5 Twitter clients for Linux

These apps offer flexibility, a variety of features and even a command-line interface.

Himanshu Arora

 

May 9, 2014 (Computerworld)

Although Linux systems can, of course, handle the same browser-based Twitter clients as other operating systems, some users may prefer desktop clients.

There are a number of reasons for this: Local clients integrate with your system to provide a better notification experience, it's easier to access an application in the system tray compared to the one sandwiched between browser tabs and you have more control over your application environment.
Linux users who prefer local clients have a number of applications to choose from -- including a few that are new. In this article, I examine five free Twitter applications for Linux: Birdie, Choqok, Polly, Turpial and TTYtter.
I tested each on a desktop computer equipped with an AMD Sempron 145 processor and 1.7GB RAM, using 32-bit Ubuntu version 13.10.
Each client has its strengths and weaknesses: Some offer a great selection of features, others have a fine user interface. Is there a one that strikes just the right balance? Read on.

Birdie

First released in March 2013 and developed by Ivo and Vasco Nunes, Birdie is a comparative newcomer. It is an open-source application built using GTK+ and GLib, and is licensed under version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3).
You can download and install Birdie using the instructions provided on its official website. While Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, elementary OS and Arch Linux users can directly download premade packages, other users can download the source code and install the app accordingly.

What's new

The last update -- version 1.1 -- was a maintenance release that, according to its developers, fixed a few bugs, updated language translations and added better thumbnail support. Developers are working on a new and significant upgrade for version 2.0, but they don't yet have a specific date for its release.

What's good about it

Birdie has a nice, uncluttered user interface that focuses solely on tweets. Like Choqok, the client also has icon-based timeline tabs, but places them at the top of the window. It supports multiple accounts, image uploading, auto-completion for user names and hashtags, direct (private) messaging and Twitter user lists.

Birdie has a nice, uncluttered user interface that focuses solely on tweets.

A click on a Twitter handle displays the complete profile related to that account. Because the profile looks like a webpage, it makes it easy for you to unfollow, add or block the Twitter account.
You can easily retweet, reply or mark a tweet as favorite, using corresponding icons that appear when you hover the mouse pointer over the timestamp displayed on the right corner of each tweet block. The client also has the ability to display inline images.

Other considerations

At present, Birdie has several limitations -- although none of them are showstoppers. For example, the tweet compose box does not include an option to change accounts, and it pops up as a separate window. Imgur is the only image uploading service supported. There is no built-in URL shortener or auto spell checker. Also, the client isn't very configurable -- for example, it doesn't provide options to choose a custom browser or configure the update frequency interval.

Bottom line

The application has a smooth user interface but lacks advanced features and customization options, especially when compared to clients like Choqok. The fact that it has become popular despite being so new is impressive, but the reality is that in its current form, the client is average at best.

Choqok

Choqok is a free/open source client that supports Twitter, StatusNet and Opendesktop.org. It derives its name from an ancient Persian word that means sparrow. Developed by Mehrdad Momeny and Andrey Esin, the software is licensed under GPLv3.
Choqok is built using Qt libraries, and hence integrates seamlessly with the K Desktop Environment (KDE). You can download the client directly from its official website. While Arch Linux, Kubuntu and Gentoo Linux users can directly download the binary packages, others can download the source code and compile accordingly.
If you are building Choqok from source code, make sure you have CMake 2.6, the KDE 4 library development packages, GNU gettext, the QJson library and the QOAuth library (version1.0.1 or later).

What's new

Release 1.4 supports Twitter API v1.1, and has new icons and splash screen. A "Mark timeline as read" menu item has been added to the tabs context menu, and Identi.ca support has been removed from StatusNet plugin. The new release also fixes some problems, including issues related to font size and URLs coming from the Konqueror Web browser.

What's good about it

Choqok's interface is the first thing that grabs your attention. By default, the main window contains four tabs: Home, Mentions, Inbox and Outbox. The tabs are represented by easily identifiable icons and are so close to each other that you can quickly switch among them.

