HowTo: Twhirl in Ubuntu

How To, Linux, Ubuntu

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Twhirl is a popular desktop twitter client based on the Adobe AIR platform. Unfortunately, up until recently, Linux users have been unable to easily install the application because an official AIR release was not available and running it through Wine took away much of the platforms appeal. However, Adobe Labs recently released an alpha version of the AIR platform for Linux. Follow these simple instructions to install it.

adobeair.png

Enter these commands to get the newest version (currently 1.5.2):

cd ~/Desktop

wget http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/latest/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Give the .bin file execution rights:

sudo chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Run the bin file to install/upgrade AIR:

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Note: If you receive the error “sudo: unable to execute ./AdobeAIRInstaller” or “sudo: ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin: command not found” the terminal is telling you that the file is not executable, you may have incorrectly performed the chmod command.

Once that’s installed, it’s time to get twhirl. As of this posting the twhirl website wont allow Linux users to click the “Get twhirl” link, simply displaying the message “Adobe AIR is not available for your system”. You can get around this by entering the following command in the terminal to download the file directly:

wget http://d.seesmic.com/twhirl/twhirl-0.9.4.air

Be sure to modify the file name to fit the most current release of twhirl.

Next, right click the file and select the Open with “Adobe AIR Application Installer” option to run the installer. That should get everything installed. The screenshot below illustrates how well it integrates with the system.

adobeair_twhirl.png

One thing I noticed after installing was that it only displayed a generic icon when running. If you run into the same problem feel free to download and use an icon I created, which can be found here.

Update: Now that AIR is out of testing, the stock icons should automatically show up. However, if they don’t you should be able to find them here: /opt/twhirl/icons

14 Comments

  • 1. nicobbg  |  August 29, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    Thanks for this post! very useful. It works on my Ubuntu Hardy, unfortunatly there is a problem with the window, there is a black frame around but I think it’s because of the transparency function under Gnome, it is not activated on my old computer.

  • 2. Patrick Micka  |  September 9, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Right, you have to have Compiz enabled to utilize the transparency. You could use one of the darker themes perhaps, to minimize the black frame.

  • 3. Patrick Micka » Ado&hellip  |  September 18, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    [...] AIR, the runtime environment I’ve written about before, has moved out of Alpha and into Beta. Expect apps to run more consistently with Windows and [...]

  • 4. Khalid  |  December 9, 2008 at 11:32 pm

    Many thanks for the instructions. They worked perfectly. I downloaded the version shown and then after installation performed an update. The auto update doesn’t appear to work, but if you download the file and then open with Air, it installs perfectly.

    Many thanks again. You got me out of a bind.

    Regards,

    Khalid.

  • 5. YellowLeds Weblog&hellip  |  January 11, 2009 at 9:55 am

    twhirl unter Ubuntu…

    twhirl ist ein recht leistungsstarker twitter-Client auf Basis von Adobe AIR. Er beherrscht z.B. Direktnachrichten, was meines Wissens kaum ein nativer twitter-Client unter Linux kann.In etwa analog zu dieser Anleitung kann man sowohl AIR als auch twhi…

  • 6. netster  |  February 7, 2009 at 12:20 am

    Interesting… and always many steps to get something running hahahaha the beauty of Linux… I run Ubuntu 2 month back and I like it. I hate the part where things just down run. I have a hard time getting my TV working and it’s still not working LOL.

    great post ;)

  • 7. Sniper The End  |  June 23, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    Thx, work fine.

    Only change:
    chmod +x http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

    for

    chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

    in your post.

    Greetings from México.

  • 8. Patrick Micka  |  June 23, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    Good catch Sniper, I’ve updated the post.

  • 9. Leo  |  June 25, 2009 at 9:53 pm

    Thanks for sharing.

  • 10. Junanax  |  August 12, 2009 at 1:01 am

    It was installed successfully but it did not work when I started to install the Twhirl.

    Help please…

    Thank you!

    Long live KUbuntuers!

  • 11. Patrick Micka  |  August 12, 2009 at 5:49 pm

    Can you tell me what (if any) errors were displayed when you tried installing Twhirl?

  • 12. spearz  |  October 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm

    Hi, thanks for the guide!
    I’m running Ubuntu (Jaunty) 64bit and couldn’t get Twhirl to install at all by double clicking it. Nothing happened, it just sat there on my desktop…. so I ran this command in a terminal:

    sudo cp /usr/lib/libadobecertstore.so /usr/lib32

    ….after that, Twhirl installed all ok! Not sure if it’s just for 64bit systems, but it worked for me :-)
    Cheers,

  • 13. cmedeiros  |  March 30, 2010 at 9:37 am

    spearz++

    Also worked on Karmic, thanks

  • 14. Cyril Lakech  |  March 30, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    Thanks spearz

    You must run a “sudo cp /usr/lib/libadobecertstore.so /usr/lib32″ on a 64bit CPU

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