1. Downloading the Linux edition

To get the Linux edition of Praat, you either do sudo apt-get install praat, or you get it from Debian, or you compile it yourself from the source code, or you download a 32- or 64-bit binary executable on this page. These binaries will only work on Intel and compatible computers.

The binary executable requires the GTK and asound libraries on your computer, and at least version 2.11 of the C library.

To download Praat from this page, click on the appropriate compressed archive:

32-bit edition: praat5304_linux32.tar.gz (12 January 2012; 3.6 MB)

64-bit edition: praat5304_linux64.tar.gz (12 January 2012; 3.9 MB)

Unpack with gunzip and tar xvf. This will create the executable file praat. You can remove the tar file.

2. Running Praat

Praat will work fine wherever it is on your disk; just type praat or click the icon.

3. Phonetic symbols

If you want to see good phonetic characters, you have to install the Charis SIL and the Doulos SIL font (2009 version), for instance from the packages ttf-sil-charis and ttt-sil-doulos on Debian or Ubuntu. If you cannot install those packages, you can download the two fonts from Summer Institute of Linguistics and follow the installation instructions there.

4. Known possible problems, and their solution

1. Sound not working?

Praat nowadays prefers to use the Alsa sound system through PortAudio. If it doesn't work, you may have to switch off one of the other sound systems that are running at the same time, such as PulseAudio. You can make Praat compatible with PulseAudio by starting Praat from the command line with

   pasuspender -- praat