Choqok's main window contains four tabs -- Home, Mentions, Inbox and Outbox -- represented on the left by easily identifiable icons.

Choqok supports multiple accounts, auto spell check, custom browser (in other words, choosing a specific browser for opening links) and various image uploading services. Icons that let you retweet, reply and mark a tweet as a favorite appear as you hover the mouse pointer over profile images. The client lets you add a custom prefix for retweets, and also lets you customize its color scheme, including the default color, the color of an unread post and the color of your own posts.
It provides two ways to compose a tweet. The first is through an embedded text box that sits above the section containing tweets; the other way is through a "Quick Post" button that is at the top-left corner of the window.
Both approaches have advantages. While you can use the Quick Post to select an account (in case you use multiple accounts) and an image uploading service, the text box lets you abort if you accidently press enter and post the tweet.
And while most Twitter clients display profile information whenever a user's handle is clicked, Choqok goes beyond that. For example, if you click on @Computerworld, you get a host of choices like: Who is Computerworld, Posts from Computerworld, Replies to Computerworld, Including Computerworld, Open profile in browser, and other actions like Write to, Follow and Block.
Choqok not only has a built-in URL shortener, it also displays the complete URL when you hover the mouse pointer over the shortened URL. This helps you decide beforehand whether to visit the link or not.
Choqok clearly distinguishes between your and the other tweets. It displays your profile image towards the right and text towards the left, while all other tweets are displayed in the opposite manner. It also displays the name of the Twitter client used to send each tweet.
Then there are plugins through which you can extend Choqok's functionality; some of them come already enabled. For example, there is a plugin to filter unwanted posts, another one lets your friends know what music you are currently listening to, and more.

Other considerations

Choqok counts all the new tweets and puts the number over each tab icon. While this may be handy for some folks, if you find the numbers irritating, there are two ways to remove them: Either you click each tweet individually (which is not feasible if there are a lot of tweets) or you click a "Mark timeline as read" icon (there is also a "Mark all timelines as read" option). That works, but I would have preferred a setting that eliminated the numbers altogether.
The client cannot display inline images and lacks a multi-column layout (like the one Turpial has) -- both drawbacks to the way many users work with Twitter. Lastly, Choqok is basically a KDE application, which means that it'll probably look a little out of place in a GNOME-based system.

Bottom line

Choqok offers pretty much everything one could desire from a Twitter client. It's feature-rich, easy to use and highly customizable. Coupled with the fact that it provides useful plugins, this client is definitely worth trying out.

Polly

Polly is a free and open-source Twitter client that is written in the Python programming language and licensed under GPLv3. It is the brainchild of Brazilian developer Marcelo Hashimoto.
You can download Polly's source code from its official Launchpad page.

What's new

Compared to its initial release, the latest release 0.93.11 contains only a handful of fixes. According to the site, these include a new icon theme together with "fixes for Fedora packaging, some link optimizations, and the addition of an internal keyring module to avoid incompatibility with recent distros."

What's good about it

Polly's user interface is similar to that of Turpial, which means that it supports multi-column layout. But one thing that immediately grabs your eye is its ability to display inline images, something Turpial can't do.

Polly supports both multi-column layouts and inline images.

Unlike Turpial, the tweet compose box is collapsible, and integrated within the main window. The client offers basic features like multiple accounts, auto-completion of nicknames, auto spell checker and URL shortener. It also supports three image uploading services: img.ly, TwitPic and Telly (formerly Twitvid),
While basic operations like reply, retweet, delete and favorites are available in the form of icons, other operations like edit-and-retweet can be done through a right click on the tweet. You can also configure stream refresh time, number of recent posts and notification settings
You can create different columns based on tweets, users, lists, messages and worldwide trends; it also provides category suggestions like news, sports, music, TV and more.
Another striking feature of Polly is its ability to show notifications with tweet details, a feature most of the clients described here do not offer. This is really helpful, as you can decide whether to take any action or not by just looking at the notification.
Another plus: The app's developer seems to be quite active on Twitter, which indicates that it shouldn't be difficult to get Polly-related queries answered.

