Voice dictation that pastes straight into whatever you're typing in has mostly been a Windows-and-macOS story. Not anymore. Meander now runs on Linux, shipped as both an AppImage and a .deb, and built to run cleanly across the major desktops, Wayland included.
If you're new to it: Meander is a hold-to-talk dictation tool. Press a shortcut, speak, release, and your words are transcribed, cleaned up by an AI correction pass (punctuation, filler words, phrasing), and dropped in at your cursor. No window to switch to, no copy-paste shuffle.
This post covers what you get on Linux and, because Wayland needs a one-time setup, exactly how to wire it up on GNOME, KDE, or COSMIC.
What you get on Linux
- Hands-free dictation anywhere. Your text lands in whatever app has focus: editor, terminal, browser, chat.
- AI-corrected output, not raw transcript. Punctuation and phrasing are fixed so what you paste reads like you wrote it.
- AppImage and
.deb. Run the AppImage with no install, or install the.debsystem-wide. - Modes, translation, and an AI agent. Switch dictation modes on the fly, dictate-and-translate, or talk to an agent, all from the same floating capsule.
Why Wayland needs a quick setup
Wayland is deliberately stricter than X11: applications can't silently grab global keyboard shortcuts. That's good for security, but it's also why some dictation tools never fire on Wayland.
Meander works with Wayland instead of fighting it. You bind Meander's trigger to a keyboard shortcut in your desktop's own settings, pointed at Meander's command-line trigger. Your desktop owns the hotkey (which Wayland allows), and it tells Meander to start and stop. It takes about a minute, and afterwards your dictation key works system-wide like any other.
Set it up on Wayland (GNOME / KDE / COSMIC)
1. Make meander easy to call. Point a name on your PATH at the binary (the AppImage, or /usr/bin/meander from the .deb):
ln -s /path/to/meander ~/.local/bin/meander
2. Bind a keyboard shortcut to it in your desktop settings:
- GNOME: Settings → Keyboard → View and Customize Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts → +
- KDE: System Settings → Shortcuts → Custom Shortcuts → Edit → New → Global Shortcut → Command/URL
- COSMIC: Settings → Keyboard → Custom shortcuts → Add
Set the command to:
meander --toggle
⚠️ Do not prefix it with
bashorsh. Meander is a compiled program, not a shell script.bash meandertries to read the binary as a script and fails instantly, so the shortcut does nothing. This is the #1 setup mistake. Use the command (or full path) on its own.
3. Turn on auto-paste with ydotool. On Wayland, simulating the paste keystroke needs ydotool, its background daemon, and access to /dev/uinput:
sudo apt install ydotool # or your distro's package manager
sudo usermod -aG input $USER # ydotool needs /dev/uinput; log out and back in after this
systemctl --user enable --now ydotoold # start the background daemon
That's it. Press your shortcut, talk, press again, and the corrected text pastes at your cursor, hands-free.
Bonus: per-mode shortcuts
Meander has dictation modes (different correction styles, prompts, output languages). You can bind a shortcut straight to one:
meander --mode 2 # just switch to the 2nd mode
meander --mode 2 --toggle # record once using the 2nd mode (one-shot)
meander --toggle-translate # dictate-and-translate
meander --toggle-agent # talk to your AI agent
How it connects
Meander ships with no third-party API keys baked into the binary. You sign in through everydays.tools and requests run through Meander's own proxy, so there are no keys to configure or leak.
If you're weighing options, we also put together a roundup of the best voice dictation tools for Linux.
Get started
Download Meander for Linux, sign in, bind your shortcut, and start talking. Tell us how it runs on your distro and desktop. Wayland feedback especially welcome.