I think the current issue is that lots of people are intellectually excited by the framework stuff; libraries, that python project to implement commands, etc. I do totally get that, I definitely find it more interesting.
What would help much more as an end-user would be integrating things nicely into window managers. I am optimistic that it is on a roadmap, but I don't really get how all the pieces fit together. I hope in Linux it doesn't end up somehow requiring every application to implement support individually, it seems like a clever HID driver could do it.
I suppose such things could be model independent.
I've not heard of Almond, but I have seen the following projects which might be helpful:
- Dragonfly: https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/dragonfly
- Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk1mGbIJx3s / Software: https://github.com/daanzu/kaldi-active-grammar
Far field audio is usually harder for any speech system to get correct, so having a good quality mic and using it nearby will _usually_ help with the transcription quality. As a long time Linux user, I would love to see it get some more powerful voice tools - really hope that this opens up over the next few years. Feel free to drop me an email (on my profile) happy to help with setup on any of the above.