Other considerations

As of now, Polly's biggest limitation is that it's still in an early stage of development, which means that it's not completely stable. Some features like "change profile image" aren't yet implemented, and when I accidently clicked on one of them, the app froze; the same thing happened with features like search and create lists.

Bottom line

Assuming that the buggy features will be fixed soon, there isn't much missing from Polly. Although I can't recommend the app for any kind of professional use because it's still unstable, home users can give it a try, and contribute to its development, if possible. Polly is headed in the right direction, but it has a long way to go.

TTYtter

When talking about any kind of Linux application, it's hard to ignore command-line alternatives. While this may sound strange to some, some users still love using the Linux command line and, if you are one of them, TTYtter is the client to look for.
TTYtter, which was developed by Cameron Kaiser, is a simple Perl script with all the functionality of a full-fledged Twitter client. The setup, in particular, is very easy for experienced Linux users: All you need to do is to download the script from the project's home page, make it executable and run it.
An important thing to remember while downloading the script is to make sure that the version of is 2.1.0 or later, as earlier versions are not compatible with Twitter API 1.1. In addition, the setup also requires Curl and Perl 5.8.6 or later to be installed on your system.
The client uses OAuth as the default authentication method, which means that once it is set up, it will never ask for authentication details to log in. The software is licensed under the Floodgap Free Software License (FFSL).

What's new

There's actually nothing new: The last release, 2.1.0, dates from December 2012; according to the developer, there won't be any more. But despite the lack of updates, this is still in circulation among command-line users; for example, a port called Texapp offers a version for a social networking service called App.net.

What's good about it

Although it's a command line-based client, TTYtter's functionality is in no way limited. The client supports almost anything you'd want in a Twitter client, including direct messaging, replying to tweets, threading, favorites, retweets, geolocation support, following and leaving users, tracking keywords and hashtags, list management and list timelines, command history and substitution, and multiple accounts.

Although it's a command line-based client, TTYtter's functionality is in no way limited.

Basic tweeting is very easy, once the client is up and running. All you need to do is to type in your tweet and press enter -- that's pretty much it. The console window is automatically updated with the latest tweets; if you want, you can change the update time interval using the "-pause=[time-in-seconds]" command-line option. (All the command line options are listed here.)
TTYtter also provides its own built-in commands that you can use for various purposes. For example, if you want to avoid tweeting something accidently, you can use the "/set verify 1" command to turn on the verification functionality. Here, "set" is the built-in command, "verify" is the function and "1" is used to enable the functionality.
Any text that begins with a forward slash (/) is recognized as a built-in command. So if you want to tweet something beginning with /, you need to put another slash before it. For example, "/hi there" should be tweeted as "//hi there."
You can also customize TTYtter by using extensions. For example, you can write extensions for adding new commands, changing the way errors are reported, and more. The command line client is flexible enough to run in either interactive (default) or daemon mode.
The command line client can also be configured to display very large alerts on the screen, and to send selected tweets and direct messages to your iPhone.
One of the striking advantages of TTYtter is that it can be used to fire tweets from within shell scripts, cron jobs and so on, which is next to impossible with a GUI-based Twitter client. Also, if Twitter is blocked in your office, you can connect to your home computer using SSH and start using the service through this command line client.

Other considerations

While TTYtter is feature rich and has lots of advantages, there are some shortcomings as well. Obviously, it doesn't support inline pictures and videos. And despite being a command-line client, it requires a browser to log into Twitter and get an OAuth key during its initial setup.
It does support multiple accounts but you have to maintain different keyfiles, each corresponding to an account, as only one account token can be stored per keyfile. To switch between accounts, you have to use the -keyf command line option with the corresponding keyfile name. Overall it's not a major drawback, but it's not as easy as selecting a different account from a drop down menu.

Bottom line

If you are a system admin or a seasoned Linux user who spends most of the time working on command line, TTYtter is an easy and quick way to access Twitter.

