Installation

Prerequisites

Before installing qwen-tts, make sure you have the following:

  • Python 3.10+ -- Required for the TTS inference backend.
  • Rust / Cargo -- Required to compile the CLI. Install from rustup.rs.
  • git -- Required for model downloads and install scripts.

Option 1: One-liner (macOS / Linux)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andreisuslov/qwen-tts/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

This script will:

  1. Install the qwen-tts binary via cargo install.
  2. Create a Python virtual environment at ~/.qwen-tts/venv.
  3. Install the required Python dependencies into the venv.
  4. Run qwen-tts config init to generate a default configuration.

Option 2: One-liner (Windows)

Open PowerShell and run:

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/andreisuslov/qwen-tts/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

This performs the same steps as the macOS/Linux script, adapted for Windows paths and tooling.

Option 3: Manual Installation

If you prefer to install manually or need more control over the process:

1. Install the CLI

cargo install --git https://github.com/andreisuslov/qwen-tts

2. Create the Python virtual environment

python3 -m venv ~/.qwen-tts/venv

3. Install Python dependencies

On macOS Apple Silicon (MLX backend):

~/.qwen-tts/venv/bin/pip install mlx-audio huggingface-hub

On Linux / Windows with NVIDIA GPU (CUDA backend):

~/.qwen-tts/venv/bin/pip install torch transformers huggingface-hub

On CPU-only systems:

~/.qwen-tts/venv/bin/pip install torch transformers huggingface-hub --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu

4. Initialize configuration

qwen-tts config init

This creates ~/.config/qwen-tts/config.toml with auto-detected platform settings, and sets up the directory structure at ~/.qwen-tts/.

Verifying the Installation

qwen-tts --version
qwen-tts config show

The config show command will print your current configuration, including the detected backend. If everything is correct, proceed to the Quick Start.