6.5 KiB
Linux Voice Assistant on 2‑Mic Linux — Installation & Configuration Guide
Created using ChatGPT 5 with the following prompt:
Using the following github document as a guide
https://github.com/rhasspy/wyoming-satellite/blob/master/docs/tutorial_2mic.md,
take the attached bash history of commands and create a similar document
detailing the installation and configuration of this linux-voice-assistant project.
Modeled after the Wyoming Satellite two‑mic tutorial, adapted from actual shell history.
This guide reproduces a working setup of the linux-voice-assistant project with Wyoming OpenWakeWord or MicroWakeWord on a Raspberry PI Zero 2W and a Respeaker 2‑mic HAT (e.g., seeed-2mic-voicecard). It assumes a fresh system with sudo access and the default "pi" user. Included is the option to use Pulse Audio instead of ALSA.
Prerequisites
- Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit)
- Linux 6.12.34+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.34-1+rpt1~bookworm
- (2025-06-26) aarch64 GNU/Linux
- Default Python 3.11+ recommended
- A ReSpeaker 2‑mic sound card or compatable
- Network access to your Home Assistant instance
1. Install system packages
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install libportaudio2 build-essential git libmpv-dev mpv python3.11-dev
sudo reboot
2. Get the code
git clone https://github.com/imonlinux/linux-voice-assistant.git
git clone https://github.com/rhasspy/wyoming-openwakeword.git
3. Install ReSpeaker drivers
chmod +x ~/linux-voice-assistant/respeaker2mic/install-respeaker-drivers.sh
sudo ~/linux-voice-assistant/respeaker2mic/install-respeaker-drivers.sh
sudo reboot
4. Wyoming OpenWakeWord (OWW)
cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/wyoming-openwakeword/requirements.txt ~/wyoming-openwakeword/requirements.txt
cd wyoming-openwakeword/
script/setup
5. Linux Voice Assistant (LVA)
cd ~/linux-voice-assistant/
script/setup
6. Configure audio devices, choose either Pulse Audio or ALSA (default)
(Optional) Pulse Audio
See the tutorial to install and configure Pulse Audio.
For Standard ALSA
You shouldn't have to change anything if you are using the driver provided in this repo. If you are using something else, find your sound device names and update the linux-voice-assistant/service/alsa-oww-linux-voice-assistant.service used with OpenWakeWord or linux-voice-assistant/service/alsa-mww-linux-voice-assistant.service file used with MicroWakeWord to match sound card details:
arecord -l
aplay -l
7. Systemd services
(Optional) for Pulse Audio with OWW copy this service file into /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/pa-oww-linux-voice-assistant.service /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service
Create the systemd drop-in directory for linux-voice-assistant.service:
sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service.d
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/10-tuning.conf \
/etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service.d/10-tuning.conf
OR for Pulse Audio with MWW copy this service file into /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/pa-mww-linux-voice-assistant.service /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service
Create the systemd drop-in directory for linux-voice-assistant.service:
sudo mkdir -p /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service.d
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/10-tuning.conf \
/etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service.d/10-tuning.conf
For ALSA with OWW copy this service file into /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/alsa-oww-linux-voice-assistant.service /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service
OR for ALSA with MWW copy this service file into /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/alsa-mww-linux-voice-assistant.service /etc/systemd/system/linux-voice-assistant.service
For either ALSA or Pusle Audio systems with the OWW copy this service file into /etc/systemd/system/:
sudo cp ~/linux-voice-assistant/service/wyoming-openwakeword.service /etc/systemd/system/wyoming-openwakeword.service
Start new services and confirm services are running:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now linux-voice-assistant
sudo systemctl status linux-voice-assistant wyoming-openwakeword --no-pager -l
8. Connect to Home Assistant
- In Home Assistant, go to "Settings" -> "Device & services"
- Click the "Add integration" button
- Choose "ESPHome" and then "Set up another instance of ESPHome"
- Enter the IP address of your voice satellite with port 6053
- Click "Submit"
- During the registration process, use the wake word that you configured in your linux-voice-assistant.service file. Default is "alexa".
9. Verification
-
Use journalctl -fu linux-voice-assistant.service to check for errors. Debugging is enabled.
-
Expect logs like
Connected to Home Assistant -
Look for
[OWW] Detection: name=...followed by re-arming/cycling -
Ask: “What time is it?” and confirm TTS reply
-
If you do not get a voice response, check the Voice Assistant that you choose during registration has a voice assigned to it.
Settings -> Voice assistants -> Assist (the assistant you configured) -> Text-to-speech -> Voice
10. Change OWW detection model
After the LVA is registered with HA, you can change the Wake Word model used in the ESPHome Voice Assistant entity.
Project OWW models include:
alexa_v0.1.tflite -> Alexa
hey_jarvis_v0.1.tflite -> Hey Jarvis
hey_mycroft_v0.1.tflite -> Hey Mycroft
hey_rhasspy_v0.1.tflite -> Hey Rhasspy
ok_nabu_v0.1.tflite -> OK Nabo **(I had to say OK Nobu)**
Additional community provided OWW models available from this repository: https://github.com/fwartner/home-assistant-wakewords-collection
You just copy the ones you want into the ~/wyoming-openwakeword/wyoming-openwakeword/models directory. If a model is currupted, the wyoming-openwakeword.service will fail to start.
Word of warning. I have had problems with some of the community provided wake words. YMMV
11. Switching between OWW and MWW. Or ALSA and PA see section 7.
If you intend to switch from PA to ALSA, you must first stop the pusleaudio.service.
sudo systemctl stop pulseaudio.service
sudo systemctl disable pulseaudio.service