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Linux
Install Mycroft on Linux, learn how to start and stop services, configure proxies, or remove Mycroft from your system.
Prerequisites
This section of documentation assumes the following:
That you already have Linux installed on your computer
That your computer is already connected to the internet
That you are comfortable issuing basic Linux commands from a terminal or shell prompt
That your device has a built-in microphone and speakers, or, you have successfully connected microphone and speakers to your device.
That your device already has git installed and working. If you don't already have git installed, here is a great set of instructions.
System Requirements
Whilst Mycroft runs on a Raspberry Pi 3B or above, this is achieved through a custom release of Raspbian Lite significantly reducing the system overhead by not running a desktop environment and other unnecessary processes. Mycroft will run on older hardware however your experience may vary significantly.
Our Precise wake word engine also relies upon TensorFlow. For x86 Intel processors this requires the AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) instruction set. To ensure your system supports AVX open a terminal and run: grep avx /proc/cpuinfo. AVX should be listed under the flags for each CPU core. If nothing is returned it is most likely that your system does not support AVX. Technical users may be able to build an older version of TensorFlow (1.13) from source using the instructions provided on their website. Alternatively you may use Mycroft with the PocketSphinx wake word engine; see Switching Wake Word Listeners.
The ARM architecture has a similar requirement called SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data). This has been available since ARMv7 which includes the Cortex A53 used by the RaspberryPi and the Cortex A7 from the OrangePi.
Getting Started
There are multiple ways to install Mycroft for Linux.
Installing via git clone
The simplest way to install Mycroft for Linux is to clone the mycroft-core repo to your system and run a shell script, which will install all dependencies, and Mycroft components.
The mycroft-core repo is at https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core.
The instructions below will install Mycroft in your HOME directory.
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cd ~/
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git clone https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-core.git
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cd mycroft-core
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bash dev_setup.sh
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The dev_setup.sh script identifies, installs and configures dependencies that Mycroft needs to run.
The script will also install and configure virtualenv. virtualenv is a tool to create isolated Python environments. It is a way to isolate an application - in this case Mycroft - from other applications. It helps to better manage both dependencies and security.
If you are running a Linux distribution other than Ubuntu, Debian, Arch or Fedora, you may need to manually install packages as instructed by dev_setup.sh.
Running Mycroft for Linux
The Mycroft for Linux installation includes two scripts that you use to control Mycroft services.
start-mycroft.sh
start-mycroft.sh is used to start one, or all, Mycroft services. This script uses the virtualenv created by dev_setup.sh.
The usage of start-mycroft.sh is:
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usage: start-mycroft.sh [command] [params]
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​
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Services:
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  all                      runs core services: bus, audio, skills, voice
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  debug                    runs core services, then starts the CLI
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​
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Services:
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  audio                    the audio playback service
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  bus                      the messagebus service
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  skills                   the skill service
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  voice                    voice capture service
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  wifi                     wifi setup service
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  enclosure                mark_1 enclosure service
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​
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Tools:
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  cli                      the Command Line Interface
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  unittest                 run mycroft-core unit tests
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​
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Utils:
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  skill_container <skill>  container for running a single skill
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  audiotest                attempt simple audio validation
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  audioaccuracytest        more complex audio validation
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  sdkdoc                   generate sdk documentation
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​
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Examples:
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  start-mycroft.sh all
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  start-mycroft.sh cli
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  start-mycroft.sh unittest
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To start all Mycroft services at once
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$ ./start-mycroft.sh all
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Starting all mycroft-core services
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Initializing...
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Starting background service bus
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Starting background service skills
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Starting background service audio
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Starting background service voice
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To start individual Mycroft services
Services can also be started individually.
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$ ./start-mycroft.sh audio
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Initializing...
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Starting background service audio
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Stopping Mycroft services
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$ ./stop-mycroft.sh
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Stopping all mycroft-core services
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Pairing Mycroft for Linux
Once successfully installed, you will need to pair your Mycroft for Linux Device with your home.mycroft.ai account.
