/Super) to release before injecting text, preventing accidental shortcut triggers and garbled output on modifier-heavy workflows (#494)
Shortcuts UI: Keep preset and custom shortcut selection exclusive — selecting a preset now clears the custom field, and setting a custom combo selects the "Custom Shortcut" preset (#509)
whisper.cpp: Stop defaulting to all CPU cores on hybrid processors (Intel Performance + Efficient cores), which caused UI lag and excess battery drain (#492)
Audio: Fix a crash on recording start when the selected audio device index no longer matches the current system enumeration (#499)
Installer: Include xsel as a fallback for the Wayland clipboard path when xclip is unavailable (#496)

🔧 Improvements

Code style — Removed an outdated long comment about whisper.cpp default thread counts (#505)

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.13.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
🎙️ Guided Whisper Models	Pick a whisper.cpp size and specialization (English-only, quantized, Turbo) with in-app guidance
🔌 Hotplug Keyboard Support	Shortcuts keep working on keyboards connected after startup
✍️ Dictation Spacing	Spacing preserved between speech segments separated by a pause in the same session
🖥️ Wayland Reliability	Fixes silent text drops on wlroots/COSMIC compositors and garbled non-US-layout output

✨ New Features

Guided whisper.cpp model variants — The Settings dialog now splits whisper.cpp selection into Model Size and Specialization, exposing English-only, quantized (Q5/Q8), Large v3 Turbo, and legacy large models with language-aware recommendations and hover guidance. Exact model IDs (e.g. medium.en-q5_0, large-v3-turbo) can also be passed to --model (#465)

🐛 Bug Fixes

Dictation: Preserve spacing between speech segments separated by a pause (#464)
Shortcuts: Rescan for hotplugged keyboards so shortcuts work on devices connected after startup (#467)
KDE Plasma Wayland: Detect KDE Plasma Wayland sessions and guide you to enable IBus Wayland when wtype injection fails (#466)
Wayland: Fix garbled output on non-US keyboard layouts and a clipboard-copy hang; ydotool now pastes through the clipboard (#480)
Wayland/IBus: Use wtype/ydotool instead of IBus on compositors that don't bridge IBus to native apps like COSMIC, Sway, and Hyprland (#486)
Wayland/IBus: Require a real IM engine on Wayland so a bare xkb layout no longer causes silent text drops on GNOME/Mutter and similar (#478)
Wayland: Preserve the keyboard layout on Wayland by not running setxkbmap (was flipping XWayland apps to us) (#474)
UI: Cap the settings dialog height on high-resolution displays (#465)

🔧 Improvements

Performance: Faster ydotool text injection via an explicit --key-delay (#488)
Website: New documentation pages for Remote API, Silero VAD, advanced whisper.cpp settings, and desktop reliability (#470)
CI: Automatic pull-request labeling by changed files (#473)

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.12.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
🌐 Remote API Engine	New backend for compatible remote transcription services
🎙️ Silero VAD	Neural VAD drops silence-only buffers for cleaner dictation
🧵 Thread Safety	Hardened Remote API, IBus, and text injection threading behavior
🔌 IBus Reliability	Preserves user engines for dead keys and scoped activation
⚙️ Settings Polish	Advanced-only Remote Server controls and lower dialog height
📦 Installer & Models	CUDA auto-remediation and corrected model download metadata

✨ New Features

Remote API speech recognition engine — Configure compatible remote transcription services alongside local engines (#335)
Silero VAD — Neural voice activity detection filters silence-only buffers when ONNX Runtime support is installed (#447)

🐛 Bug Fixes

Threading: Harden Remote API, IBus, and text injection thread safety (#452)
IBus: Preserve user engines for dead keys and capture the current engine during scoped activation (#457, #458)
UI: Keep the Remote Server section behind the Advanced toggle and reduce settings dialog height (#454, #456)
Installer: Harden CUDA diagnostics with auto-remediation and behavioral tests (#451)
Models: Correct whisper.cpp and VOSK download size metadata (#453)
Startup: Allow launch without the pynput backend (#448)
Website: Clarify speech demo browser support (#449)

