[simcop2387]

That sounds like my experience with it from about 5 years ago or so. I gave up on it also. It also didn't help that CMUSphinx has had more than one version in development in different languages.

[hardwaresofton]

I would note that as a positive... But yeah, 5 years ago things were much much rougher (which is partly why I didn't think it got so much press).

But these days, if you go all the way through their tutorial, and give it a proper read, it's very doable to set up.