Linux installation (end users)

August 27, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

This is the end-user install guide for running aTrain on Linux via the command line. For the recommended install, use the Flathub package. The manual setup below is for systems where Flatpak is not an option, or for users who prefer a virtual-environment install.

Developing aTrain on Linux? See CONTRIBUTING.md, which covers the uv-based workflow, the native GUI build dependencies, and the Docker dev container.

Installers

Manual setup on Ubuntu / Debian

Limitations

  • No Snap package is currently provided. Beyond Flathub, installation and start are via the command line, but with the aTrain user interface.
  • CPU transcription is the reliably supported path on Linux.
  • Additional packages are installed via apt from the Universe repository.
  • Tested on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Setup

Update package lists:

sudo apt update

Install dependencies:

sudo apt install ffmpeg python3 python3-pip python3-venv git build-essential \
    libgl1-mesa-dev libcairo2 libcairo2-dev libgirepository1.0-dev \
    libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev -y

Create a virtual environment in your home folder (or any other you prefer) and activate it:

cd ~
python3 -m venv atrain_venv
source atrain_venv/bin/activate

Install aTrain (with the GUI extras) from the GitHub repository:

pip install "aTrain[gui] @ git+https://github.com/aTrainTranscription/aTrain.git@develop"

On Linux the PyPI PyTorch wheel already bundles CUDA, so no extra package index is required.

Download the models for transcription and speaker detection. This only has to be done once:

aTrain init

Start aTrain. This command opens the user interface:

aTrain start

Start aTrain after installation

If aTrain is already installed, start it with:

cd ~
source atrain_venv/bin/activate
aTrain start

Python version note

Depending on your Ubuntu version you might need a newer Python than the system default. Install it from a third-party repository, then run the commands above with that interpreter:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deadsnakes/ppa
sudo apt install python3.12