🔧 Improvements

Developer docs — Remote API test server instructions for backend testing (#455)
Community — GitHub Sponsors funding configuration added
Behavioral coverage — CUDA diagnostics and release-facing reliability fixes include targeted tests

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.10.2-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
🌍 Non-ASCII Text Injection	ydotool now falls back to clipboard paste for non-ASCII characters (á, é, ñ, etc.)
🔌 IBus on Wayland	IBus now detected and started correctly on Wayland without legacy env vars
🚀 IBus Engine Startup	Engine process now starts before registration check — fixes startup on some systems
📦 Pop!_OS / Ubuntu 24.04+	Added missing system dependencies (cmake, libcairo2-dev, libgirepository1.0-dev)
⚡ Code Quality	Systematic refactor across 20 quality dimensions
🖼️ Website OG Image	Redesigned Open Graph image — cleaner and more professional

🐛 Bug Fixes

#362 / #376: Handle non-ASCII characters with ydotool via clipboard paste fallback
#360 / #361: Start IBus engine process before checking registration
#381: Detect IBus on Wayland without legacy env vars and fix text injection
#379: Add missing dependencies for Pop!_OS and Ubuntu 24.04+

🔧 Improvements

Systematic code quality refactor across 20 dimensions (#377)
Clarify missing GNOME AppIndicator support on Debian (#385)
Redesigned OG image for vocalinux.com (#392)

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.10.1-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
🖼️ Tray Resource Reliability	Bundled package resources now prevent missing system tray icons
🧠 Engine Switch Safety	Recognition now stops before engine changes to avoid segfaults
⌨️ Keyboard Layout Preservation	XKB layout is preserved when activating the Vocalinux IBus engine
🪟 Settings Dialog Compatibility	Added an explicit Close button for improved WM interoperability
⚡ Suspend/Resume Recovery	App now automatically recovers speech recognition and keyboard shortcuts after system suspend/resume
🎤 Push-to-Talk Reliability	Fixed premature transcription triggering on silence during push-to-talk mode

✨ Scope

Patch-focused release — No new feature surface; this version is dedicated to stability and compatibility fixes
Desktop reliability hardening — Improved behavior across tray, engine switching, settings dialog actions, and keyboard layout handling
Suspend/Resume stability — New D-Bus handler ensures app survives system sleep cycles

🐛 Bug Fixes

#349 / #354: Bundle resources in package to fix missing system tray icons
#350 / #355: Stop recognition before switching engines to prevent segfaults
#323 / #356: Add Close button to settings dialog for WM compatibility
#292 / #343: Preserve XKB layout when activating Vocalinux IBus engine
#359: Prevent premature transcription during push-to-talk silence
#367 / #369: Auto-recover speech recognition after system resume via new suspend handler
#371: Restart keyboard shortcut backend after system resume
#372: Delay keyboard restart to allow USB device re-enumeration after resume

🔧 Improvements

Bumped npm/yarn dependency group across the web workspace (#346)
Bumped brace-expansion in development dependencies (#357)
Disabled copy-to-clipboard by default in Settings (#370)

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.9.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
⌨️ Left/Right Modifier Keys	Choose Left Ctrl vs Right Ctrl (etc.) as your shortcut trigger
🔔 Sound Effects Toggle	Enable or disable audio feedback from the Settings dialog
📋 Wayland Clipboard Fallback	Automatic clipboard copy when virtual keyboard injection isn't available
🛠️ Installation Polish	Better pipx/Debian guidance and headless display detection

✨ New Features

Left/Right Modifier Key Distinction — Shortcuts now support Left Ctrl, Right Alt, etc., with grouped UI in Settings
Sound Effects Toggle — New Audio Settings toggle to silence start/stop/error sounds
Clipboard Fallback for Wayland — Auto-copies text via wl-copy/xclip when injection unavailable (KDE Plasma etc.)
Display Availability Check — Graceful error message when running in headless environments

🐛 Bug Fixes

#308: Distinguish left vs right modifier keys (evdev + pynput backends)
#307: Remove unwanted leading space when starting a new transcription session
#305: Pass configured shortcut mode to KeyboardShortcutManager on startup
#299: Add clipboard fallback for Wayland compositors without virtual keyboard support
#289: Improve Debian/pipx installation error messages and cross-distro dependency guidance

🔧 Improvements

Grouped shortcut selector — Settings dropdown now organises shortcuts by Either/Left/Right side
pipx documentation — New DISTRO_COMPATIBILITY.md section for pipx users

See the full changelog.

