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 (64-bit or 32-bit) from the source code, or you download a 64-bit binary executable (for an Intel64 or ARM64 processor) from this page. These binaries will work only on Intel and compatible computers.

The binary executable requires the gtk-3 and asound libraries on your computer (perhaps also libcanberra-gtk-module).

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

normal edition (Intel64/AMD64/x64, for interactive work as well as scripting):
praat6408_linux-intel64.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 25.8 MB)   <-- you probably want this

 

barren server edition (Intel64/AMD64/x64, no GUI, no network, no graphics, no sound):
praat6408_linux-intel64-barren.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 26.9 MB)

 

no-GUI server edition (Intel64/AMD64/x64, no GUI, no network, no sound, but can create graphics files):
praat6408_linux-intel64-nogui.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 25.7 MB)

 

normal edition (ARM64/AArch64, for interactive work as well as scripting):
praat6408_linux-arm64.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 25.1 MB)

 

barren server edition (ARM64/AArch64, no GUI, no network, no graphics, no sound):
praat6408_linux-arm64-barren.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 25.4 MB)

 

no-GUI server edition (ARM64/AArch64, no GUI, no network, no sound, but can create graphics files):
praat6408_linux-arm64-nogui.tar.gz (14 April 2024; 25.0 MB)

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

2. How to start

Praat will work fine wherever it is on your disk; just type ./praat or click the icon. If you use Praat for the first time, choose Intro from the Help menu.

3. Phonetic symbols

If you want to see good phonetic characters, you have to install the Charis SIL and Doulos SIL fonts, for instance from the packages fonts-sil-charis and fonts-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. Running Praat from the command line

To run Praat from a terminal window, write a Praat script and specify that script on the command line, optionally with arguments, e.g.:

For details see Calling from the command line in the Scripting manual.

5. Known possible problems, and their solution

1. Sound not working?

Audio on Linux is notoriously fragile. Praat either uses PulseAudio or Alsa, and you choose between these with Praat -> Preferences -> Sound playing preferences. If neither option works, the Ubuntu website suggests 16 steps that you may try to get audio to work.

6. Debian info

Praat is included in the Debian distribution. To install Praat on your Debian computer, do

The Debian package includes a praat-open-files command that allows opening files from the command line inside a Praat process that is already running.

Recent upstream versions of the Praat package backported to the stable and testing distributions of Debian are available in an APT repository.

7. Editions of Praat for older computers or older operating system versions

• We do not create Praat editions for 32-bit Linux any longer (except for Raspberry Pi). The last one is Praat 6.1.15 of 20 May 2020. If that is too old for you, you could try to compile a newer version by yourself from the sources.