EchoNote 1.0.5

EchoNote 1.0.5: fixes for the recording shortcut and the popup.

• Fixed: the recording popup disappeared mid-recording. If an earlier note finished organizing while you were recording, the popup was hidden after 4 seconds and then reappeared. It now stays visible for the whole recording.
• Fixed: the GNOME keyboard shortcut could be redirected. Another EchoNote instance running with a separate data directory (for example the test suite) could rewrite the desktop-wide GNOME shortcut to point at itself. The shortcut then took the slow path, about 2–3 s per press, which invited double presses. Now only the normal profile manages the shortcut, and it repairs the shortcut when it starts.

Upgrade: quit EchoNote (Settings → Quit EchoNote completely), install, then start it once. It re-points the GNOME shortcut at the installed app.

sudo dnf install ./echonote-1.0.5.x86_64.rpm          # Fedora
sudo apt install ./echonote_1.0.5_amd64.deb           # Debian / Ubuntu
chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.5-x86_64.AppImage && ./EchoNote-1.0.5-x86_64.AppImage   # anything else

Includes everything from 1.0.4: the .deb package, portable AI runtimes (glibc 2.34+), the top-bar recording indicator, silence auto-stop, and Gemma 4 E2B running locally.

EchoNote 1.0.4: .deb package + portable runtimes

EchoNote 1.0.4: a .deb package for Debian/Ubuntu, and AI runtimes that work beyond Fedora.

• New: .deb package for Debian / Ubuntu, alongside the Fedora .rpm and the portable AppImage. Like the RPM, it adds an app-menu entry and AppStream metadata, so EchoNote shows up in GNOME Software / App Center and can be uninstalled there.
• Portable AI runtimes. whisper.cpp and llama.cpp are now compiled in Ubuntu 22.04 with static libstdc++. Before this, the bundled runtimes needed Fedora 44's glibc 2.43, so transcription and AI would not start on Ubuntu or Debian. They now need glibc 2.35 or newer: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Fedora 36+.
• Verified in a clean Ubuntu 24.04 container: the .deb installs with apt, and its bundled whisper-server and llama-server transcribe and classify with the real models.
• One command builds everything: npm run dist:linux builds, inspects and checksums all three packages.

Install

sudo dnf install ./echonote-1.0.4.x86_64.rpm          # Fedora / RHEL
sudo apt install ./echonote_1.0.4_amd64.deb           # Debian / Ubuntu
chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.4-x86_64.AppImage && ./EchoNote-1.0.4-x86_64.AppImage   # anything else

Everything runs locally (whisper.cpp + Gemma 4 E2B via llama.cpp). The first launch downloads the models (2.7 GB) once. Requirements: x86-64 CPU with AVX2, ~4.5 GB free RAM.

Uninstall: GNOME Software → Installed → EchoNote → Uninstall, or sudo dnf remove echonote / sudo apt remove echonote.

EchoNote 1.0.3: top-bar indicator + silence auto-stop

EchoNote 1.0.3: a recording indicator in the top bar, and recording that stops itself when you stop talking.

• Top-bar recording indicator, like GNOME's screen recorder: a red dot appears in the top bar only while the microphone is recording. A green check shows for 3 seconds after you stop, then the icon disappears. On GNOME this needs the AppIndicator extension:
  sudo dnf install gnome-shell-extension-appindicator, then log out and back in. Without it, EchoNote shows its small floating popup instead (Settings → While recording).
• Silence auto-stop. Recording stops by itself after 5 seconds without speech (configurable, or off). If nothing was said at all, nothing is saved.
• Fixes:
  • "In two minutes" reminders were rounded down to the minute and could fire up to 59 s early.
  • Dates are now worked out from when you spoke, not from when the AI got to the note.

