Robust Affordable Speech Recognition
ASR Installation FAQs: Linux
The following FAQ has been designed for installation of Standard Edition speech recognition engine for Linux.
- What do I need to install the VASRE Standard Edition (SE)?
- What is the computer specification required for VASRE SE?
- What GNU/Linux distributions does the VASRE SE support?
- What formats of the installation package are available?
- What does the name of the installation file represent?
- Is there any prerequisite software that should be installed before the VASRE installation?
- I started the RM under 64-bit platform, but got the output message saying “RM: not found”. What should I do?
- Where should I copy the license files to?
- What is the difference between the RM and servers? How do they work together?
- What is the difference between the server controller and servers?
- I started the RM, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/RM-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
- I started the RM and the output message says “Starting resource manager: Done”. Is there any way to check if the RM is actually running?
- I started servers. How can I check if the servers are actually running?
- How can I find the log file of a specific server?
- I started servers using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/SRVs-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
- How can I control server parameters when using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command?
- I ran ConsoleApp, but the output is different from that shown in the manual.
1. What do I need to install the VASRE Standard Edition (SE)?
You need one or more Personal Computers (PC) in which a GNU/Linux distribution is installed and a network connection is available. For a small speech application with up to four ports, one PC would be enough for your speech recognition needs. You should install the VASRE packages and purchase the licenses to launch the system.
2. What is the computer specification required for VASRE SE?
To launch the Resource Manager (RM) with four recognition servers, the VASRE package should be installed on a computer with
3. What GNU/Linux distributions does the VASRE SE support?
VASRE supports Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Fedora Core, CentOS, RedHat Enterprise. Other distributions will also be covered soon.
4. What formats of the installation package are available?
The installation package of the VASRE SE is provided in two formats: .deb and .rpm.
5. What does the name of the installation file represent?
The name of the VASRE installation file is:
vasre-se-version-arch
where version and arch represent the version and supporting architecture of VASRE. For example, the installation file of the VASRE SE 1.0.0 for Centos 5 and i386 architecture would be:
vasre-se-1.0.0~Centos_5-i386
6. Is there any prerequisite software that should be installed before the VASRE installation?
Generally speaking, there is no prerequisite software for the VASRE SE. If you are going to install the VASRE SE on a 64-bit platform, refer to the next FAQ item.
7. I started the RM under 64-bit platform, but got the output message saying “RM: not found”. What should I do?
The RM has been developed as a 32-bit executable file, and you need ia32/i386 support to run it on 64-bit platforms. Install ia32-libs using the following command before starting the RM:
apt-get install ia32-libs
8. Where should I copy the license files to?
You should copy the license files to /opt/VestecASRE/License/. They will be loaded when the RM starts.
9. What is the difference between the RM and servers? How do they work together?
The RM is the control tower of your VASRE system. It manages license information, oversees the servers, and coordinates communication sessions between the servers and clients. A server is a program unit dedicated to speech recognition. Since a server can handle only one client, the number of the necessary servers will be decided by the scale of your speech recognition system.
10. What is the difference between the server controller and servers?
Since the distributed architecture of VASRE allows multiple servers running on a single machine, we developed a server controller, which creates server processes based on the configuration file. The configuration file specifies the number of servers to be started and the parameters to be used for the servers.
11. I started the RM, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/RM-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
The RM did not start for some reason. To track the reason for the error, check the contents of the RM log file /var/log/VestecASRE/RM-yyyy-mm-dd.log, where yyyy-mm-dd represents the current date in the year-month-day format. Most RM errors are related to the license files. Make sure valid license files exist under /opt/VestecASRE/License/.
12. I started the RM and the output message says “Starting resource manager: Done”. Is there any way to check if the RM is actually running?
To check the status of the RM, you can enter the following command in the shell terminal:
/etc/init.d/vasreRM status
Or you can check the bottom side of the RM log file. If it ends with a line saying “Waiting for connection ...,” the RM is running and waiting for a server connection. If servers have started, you will see the list of servers connected to the RM.
13. I started servers. How can I check if the servers are actually running?
To check the status of the servers, you can enter the following command in the shell terminal:
/etc/init.d/vasreSRVs status
The output will show you how many servers are running. You can also check the server log files under Go to /var/log/VestecASRE/. The name of server log file is:
Port-PORT_YYYY-MM-DD.log
where PORT represents the server port number, and YYYY-MM-DD represents the date when the log file was created.
14. How can I find the log file of a specific server?
The server is identified by the port number it occupies. Go to /var/log/VestecASRE/ and you will find log files whose names are: Port-PORT_YYYY-MM-DD.log where PORT represents the server port number and YYYY-MM-DD represents the date when the log file was created. Don't be confused with the log files whose name starts with SRVs. They are the log files for the script launching the servers, /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs.
15. I started servers using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/SRVs-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
The servers did not start for some reason. To track the reason, check the contents of /var/log/VestecASRE/SRVs-yyyy-mm-dd.log, where yyyy-mm-dd represents the current date in the year-month-day format.
16. How can I control server parameters when using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command?
When you start servers using the /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command, it loads the parameters specified in /etc/VestecASRE/vasre.conf. Modify this file to make changes to the server parameters, and to apply the changes. The list of server parameters is available in the Administrator's Guide.
