Compiling from sources can be a pain in the neck. It also can be a joy, and in the end you get the great feeling of accomplishment when you are done. I can finally say “I did it!” without having to worry about my next problem (or so I hope not). Anyways, I will take you through the basics and setting things up, so bear with me if you do not understand anything. By anything I mean, anything at all. If you get stuck on a step, keep on reading. If you are still stumbled, do not hesitate to post a comment with your misunderstanding!
What?
rTorrent, a terminal based bit-torrent client for Linux. It can do anything, it has the optimization to run in the background with (basically) no notice at all. Lost? This is just a simple explanation of the program. The benefit of rTorrent to Azureus or some other 3rd party clients is that rTorrent is extremely efficent. Said enough? No! Without rTorrent you do not realize how much easier and enjoyable it is to download things off of the bittorrent network. I may be stumbling over words, so if you really want an explantion and dont mind reading more about the “What” of rTorrent, here are some links.
rTorrent @ wikipedia.org
libtorrent @ wikipedia.org
Prerequisites:
Unlike many applications that are self compiled, to compile rTorrent you only need a few things…
- libtorrent (The library for rTorrent… Required!)
- rTorrent (The client…)
*Note: Requirements are subject to change, so it may take a bit of tinkering to have all of the librarys installed so you can successfully compile rTorrent. For more info on installing the devel’s of librarys, please contact your distro (or leave a comment on this article).
How:
First choose a location where you would like to install all of your self compiled programs.
For my purpose, I choose /home/jmds/Self_Compiled/
- Download rTorrent and libtorrent to your dedicated directory to self compiled programs.
- Extract both files using the commands in your terminal:
- cd /home/jmds/Self_Compiled (The place where you downloaded and plan on installing lib + rTorrent)
- tar -vxf libtorrent*
- tar -vxf rtorrent*
- Now that lib and rTorrent are extracted, lets check if we need to add anything else, then compile!
- cd libtorrent* (Changes the directory to libtorrent)
- su (then type in root password)
- ./configure
- If while running ./configure it tells you something like “No package ‘pkgname’ found”, then install it using SMART, YaST, or what ever your distro provides you with. Note: INSTALL THE -DEVELS TOO!
- Continue to re-run ./configure until you successfully run it with no errors.
- make (This compiles the source code for us.)
- make install (This command installs the compiled source to the /usr/ so we can run it and type commands in shell, and it will recognize them.)
- So we just installed libtorrent, which is needed to run rTorrent. Thats like the engine. So now lets install the actual client, rTorrent!
- cd .. (If you are still in the libtorrent folder)
- cd rtorrent* (Changes the directory to rTorrent)
- su (then type in root password)
- ./configure
- If while running ./configure it tells you something like:
checking for curl >= 7.12.0… FAILED
configure: error: curl-config was not found
Simply… install it using SMART, YaST, or what ever your distro provides you with. Note: INSTALL THE -DEVELS TOO! - Continue to re-run ./configure until you successfully run it with no errors.
- If while running ./configure it tells you something like:
- make (Once again, compiles rTorrent for us to a language the processor can understand)
- make install (Installs our compiled program to the /usr/ so we can run it from shell! How great!)
- Now that we installed libtorrent and rTorrent, and before we take off and download torrents… we will need to setup a few things. By this I mean you will have to open gedit or kedit, what ever you have… and start typing what you want rTorrent to do. No, its not this hard. Here is a little “easter egg” for settings up rTorrent.
- If you haven’t already, exit the terminal you have been using and open up a new one. DO NOT LOGIN AS ROOT!
- cp /home/jmds/Self_Compiled/rtorrent-0.7.1/doc/rtorrent.rc ~/
- Be sure to replace the first parameter with the location of your rTorrent install.
- cd ~/
- cp rtorrent.rc .rtorrent.rc (NOTICE THE PERIOD IN FRONT OF THE SECOND .rtorrent.rc!)
- gedit .rtorrent.rc (If using KDE use kedit or what ever you have)
- Edit the .rtorrent.rc file to your liking. It is quite obvious on how to manipulate and set things up the way you want.. for a kick start this is what I came up with. My .rtorrent.rc file.
- Be sure to remove the # (null) if you plan on using a section listed.
- Once done making your edits, save your file!
- So we “cheated” making an .rtorrent.rc file, this tells rTorrent where to look for files, and many more guidelines for it to follow.
- Now that rTorrent is installed, and configured… lets give it a go! What I like to do is because its so resourcefully optimized, run it in tty3 or something in that range. This way rTorrent can download and I don’t have to bother with it.
- CTRL + ALT + F3 (tty3)
- screen rtorrent
- As long as it loads, you should be ok. If it says there is no .rtorrent.rc file in your user home directory, then make one!
- CTRL + A + D
- This hides rtorrent in the background, so it will continue to run. If you wish to open rtorrent back up, type screen -r.
- CTRL + ALT + F7 (GUI)
- This brings us back to GUI, so we can let rTorrent run, unnoticed.
Using rTorrent:
rTorrent is very simple to use. Hopefully you correctly specified the location of a “Watch” directory in your .rtorrent.rc, this is where you will save all of your .torrent files. rTorrent will poll on an interval to check if their are new files in your Watch directory. If their are, rTorrent will add them to the list and start to download.
Once downloaded, your files will be saved to the location specified in your .rtorrent.rc. Be sure that you know these locations, and they are setup. Do not forget to port forward a set of ports for rTorrent so you can have optimal speed!
rTorrent, a simple and efficient bittorrent client for Linux. This is one of the very very few with a heep of explanation and shared knowledge, so worth it well.
-java
Daily lyric: “You’ve got house baby!”
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