Turpial

Turpial is a GUI-based, open-source client for Twitter and pump.io. Named after the national bird of Venezuela, the software is written in Python and released under the terms of the GPL v3.
The client, which was developed by Wil Alvarez along with a group of other programmers, is built using graphics libraries GTK+ and PyGTK, and hence integrates seamlessly with GNOME and Xfce desktop environments. The project is divided into two parts, the front end (the Turpial UI) and the back end (the libturpial library).
You can download the client directly from its official website. While Fedora, Debain, Ubuntu and Arch users can follow the instructions given on the website, users of other Linux distros can download the source code and compile accordingly.

What's new

Release 3.0 contains many updates, fixes and new features. For example, an issue that occurred while closing the app from tray icon menu is now fixed, an issue with using apostrophes is also fixed, pic.twitter.com is now the default service to upload images, there is now support for list names with hyphens and more.

What's good about it

Turpial supports multi-column layouts, which means that you can divide its screen into multiple columns to monitor tweets in parallel. At present, it supports five columns: Timeline (the default), Replies, Directs, Sent and Favorites. In addition, it also supports multiple accounts, letting you log in and switch among accounts easily.

Turpial's attractive interface supports multi-column layouts and multiple accounts.

The client also provides a way to schedule tweets via the Dubbed Messages Queue, which lets you add your tweets to a queue; each tweet is then sent out after a certain time period, the default being 30 minutes.
Turpial lets you customize update frequency, statuses per column and queue frequency. It also provides various services such as Twitpic, img.ly, pic.twitter.com and more, to shorten URLs and upload images, and also lets you set up your favorite Web browser to open links.
Turpial provides auto-completion of nicknames, which means that it gives you related suggestions as you type Twitter handles. This comes in handy, especially when the names are long or have to be typed in frequently.
The client uses your system's built-in notification system to alert you, which saves you from checking the client window again and again. Below every tweet there are icons for retweet, quote, reply, delete or mark the tweet as favorite, which let you perform basic Twitter actions easily.

Other considerations

When Turpial loaded for the very first time, it froze at the startup screen. After a bit of Googling, I figured out that it was due to the fact that libturpial needed to be upgraded. I downloaded libturpial 1.7.0 and manually installed the new version.
Apart from the library issue, there are some other areas where Turpial falls short. For example, images are not displayed inline, the tweet compose area pops up as a separate window rather being a part of the main window, notifications do not include any information apart from the number of new tweets and there is no auto spell checker.

Bottom line

Turpial is a decent Twitter client that is customizable and offers some great ease-of-use features such as multicolumn layouts. Although the client falls short in some areas, it does pretty much everything the average Twitter user needs it to do.

Conclusions

Each Twitter client reviewed here has its own pros and cons.
TTYtter is definitely not for end users. Rather, it's for pros like system administrators who may do a lot of work using command-line interfaces. Although it provides a great mix of features and customization options, the fact that everything is command-based could be a deterrent for many.
Although promising, Polly and Birdie are still works in progress. Although these are the only two clients reviewed here that display inline images, the feature doesn't make up for the fact that Polly is buggy and Birdie seems to be quite minimalistic. However, I really liked Birdie's user interface, which looked comparatively more professional and easy to use.
Turpial is a good Twitter client, offering all the basic Twitter functionality along with a decent level of customization. But that's not enough to beat Choqok. Not only does Choqok offer a bucket full of features, but it allows customization of the color scheme, tool bar and more. It's definitely the winner in this batch of clients.
Himanshu Arora is a software programmer, open source enthusiast and Linux researcher. Some of his articles have been featured in IBM developerWorks and Linux Journal. He (along with some like-minded friends) blogs at MyLinuxBook.
This article, 5 Twitter clients for Linux , was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9248146/5_Twitter_clients_for_Linux?taxonomyId=236&pageNumber=3

Ubuntu AIO DVD Has All Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Flavors on One Disk

Ubuntu AIO DVD (all-in-one), a collection of the most important Ubuntu 14.04 LTS flavors made available on April 17, 2014, is now ready for download.

