Lilith-TTS 🌙

A high-performance, system-wide local Text-to-Speech application for Lilith Linux.

Features

• NeuTTS Nano Integration: Real-time high-quality TTS using the NeuTTS Nano model (~120MB GGUF).
• Instant Voice Cloning: Create new voices from 5–15 second clean WAV reference clips.
• Global Hotkey: Press Ctrl+T+T+M to read the current screen content or selection from any application.
• Intelligent Screen Reader: Uses AT-SPI2 to walk the accessibility tree, automatically skipping UI chrome, navigation bars, and advertisements.
• Web-Optimized: Heuristics to extract the main article content from browsers, ignoring sidebar clutter.
• COSMIC Panel Applet: Sleek and modern GUI integrated directly into the COSMIC Panel, featuring a clean white-flame symbolic icon.
• Anchored Popup Window: The main control panel and engine settings slide out beautifully, anchored directly to the panel applet.

Architecture

Lilith-TTS is built as a three-crate Rust workspace:

• tts-core: Shared library containing the TTS engine abstraction, configuration, audio playback logic, and screen/clipboard readers.
• tts-daemon: Background service that monitors global hotkeys, manages the TTS engine lifecycle, and provides a Unix socket IPC server.
• tts-gui: A borderless panel applet that provides a user interface to control the daemon and configure voices.

Installation

Lilith-TTS supports standard COSMIC applet installation using just, as well as a one-shot install script.

Method 1: Using just (Standard COSMIC Applet Installation)

If you have just installed on your system, you can build and install the applet directly:

1. Build the release binaries:

   just

2. Install the applet:

   • System-wide (requires sudo, defaults to prefix=/usr):

     sudo just install
     # Or install to /usr/local
     sudo just install prefix=/usr/local

   • User-local (no root privileges required, installs to ~/.local):

     just install-user

3. Configure permissions for the global hotkey:

   just setup-hotkey

   (Note: You must log out and back in for the hotkey input group change to take effect)

4. Download the NeuTTS Nano model:

   just download-model

Method 2: Using the One-Shot Installer Script

Alternatively, you can run the interactive install.sh script, which automates building, local installation, group configuration, and model downloading in one step:

./install.sh

Installer Options:

• --only-model: Skips build and installation, jumping straight to checking/downloading the NeuTTS model.
• --non-interactive: Runs the installation in headless mode, downloading the model to your user-local directory without prompts.
• -h, --help: Displays help message.

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Setup & Configuration

1. Add the Applet to the COSMIC Panel

Once installed, Lilith TTS will be registered as a COSMIC applet:

1. Right-click any COSMIC panel and select Add Applet (or open System Settings → Panels → Add Applet).
2. Select Lilith TTS from the list.
3. The custom flame silhouette symbolic icon will appear in the panel. Click it to open the control popup.

2. NeuTTS Model Path

The high-quality NeuTTS Nano model (neutts-nano-q4.gguf) will search:

• System location: /var/lib/lilith/models/neutts-nano-q4.gguf
• User-local location: ~/.local/share/lilith-tts/models/neutts-nano-q4.gguf

You can download it using the Download NeuTTS Nano button inside the applet's Settings page, or manually point to a pre-downloaded model path from there.

3. Daemon Control

The background daemon handles the global hotkey (Ctrl + T + T + M) and reads text from the active window/clipboard. It runs as a systemd user service:

# Check status
systemctl --user status lilith-tts-daemon

# Restart daemon
systemctl --user restart lilith-tts-daemon

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Built for Lilith Linux — BlancoBAM