🎙️ Install Latest Handy on Debian

What is Handy?

Handy is a free, open source speech-to-text application that works completely offline. It waits in the background with a tray icon; press a global keyboard shortcut, say what you want to write, and Handy transcribes it on your own machine and pastes the text into whatever window has focus: an editor, a terminal, a chat client, a browser form. Nothing is sent to a cloud service. The speech models (OpenAI's Whisper in several sizes, and NVIDIA's Parakeet, which is fast on a plain CPU) are downloaded once from inside the app and then run locally, with voice activity detection trimming the silence before the model hears it. It is a Tauri application written in Rust by CJ Pais, MIT licensed, and it works on both X11 and Wayland desktops.

⚡ Key Features of Handy

📦 Installation from deb.griffo.io

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.griffo.io/EA0F721D231FDD3A0A17B9AC7808B4DD62C41256.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor --yes -o /etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg] https://deb.griffo.io/apt $(. /etc/os-release; echo ${DEBIAN_CODENAME:-${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}}) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.griffo.io.list > /dev/null
sudo apt update

install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.griffo.io/EA0F721D231FDD3A0A17B9AC7808B4DD62C41256.asc | gpg --dearmor --yes -o /etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/deb.griffo.io.gpg] https://deb.griffo.io/apt $(. /etc/os-release; echo ${DEBIAN_CODENAME:-${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}}) main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.griffo.io.list > /dev/null
apt update

sudo apt install extrepo
sudo extrepo enable griffo
sudo apt update

# Install latest Handy
sudo apt install handy

# Verify installation
dpkg -s handy | grep Version

# Install latest Handy
apt install handy

# Verify installation
dpkg -s handy | grep Version

# Start Handy from your application menu, or from a terminal
handy

# The first run walks you through choosing a model; it is downloaded
# once, and every transcription after that runs offline on this machine

# The helpers that type the text (xdotool, wtype, wl-clipboard) came
# with the package. GNOME on Wayland needs ydotool and its daemon instead;
# check that it is installed (it is recommended, where the suite has it)
apt policy ydotool

🎯 Basic Usage Examples

Dictating:

# 1. Put the cursor where the text should go: an editor, a terminal, a chat box
# 2. Press the shortcut set in Handy's settings and speak
# 3. Press it again (or let go of it in push-to-talk mode)
# The transcription is pasted where the cursor was

# Handy keeps running in the tray; start it again if you closed it
handy

Choosing the microphone:

# List the capture devices the kernel sees
arecord -l

# The input names PipeWire or PulseAudio show in Handy's settings
pactl list short sources

# Check the level of the default input before blaming the model
arecord -d 5 /tmp/test.wav && aplay /tmp/test.wav

Keeping it current:

# Handy updates with the rest of the system
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

# Which version is installed, and which is the newest available
apt policy handy

# Remove it again
sudo apt remove handy

# Handy updates with the rest of the system
apt update && apt upgrade

# Which version is installed, and which is the newest available
apt policy handy

# Remove it again
apt remove handy

🚀 Why Choose deb.griffo.io?

• ✅ The Only apt Source: Handy is in neither the Debian nor the Ubuntu archives; this repository packages the official upstream release
• ✅ One Name Everywhere: the package is handy and so is the command: sudo apt install handy, then handy or the launcher entry
• ✅ Private by Construction: the package ships the application, not a model or a service; your voice never leaves the machine, and the network is used only to download the model you pick
• ✅ Complete Package: the official upstream Linux build (binary, bundled libraries, desktop entry, icons) with its dependencies declared so it installs on every supported suite, the text-input helpers pulled in, and only the launcher's empty menu category filled in
• ✅ Automatic Updates: packages updated within hours of upstream releases
• ✅ Two Architectures: amd64 on Bookworm, Trixie, Forky and Sid; arm64 on Trixie, Forky and Sid only, because upstream builds arm64 against glibc 2.39 and Bookworm has 2.36; there is no i386, armhf or riscv64 build
• ✅ Multi-Distribution: works on Bookworm, Trixie, Forky and Sid
• ✅ Easy Maintenance: standard apt commands for updates

📦 Package Build Repository

The Debian packages are automatically built and maintained in this GitHub repository:

• 🎙️ handy-debian - Latest release builds

🔗 Related Packages

Also available from deb.griffo.io:

• Zed - A fast GUI code editor to dictate into
• ZapZap - A WhatsApp desktop client, for the replies you would rather say than type
• GPU Screen Recorder - Another X11 and Wayland desktop tool, for recording the screen
• kitty - A GPU terminal where dictated commit messages land just as well
• Ghostty - A native GTK terminal, same story