Canonical released its latest Ubuntu 14.04 LTS distribution back in April, and along with it all the other famous flavors were also offered. There is a single problem with this launch, namely that the distros come as separate operating systems and you will have to download five ISOs, including the original, if you want to have all of them.

The Ubuntu AIO DVD was put together by Milan Rajčić and helps users have all the major Ubuntu spins on a single DVD: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu GNOME 14.04, Xubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Lubuntu 14.04 LTS.

There are some caveats to this collection. For example, not all the official flavors that are based on Ubuntu have been integrated, which means that Ubuntu Server, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and Ubuntu Studio are not present. Also, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu GNOME feature only the 64-bit version, and Xubuntu and Lubuntu are only present in the 32-bit release.

As you can imagine, this is a very large compilation and it holds the official images that you can also download from the Canonical servers. The difference is that users have a single image that holds them all.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) was deemed a success by its developers and the adoption rate for the new system has been high. Given the fact that Ubuntu 13.04 has just reached end of life and Ubuntu 13.10 only has a couple more months to live, it's likely that more users will flock to the new Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

If you are not familiar with the official Ubuntu flavors, here is a rundown: Ubuntu is the base operating system developed by Canonical and comes with the Unity desktop environment, a piece of software made by the same developers.

Kubuntu is built by the community and is based on KDE SC, another type of desktop environment. In the case of Kubuntu 14.04 LTS the latest KDE available is 4.12.3.

Ubuntu GNOME is a newer member of the Ubuntu family, developed by the user base as well. As the name implies, this is a distro built with GNOME, in this case 3.10.

Xubuntu is also developed by the community and comes with the Xfce desktop environment, which is a lighter solution for people who want a more conservative desktop, although it can be greatly customized.

Lubuntu is probably the lightest official flavor of Ubuntu and it's based on LXDE. It's been around for quite some time, and it is recommended for older systems.

You can download the Ubuntu AIO DVD right now from Softpedia.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-AIO-DVD-Has-All-Ubuntu-14-04-LTS-Flavors-on-One-Disk-441202.shtml

In the cloud, Linux will win the OS war

 

I recently decided to upgrade Windows XP to Linux for two reasons. First, after trying to revive an old laptop for simple Web browsing, Windows XP required massive updates, which in turn caused my Wi-Fi connection to stop working. Second, after two hours of troubleshooting Windows XP, I bailed on the effort and decided to see how easy it would be to blow away XP and replace it with a Linux OS, since my only real goal was to have a “single-use” machine for Web browsing or web searches.

I had undertaken the same experiment five years ago with mixed results due to a complex Linux install process that required exact information on a previous laptop’s make, model and hard drive type, which was followed up by a manual partitioning process and painful install.
Five years ago, installing Linux on an old laptop was painful. This time, I installed Fedora on an old Hewlett Packard laptop with no hiccups, no extra information and no manual partitioning. Linux, you’ve come a long way, baby! After the install, using the operating system has been fast and intuitive with the Gnome Desktop performing just as well as Windows or MacOS.

A recent article in Fortune magazine entitled “The Dawn of the Chrome Age” highlights the success of the Linux-based OS in the low-cost laptop market. According to the article, “Over the holidays in 2013, two Chromebook models were the No. 1 and No.3 bestselling laptops on Amazon.com, and they’re being adopted in schools and business around the world.” Simply put, Chrome OS represents Web apps on top of Linux, and given that the Web has become the leading application development platform – this is significant.

There are other marquee examples of Linux’s ascendency that are just as important. Amazon’s Kindle is a set of Java applications on top of Linux. Android is also a Java VM on top of Linux. Finally, Valve is bringing video games, a long-time bastion of the Windows platform, to Linux with SteamOS.