What's New in v0.8.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

Feature	Description
🎤 Push-to-Talk Mode	Hold the shortcut key to speak, release to stop
⚙️ Voice Commands Toggle	Enable or disable voice commands, with VOSK auto-enable in auto mode
⌨️ Shortcut Reliability	Improved callback lifecycle and mode switching stability
🧠 Input Compatibility	Better IBus detection and audio device/channel compatibility

✨ New Features

Push-to-Talk Shortcut Mode — Added hold-to-speak mode alongside double-tap toggle mode
Mode-aware Shortcut UI — Updated settings text and behavior for toggle vs push-to-talk workflows
Voice Commands Optional — Voice commands can be disabled, with automatic enable behavior for VOSK

🐛 Bug Fixes

#277: Detect active IBus input method before using IBus injection
#275: Detect and use device-supported channel count
#268: Prevent GTK startup dialog crash on Fedora
#261: Resolve text injection issues for better reliability
#259: Prevent recognition thread state flicker
#262/#263: Auto-detect audio sample rate for better hardware compatibility

🔧 Improvements

Web SEO Enhancements — Added 8 additional optimized pages for discoverability
Homepage Refresh — Updated voice-themed visual polish on the web landing page

See the full changelog.

Quick Update

If You Installed via curl (Recommended)

Simply re-run the installation command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jatinkrmalik/vocalinux/main/install.sh | bash

The installer will:

✅ Detect and stop any running Vocalinux processes
✅ Update your existing installation
✅ Preserve your configuration and models
✅ Install any new dependencies
✅ Attempt to install neural VAD support, falling back safely if ONNX Runtime is unavailable

If You Installed from Source

cd vocalinux
git fetch origin
git checkout v0.14.2
./install.sh

Or to get the latest development version:

cd vocalinux
git pull origin main
./install.sh

Checking Your Current Version

python3 -c "import vocalinux; print(vocalinux.version.__version__)"

Troubleshooting

Update Issues?

If your update doesn't go smoothly, try a clean reinstall:

# Uninstall (keeps your config and models by default)
./uninstall.sh --keep-config --keep-data

# Or uninstall completely
./uninstall.sh

# Reinstall fresh
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jatinkrmalik/vocalinux/main/install.sh | bash

Old Version Still Running

# Prefer stopping from the tray, or kill by the PID in the lock file:
kill "$(tr -d '[:space:]' < "${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/vocalinux/instance.lock")"

# If you used IBus injection, also stop the engine:
kill "$(tr -d '[:space:]' < "${XDG_DATA_HOME:-$HOME/.local/share}/vocalinux-ibus/engine.pid")"

# Start fresh
vocalinux

Avoid pkill -f vocalinux — it matches any process whose command line mentions the repo path (editors, shells, test runners) and can kill unrelated work.

Missing Dependencies

If you see dependency errors:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y python3-gi python3-gi-cairo gir1.2-gtk-3.0

# Fedora
sudo dnf install -y python3-gobject gtk3

# Arch
sudo pacman -S python-gobject gtk3

19 KiB Raw Blame History

Updating Vocalinux

What's New in v0.14.2

0.14 series highlights

Bug fixes in v0.14.2

What's New in v0.14.1

Highlights

New Features

Bug Fixes

Docs

What's New in v0.14.0-beta

Highlights

✨ New Features

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.13.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

✨ New Features

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.12.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

✨ New Features

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.10.2-beta

🚀 Highlights

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.10.1-beta

🚀 Highlights

✨ Scope

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.9.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

✨ New Features

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

What's New in v0.8.0-beta

🚀 Highlights

✨ New Features

🐛 Bug Fixes

🔧 Improvements

Quick Update

If You Installed via curl (Recommended)

If You Installed from Source

Checking Your Current Version

Troubleshooting

Update Issues?

Old Version Still Running

Missing Dependencies

Need Help?

19 KiB

Raw Blame History