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If you’re on Ubuntu or Debian, the fastest way to install Praat is to type
sudo apt install praat
into a terminal window. However, this way you may obtain a years-old version:
This way may be sub-optimal, because Praat is updated quite often. See What’s new? to see what’s new.
If you want the newest version of Praat, you can download it from this page if you have a Linux distribution from 2022 or younger and one of the three supported processor types:
Unpack with gunzip and tar xvf. This will create the executable file praat. You can remove the tar file.
Praat will work fine wherever it is on your disk; just type ./praat into a terminal window after cd-ing to Praat’s folder.
If Praat doesn’t start immediately (i.e. it may complain about missing .so files),
then you may have to install one or more standard (graphics or audio) libraries on which Praat depends.
On Ubuntu or Debian these may be:
sudo apt install libgtk-3-0 # the graphics toolkit
sudo apt install libasound2 # the ALSA audio library
sudo apt install libpulse0 # the Pulse audio server
sudo apt install pipewire-jack # the Jack audio library (overridden by Pipewire; from Ubuntu 24.04 on)
# Ubuntu 22.04: jackd2 and libjack0 instead (not via pipewire)
# on Debian perhaps also:
sudo apt install libjack0
# on Ubuntu sometimes:
sudo apt install libcanberra-gtk-module # if your system complains about missing this
On Fedora, the installs may be:
sudo dnf install gtk3 # the graphics toolkit
sudo dnf install alsa-lib # the ALSA audio library
sudo dnf install pulseaudio-libs # the Pulse audio server
sudo dnf install pipewire-jack-audio-connection-kit # the Jack audio library (overridden by PipeWire)
# i.e. usually *not* jack-audio-connection-kit
If you prefer a more complete Praat package, or need to work on a processor not mentioned above, you can download a recent version from Debian.
If none of the above works, there is also always the possibility to compile Praat yourself from the source code.
If you use Praat for the first time, choose Intro from the Help menu.
If you want to see good phonetic characters, you have to install the Doulos SIL and Charis (or Charis SIL) fonts, for instance from the packages fonts-sil-charis and fonts-sil-doulos on Debian or Ubuntu:
sudo apt install fonts-sil-doulos
sudo apt install fonts-sil-charis
or on Fedora:
sudo dnf install sil-doulos-fonts
sudo dnf install sil-charis-fonts
If you cannot install those packages, you can download the two fonts from Summer Institute of Linguistics and follow the installation instructions there.
To run Praat from a terminal window, write a Praat script and specify that script on the command line, optionally with arguments, e.g.:
praat --run playsinewave.praat 377 0.9
For details see Calling from the command line in the Scripting manual.
1. Sound not working?
Audio on Linux is notoriously fragile. For playback, Praat either uses PulseAudio or Alsa, and you choose between these with Praat -> Preferences -> Sound playing preferences.
In the SoundRecorder window: if you don’t see any devices, then ALSA isn’t available. You may then try to obtain a JACK device by starting Praat via (if you have Pipewire):
pw-jack praat
or (if you don’t have Pipewire):
sudo apt install jackd libjack0
jack_control start # starts the Jack server
praat