Speak
Hey Mycroft, pair my device
Mycroft will Speak "I am connected to the internet and need to be paired. Your 6-digit Registration Code is XXXXXX"
Use the Registration Code to pair your Mycroft for Linux Device with home.mycroft.ai.
​View the home.mycroft.ai documentation to learn how to add your Device to home.mycroft.ai.
Once paired, you can then use basic Skills.
Using Mycroft behind a proxy
Many schools, universities and workplaces run a proxy on their network. If you need to type in a username and password to access the external internet, then you are likely behind a proxy.
If you plan to use Mycroft behind a proxy, then you will need to do an additional configuration step.
NOTE: In order to complete this step, you will need to know the hostname and port for the proxy server. Your network administrator will be able to provide these details. Your network administrator may want information on what type of traffic Mycroft will be using. We use https traffic on port 443, primarily for accessing ReST-based APIs.
Using Mycroft behind a proxy without authentication
If you are using Mycroft behind a proxy without authentication, add the following environment variables, changing the proxy_hostname.com and proxy_port for the values for your network. These commands are executed from the Linux command line interface (CLI).
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$ export http_proxy=http://proxy_hostname.com:proxy_port
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$ export https_port=http://proxy_hostname.com:proxy_port
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$ export no_proxy="localhost,127.0.0.1,localaddress,.localdomain.com,0.0.0.0,::1"
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Using Mycroft behind an authenticated proxy
If you are behind a proxy which requires authentication, add the following environment variables, changing the proxy_hostname.com and proxy_port for the values for your network. These commands are executed from the Linux command line interface (CLI).
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$ export http_proxy=http://user:[email protected]_hostname.com:proxy_port
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$ export https_port=http://user:[email protected]_hostname.com:proxy_port
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$  export no_proxy="localhost,127.0.0.1,localaddress,.localdomain.com,0.0.0.0,::1"
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Keeping Mycroft for Linux updated
Keeping your mycroft-core installation up to date is simple.
1.Change to the directory where your mycroft-core installation is. This is most likely at ~/mycroft-core
2.Type git stash - this preserves your Mycroft configuration. git may prompt you to set up an identity.
3.Type git pull to get the latest code. By default, using a git installation will bring down the dev branch of the repo. If you want to pull down another branch - for instance to test it - use git pull origin BRANCH_NAME.
4.Type git stash pop to return the configuration that was stashed with git stash
5.Type ./update_dev.sh to update your virtualenv - it's a good idea to do this if you update your mycroft-core installation.
6.Type ./start-mycroft.sh all to restart the services
Removing Mycroft for Linux from your system
If you have installed mycroft-core using the git-clone method, you can remove all files and directories that have been created by Mycroft using the --clean flag:
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cd ~/mycroft-core # or the path to your mycroft-core installation
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./dev_setup --clean
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This does not remove the cloned mycroft-core project directory. If cloned directly into the home directory, this can be removed with:
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rm -rf ~/mycroft-core
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Warning: always be very careful when running rm -rf commands. Running this command on the wrong directory can delete your entire filesystem. Run rm --help for more details.
Alternatively you can manually remove these files using the following commands:
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sudo rm -rf /var/log/mycroft # Log files
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rm -f /var/tmp/mycroft_web_cache.json # Configuration from Home.mycroft.ai
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rm -rf "${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/mycroft" # Temp files
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rm -rf "$HOME/.mycroft" # User level configuration
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sudo rm -rf /opt/mycroft # Mycroft Skills directory
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rm -rf "$HOME/mycroft-core" # Mycroft-core installation
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Depending on your system, you may need to run the commands with sudo
Snap Package
A pre-Alpha Snap package is available, with the aim to provide a simple and secure means of installing Mycroft on a broad range of Linux distributions.
The Snap package currently has a number of major usability bugs that need to be addressed before it will be promoted to an installable channel. For now we recommend the git clone method above, but we welcome any help in improving Mycroft as a Snap:
Snap Package
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting