How alive is the picroft community?

General Discussion
1

Hi,

I am thinking of installing the picroft image on a rasbi 4 but don’t know how up to date it is.
I want to have a offline working version. The raspbi will have internet access but I want to use offline speech to text engine (not the google one). Also isn’t it possible to use another speech to text engine which is more capable than mimic? Something like nuance 15? How do they compare to each other?

Any tipps and tricks I shall consider besides of the picroft documentation?

With best regards,
Sightseeer

2

Hey, welcome in! Picroft is abandonware for several years now. However, OVOS is alive and well for the enthusiastic tinkerer, both in a headless version using systemd and a robust Docker version. Happy to help answer questions about using any different STT/TTS to improve performance!

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Ah really nice that you answered. That would have saved me the hustle to install the old image.
I will check this OpenVoiceOS out!
I will use this Introduction - OVOS User Documentation as a starting point.

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4

Great! I’d recommend using the Raspbian image right now as the others are a bit unmaintained. Or use any distribution you’d like and git clone GitHub - OpenVoiceOS/ovos-docker: Open Voice OS container images and docker-compose.yml files for x86_64 and aarch64 CPU architectures.

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So I installed the Raspbian image, but the OVOS access point did only show up once for a short time. I managed to manually add the SSID and wifi-passwort to the raspbi directly such it is online.

Can I do any configuration directly to the raspbi or why is this Ovos access through another wifi device a thing?

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The Raspbian image has also been variously referred to as “the headless image” or “the OVOS Picroft” and makes no particular assumptions about the hardware. That hotspot-and-browser setup process is awkward, but it’s something a typical end user can do with their smartphone. When the device doesn’t have a touchscreen or physical I/O, it’s often a layperson’s only option.

(When it works. @builderjer or @JarbasAl will know who to ping next about that)

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I’m sorry this I am so late to answer, I need to get on this forum more often I suppose.

The current “raspOVOS” image seems to be working rather well, even on a Rpi3b. You can find it here

There has been intermittent issues with balena wifi setup. For now, it seems to be working pretty good as long as you do not try and connect to WPA3 security on your router. You should be able to connect to SSID = OVOS and browse to start.openvoiceos.com from any browser that is connected to the OVOS SSID. If the access point disappears, you can reboot your device. If there is no network connection, either WiFi or LAN, the access point should activate.

Manual configuration. Yes, the raspOVOS image comes with raspi-config installed, and any setup there should be fine.

Any issues you may have, please feel free to post them here

Also, the Matrix community support channel is usually very active and helpful.

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