But most important, in relation to the future of enterprise computing, Linux platforms dominate for cloud computing and big data applications. Why? For one thing, renting compute servers running Linux is significantly cheaper than the Windows-based alternatives. For example, on Rackspace.com a Windows 2012 Server image with 4GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive is $0.32 an hour, whereas the equivalent Linux platform is $0.24 an hour. According the Amazon Web Services monthly calculator, the same m1.medium instance is $0.15 for Windows and $0.09 for Linux (these are the prices after Amazon just announced its 42nd price cut).
  
Given that the cloud is all about scalability and that running hundreds or thousands of nodes is not uncommon, those pennies add up fast!

So, just as the Web has won the platform war for applications, Linux will win for operating systems. For applications, you cannot beat the zero-install and zero-upgrade advantages of the Web. And for operating systems, you cannot beat Linux for high reliability at a low cost.
As pundits have long predicted, given a good Web browser, it does not matter what desktop operating system you run beneath it. Now, we see the corollary to that position: Given a modern Web architecture on the server side, it does not matter what operating system you run to host it. And it just so happens that Linux can reliably and cheaply handle both jobs! In the cloud, that translates to significant cost savings.

Michael C. Daconta (mdaconta@incadencecorp.com or @mdaconta) is the Vice President of Advanced Technology at InCadence Strategic Solutions and the former Metadata Program Manager for the Homeland Security Department. His new book is entitled, The Great Cloud Migration: Your Roadmap to Cloud Computing, Big Data and Linked Data.

Posted by Michael C. Daconta on May 07, 2014 at 9:27 AM

Source: http://gcn.com/blogs/reality-check/2014/05/linux-wins-os-war.aspx

4 Tricks to Speed Up Ubuntu

Published on Feb 1, 2013

This week I'm showing you some tried and true ways to get the most performance out of your Ubuntu box. Add me: ||http://bit.ly/nixgoogleplus Code used in Video (in order of appearance)

* Show Hidden Startup Apps:
sudo sed -i "s/NoDisplay=true/NoDisplay=false/g­" /etc/xdg/autostart/*.desktop

* Install Preload from Software Center

* Change Swappiness Value
1. Run terminal
2. Enter following line to see current swappiness value
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
(default value in Ubuntu for swappiness is 60)
3. Open file /etc/sysctl.conf in a text editor, I did
gedit /etc/sysctl.conf
4. nter the following parameter
# Decrease swappiness value
vm.swappiness=10
5. Save the file and restart the computer

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwBoHZuauL8

YaRock 0.9.66 Music Player Released With Internet Radio Stream Search, More

YaRock, a Qt4 music player, was updated recently with Internet radio stream search capability along with some other interesting improvements.

YaRock lets you browse your local music collection based on cover art but obviously, it also lets you easily search and filter your music collection, providing various views such as artists, albums, tracks, genre, years, etc. and it includes features such as: music collection database (SQLite 3), playlists support, can play radio streams, Mp3Gain tag support for volume normalization, Last.fm scrobbler, command line and Mpris interfaces, smart playlists, favourites support, automatically downloads cover art and more.

The latest YaRock 0.9.66 includes the following changes:

• added contextual playing information for stream;
• improved contextual playing information;
• added musicbrainz support;
• rewritten echonest provider;
• added similar artist images fetching;
• added Dirbble radio service;
• added stream search capability for radio services (tunin, shoutcast, dirbble);
• removed Icecast directory (no convenient api to sort or search);
• improved contextual menu for artist/album/track;
• added option to restore (or not to restore) play queue at startup;
• added option to chose/sort lyrics provider for contextual lyrics;
• improved navigation between artist/album/track;
• various bug fixes.

Here are a few more YaRock screenshots:

Install YaRock in Ubuntu

Ubuntu / Linux Mint users can install YaRock by using an unofficial PPA. Add the PPA and install it by using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:samrog131/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install yarock

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the YaRock deb from HERE and install it manually.

Arch Linux users can install YaRock via AUR.

For other Linux distributions, see the YaRock Qt Apps page.

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/04/qt4-music-player-yarock-0966-released.html