Install Tribler In Ubuntu Via PPA (Decentralized Bittorrent Application)

Tribler is a cross-platform, decentralized Bittorrent application which means it doesn't require any torrent website to find and download content. Another cool feature is that you can stream videos directly, without having to fully download them firstly (only with VLC 1.1.x for now).

We simply don’t like unreliable servers. With Tribler we have achieved zero-seconds downtime over the past six years, all because we don’t rely on shaky foundations such as DNS, web servers or search portals.

Tribler is not new, but a recent TorrentFreak article titled "Tribler Makes BitTorrent Impossible to Shut Down" made it a lot more popular than it used to be, causing the main page to be taken offline (the download page is still there).

The recent Tribler popularity also resulted in more frequent updates by its developers so I though I'd make a PPA so Ubuntu users can easily get updates without having to manually check for and download new versions. You don't have to use the PPA, as Tribler offers .deb packages for download, but you won't get any automatic updates.

Install Tribler in Ubuntu via PPA

The official Tribler .deb package comes with VLC as a dependency. Using the package in the PPA, VLC is not a strict dependency but just a recommended package so you're not forced to install VLC. VLC is used to stream videos but this feature only works with VLC 1.1.x (it didn't work with the latest VLC 2.0 in my test).

Also, even though the package on the official Tribler website is said to only work with Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10, I've uploaded packages for all Ubuntu versions between 10.04 and 12.04. And because VLC 1.1.0 is not a dependency, the package installs just fine on older Ubuntu versions which don't have VLC 1.1.0 in the repositories. I've tested it on Ubuntu 10.04, 11.10 and 12.04 and Tribler seemed to work just fine, but if it doesn't work properly for you, there's not much I can do.

To add the PPA and install Tribler in Ubuntu 12.04, 11.10, 11.04, 10.10 or 10.04, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/tribler
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install tribler

For Windows, Mac, direct .deb downloads or source code, see the Tribler download page. There's also an Arch Linux package in AUR.

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Transmission Remote GTK

Transmission Remote GTK is a cross-platform tool for controlling Transmission Bittorrent Client remotely, through its RPC interface.

The application is very similar to Transmission Remote GUI in terms of Bittorrent functionality, however, Transmission Remote GTK integrates better with the GNOME desktop (since it's a GTK app; sadly it's GTK2 only), comes with torrent added/downloaded notifications as well as tray / Ubuntu AppIndicator support.

What is this tool for? Well, if you've set up Transmission Daemon on a server (it doesn't really has to be a server but anyway), you can use Transmission Remote GTK to control it remotely. For how to set up Transmission Daemon on Ubuntu / Debian, see our old (should still work) post: Setting Up Transmission-Daemon in Ubuntu / Debian.

Transmission Remote GTK features:

• Cross-platform
• Remotely add (file/url), start, stop, remove, remove & delete, verify, reannounce torrents.
• Works as a .torrent handler (eg. from a web browser).
• Set torrent properties such as speed, seed, peer limits, file priorities, add/edit/remove trackers.
• Change remote settings like global limits, download directory, and connectivity preferences.
• Run commands when download finishes
• Directory labels

Transmission Remote GTK comes with a PPA for Ubuntu Precise, Oneiric and Natty users. Add the PPA and install it using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ajf/trg
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install transmission-remote-gtk

For Fedora, Windows and source files, see the Transmission Remote GTK downloads page.

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