Apr 25 2008
Running Twhirl on Ubuntu 7.10
The Twhirl Adobe AIR application is a great client for Twitter. Unfortunately, neither Twhirl or Adobe AIR officially support Linux (yet). Having recently switched to Ubuntu for my primary OS at home, I’ve been missing Twhirl. Knowing that Adobe AIR supports Mac OSX, I decided to see if there was a Linux edition in the works. Turns out there is an Alpha version of Adobe AIR for Linux. Armed with this, I decided to give it a go. Here’s how to install Adobe AIR and Twhirl on Ubuntu (current for 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon). Please note that Adobe AIR for Linux is still Alpha and is a bit unstable. There, you’ve been warned. Now for the fun:
1. Open the Terminal
2. Run the following commands:
cd ~/Desktop
wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/air/linux/adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin
wget http://www.twhirl.org/files/twhirl-0.8.air
chmod +x adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin
sudo ./adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin
3. The installation then presents the following dialog:
4. Click on “I Agree” and it commences installation (into /opt/Adobe AIR - yes, with a space in the path):
5. If all goes well, then you get the following screen.
6. Back in Terminal, run the following command:
/opt/Adobe\ AIR/Versions/1.0/airappinstaller ~/Desktop/twhirl-0.8.air
7. The first thing you get is this very frightening dialog:
Hm. UNRESTRICTED access to my computer. What could possibly go wrong? Click “Install” to find out.
8. Next, you get the twhirl installation preferences dialog. Set the preferences you want and click “Continue”:
9. Once the installation is done, Twhirl will open. Sign in to your Twitter account. Having run Twhirl on Ubuntu for several hours, I’ve managed to make it crash or simply disappear several times. Adobe AIR on Linux is indeed ALPHA quality currently. I’ve found that changing some of the default settings has made it more stable. First, untick “hide when minimised”:
10. Then click on Notify and untick “show notification windows” (found that the notification windows would sometimes play up with the window manager):
11. Click Save, and you should be twitterhappy with Twhirl on Ubuntu.
Addendum: The default icon on the Twhirl launcher is the generic AIR icon. If you want to change this so you can easily identify it as Twhirl, follow these steps:
1. Right click on the Twhirl launcher on the Desktop and select Properties:
2. Click on the red AIR icon on the upper-left.
3. Enter or navigate to /opt/twhirl/icons/twhirl-48.png and click Open.
4. Click Close and then you can drag/drop the launcher to your main menu or window manager.
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5 Responses to “Running Twhirl on Ubuntu 7.10”
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I tried following your instructions. When I did the “sudo ./adobeair_linux_al_033108.bin” line it seemed to work ok until it came back with the message: Sorry an error has occurred. An error occurred while installing Adobe AIR. Installation may not be allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator.”
I am the administrator. I tried running sudo chown on the folders opt and opt/Adobe AIR but these don’t seem to exist. I tried creating them and then chowning them, but as Im not sure where they should go, i may have put them in the wrong place. Whatever, it didn’t work. Can you tell me how to get round this?
i got it working, finally. Not entirely sure what i did that was different - but it was after 8.04 lts update had been completed and i had spent 3-4 hours finding a way to revert to firefox 2 so i could get my google toolbar back, lol
Now that twhirl 8.1 is out, you need to go to the website (www.twhirl.org) to get the current version. the one above ( /opt/Adobe\ AIR/Versions/1.0/airappinstaller ~/Desktop/twhirl-0.8.air ) gives an error in the terminal.
Just tried it and it worked flawlessly on 7.10. Thanks!
Thanks Seth, this was a great tip. Works like a champ for me on 8.04