17. I ran ConsoleApp, but the output is different from that shown in the manual.
The output of ConsoleApp shows the progress of four steps: opening a port, adding grammar(s), processing audio, and closing the port. If it fails at the first step, check whether the RM and any server(s) are running, and if not, whether their logs reported anything. ConsoleApp will not fail at the other three steps if the grammar file and audio file exist in the ConsoleApp directory.
You need one or more Personal Computers (PC) in which a GNU/Linux distribution is installed and a network connection is available. For a small speech application with up to four ports, one PC would be enough for your speech recognition needs. You should install the VASRE packages and purchase the licenses to launch the system.
2. What is the computer specification required for VASRE SE?
To launch the Resource Manager (RM) with four recognition servers, the VASRE package should be installed on a computer with
- Intel 1 GHz Pentium 4 or better processor,
- 512MB or more RAM,
- 100MB of free hard disk space for installation and verification,
- and network connections.
3. What GNU/Linux distributions does the VASRE SE support?
VASRE supports Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Fedora Core, CentOS, RedHat Enterprise. Other distributions will also be covered soon.
4. What formats of the installation package are available?
The installation package of the VASRE SE is provided in two formats: .deb and .rpm.
5. What does the name of the installation file represent?
The name of the VASRE installation file is:
vasre-se-version-arch
where version and arch represent the version and supporting architecture of VASRE. For example, the installation file of the VASRE SE 1.0.0 for Centos 5 and i386 architecture would be:
vasre-se-1.0.0~Centos_5-i386
6. Is there any prerequisite software that should be installed before the VASRE installation?
Generally speaking, there is no prerequisite software for the VASRE SE. If you are going to install the VASRE SE on a 64-bit platform, refer to the next FAQ item.
7. I started the RM under 64-bit platform, but got the output message saying “RM: not found”. What should I do?
The RM has been developed as a 32-bit executable file, and you need ia32/i386 support to run it on 64-bit platforms. Install ia32-libs using the following command before starting the RM:
apt-get install ia32-libs
8. Where should I copy the license files to?
You should copy the license files to /opt/VestecASRE/License/. They will be loaded when the RM starts.
9. What is the difference between the RM and servers? How do they work together?
The RM is the control tower of your VASRE system. It manages license information, oversees the servers, and coordinates communication sessions between the servers and clients. A server is a program unit dedicated to speech recognition. Since a server can handle only one client, the number of the necessary servers will be decided by the scale of your speech recognition system.
10. What is the difference between the server controller and servers?
Since the distributed architecture of VASRE allows multiple servers running on a single machine, we developed a server controller, which creates server processes based on the configuration file. The configuration file specifies the number of servers to be started and the parameters to be used for the servers.
11. I started the RM, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/RM-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
The RM did not start for some reason. To track the reason for the error, check the contents of the RM log file /var/log/VestecASRE/RM-yyyy-mm-dd.log, where yyyy-mm-dd represents the current date in the year-month-day format. Most RM errors are related to the license files. Make sure valid license files exist under /opt/VestecASRE/License/.
12. I started the RM and the output message says “Starting resource manager: Done”. Is there any way to check if the RM is actually running?
To check the status of the RM, you can enter the following command in the shell terminal:
/etc/init.d/vasreRM status
Or you can check the bottom side of the RM log file. If it ends with a line saying “Waiting for connection ...,” the RM is running and waiting for a server connection. If servers have started, you will see the list of servers connected to the RM.
13. I started servers. How can I check if the servers are actually running?
To check the status of the servers, you can enter the following command in the shell terminal:
/etc/init.d/vasreSRVs status
The output will show you how many servers are running. You can also check the server log files under Go to /var/log/VestecASRE/. The name of server log file is:
Port-PORT_YYYY-MM-DD.log
where PORT represents the server port number, and YYYY-MM-DD represents the date when the log file was created.
14. How can I find the log file of a specific server?
The server is identified by the port number it occupies. Go to /var/log/VestecASRE/ and you will find log files whose names are: Port-PORT_YYYY-MM-DD.log where PORT represents the server port number and YYYY-MM-DD represents the date when the log file was created. Don't be confused with the log files whose name starts with SRVs. They are the log files for the script launching the servers, /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs.
15. I started servers using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command, but got the output message saying “Failed: Check log file (/var/log/VestecASRE/SRVs-yyyy-mm-dd.log)”. What should I do?
The servers did not start for some reason. To track the reason, check the contents of /var/log/VestecASRE/SRVs-yyyy-mm-dd.log, where yyyy-mm-dd represents the current date in the year-month-day format.
16. How can I control server parameters when using /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command?
When you start servers using the /etc/init.d/vasreSRVs command, it loads the parameters specified in /etc/VestecASRE/vasre.conf. Modify this file to make changes to the server parameters, and to apply the changes. The list of server parameters is available in the Administrator's Guide.
17. I ran ConsoleApp, but the output is different from that shown in the manual.
The output of ConsoleApp shows the progress of four steps: opening a port, adding grammar(s), processing audio, and closing the port. If it fails at the first step, check whether the RM and any server(s) are running, and if not, whether their logs reported anything. ConsoleApp will not fail at the other three steps if the grammar file and audio file exist in the ConsoleApp directory.