Install / upgrade

sudo dnf install ./echonote-1.0.3.x86_64.rpm            # Fedora (also upgrades 1.0.2)
chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.3-x86_64.AppImage && ./EchoNote-1.0.3-x86_64.AppImage   # other distributions

Everything runs locally (whisper.cpp + Gemma 4 E2B via llama.cpp). The first launch downloads the models (2.7 GB) once. Uninstall from GNOME Software → Installed, or sudo dnf remove echonote.

EchoNote 1.0.2: Fedora RPM + new icon

EchoNote 1.0.2: installs like a normal Fedora app, now with its own icon.

• New: RPM package for Fedora. It installs to /opt/EchoNote with an app-menu entry and AppStream metadata, so EchoNote appears in GNOME Software → Installed and can be uninstalled from there.
• New EchoNote app icon.
• Launch at login now also works for the RPM install.
• Gemma 4 E2B (Apache-2.0) is the default local model for organizing notes (since 1.0.1). Everything runs on your computer.

Install

# Fedora / RHEL (recommended)
sudo dnf install ./echonote-1.0.2.x86_64.rpm

# Any other distribution: portable AppImage
chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.2-x86_64.AppImage && ./EchoNote-1.0.2-x86_64.AppImage

The first launch downloads and SHA-256-verifies the models (2.7 GB) from Hugging Face. After that EchoNote works offline. Requirements: x86-64 CPU with AVX2, ~4.5 GB free RAM, ~3 GB disk. Tested on Fedora 44 / GNOME 50.

Uninstall: GNOME Software → Installed → EchoNote → Uninstall (or sudo dnf remove echonote). To also remove your notes and models first, use Settings → Delete all data. Full steps are in the README.

Coming from the AppImage? Your notes are kept. If you created your own menu entry for the AppImage (~/.local/share/applications/echonote.desktop), delete it, otherwise it hides the RPM's entry.

EchoNote 1.0.1 — Gemma 4

EchoNote 1.0.1 — now powered by Google's Gemma 4.

• Gemma 4 E2B Instruct (Apache-2.0) is the new default model for organizing notes, running fully locally through llama.cpp. It classified all 8 test sentences correctly.
• Faster structured output: a compact grammar plus disabling "thinking" cut Gemma's time per note from ~14 s to ~8.6 s on the test laptop (CPU only).
• Qwen2.5 1.5B stays available in Settings as the faster option (~5.5 s per note); Gemma 3 1B and Qwen2.5 0.5B are available for low-memory machines.

Install (Linux x86-64, tested on Fedora 44 / GNOME 50)

chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.1-x86_64.AppImage
./EchoNote-1.0.1-x86_64.AppImage

The first launch downloads and SHA-256-verifies the models (2.7 GB) from Hugging Face; after that EchoNote works offline. Requirements: x86-64 CPU with AVX2, ~4.5 GB free RAM for the default models, ~3 GB disk.

Upgrading from 1.0.0: your notes are kept. EchoNote switches to Gemma 4 E2B, which needs a one-time 2.65 GB download in Settings → AI model; until it's installed, new notes are transcribed and wait in the Inbox. To stay on Qwen2.5 1.5B instead, select it in Settings → AI model.

EchoNote 1.0.0

First release of EchoNote: press a shortcut, speak, and get an organized task, reminder, idea or reference note. Speech recognition (whisper.cpp) and the language model (llama.cpp + Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct) run locally.

Install (Linux x86-64, tested on Fedora 44 / GNOME 50)

chmod +x EchoNote-1.0.0-x86_64.AppImage
./EchoNote-1.0.0-x86_64.AppImage

The first launch downloads and SHA-256-verifies the models (1.1 GB) from Hugging Face. After that EchoNote works offline.

Requirements: x86-64 CPU with AVX2, ~2.5 GB free RAM, ~1.2 GB disk for models. On GNOME/Wayland, use Settings → "Set up GNOME shortcut" for the global shortcut.

Known limitations: see the README (CPU-only; organizing takes ~5 s per note on the test laptop; reminders fire only while the app is running; English is the only tested language).