uTorrent under Ubuntu in 3 Easy Steps

source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/uTorrent-under-Ubuntu-in-3-Easy-Steps-49037.shtml

Emulate uTorrent under Linux!

By: Marius Nestor, Linux Editor

These days, BitTorrent is the most popular P2P (peer-to-peer) file distribution protocol. Whether you want to share some files or you just want to get your hands on the latest Linux distributions, then you must use a BitTorrent client.

There are many BitTorrent clients for Linux, starting with the old and classical BitTorrent (yes, just like the protocol) and ending with the brand new Deluge, and somewhere in the middle we can enumerate very popular BitTorrent clients like Azureus, Transmission or rTorrent, each one providing very interesting features and functionality.

On the other hand (and this is what we're gonna talk about today), if you have "Windows friends", you must have heard them talking about that very tiny and light BitTorrent client called uTorrent. uTorrent is (of course) a BitTorrent client, with impressive features, like faster download speeds, intelligent configurable disk caching, trackerless support and lighter than any other P2P client out there. Now, you have Linux that is a Windows application, what do you do? Very simple, follow the instructions below!

Step 1 - Install Wine

Open a console and type:

CODE


sudo aptitude install wine


Step 2 - Create uTorrent executable script

CODE


sudo gedit /usr/bin/utorrent


A text editor will open, just paste in the following lines. Remember to leave a blank line after the code below!

CODE


#!/bin/sh
cd ~/utorrent/
if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
var="`echo $1 | sed 's////g'`"
var="Z:${var}"
wine utorrent.exe "$var"
else
wine utorrent.exe
fi


Save and close. This will create a script in your /usr/bin/ folder. You still need to make this script executable, so type the following command in a console:

CODE


sudo chmod a+x /usr/bin/utorrent


Now create a folder called utorrent in your home directory, then download the latest version (Standalone, NOT the installer) of the uTorrent application from Softpedia and place it in the folder you've just created.

Step 3 - Create Desktop Shortcut

In this final step, we're gonna create a desktop shortcut for the uTorrent script above, so you don't have to type any command at all.

Right click on your desktop and go to "Create Launcher...". On the new launcher window, fill the fields as follows:

Type: Application
Name: uTorrent
Command: wine "/your-home-directory/utorrent/utorrent.exe"
Comment: BitTorrent Client

See screenshots below:

Create Launcher example

Note: Replace "your home directory" in the Command field above, with /home/your-name (e.g. /home/marius)

Choose a suitable icon, and click OK. Now all you have to do in order to enjoy uTorrent is to double click on the uTorrent icon on your desktop. Great thing is that you will also have a tray icon.