Twitter Clients for Ubuntu Linux

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on May 3, 2008

Believe it or not but the first thing I did after installing Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on my laptop was finding a compatible Twitter client for Linux that works on Ubuntu. I could have used Twitter IM to post updates through Pidgin or Google Chat but that kills the fun of it.

I rushed to the Synaptic Package Manager hoping to find a Twitter client app right away but very unfortunately none were listed there. Then I did a little research and found some good Twitter clients for Linux that work on Ubuntu.

1. Twitux (download)

Twitux is a Twitter client for the Gnome desktop. The program features include view public, friends and mine timeline, send message, automatic login, add friend and system tray icon.

2. gTwitter (download)

gTwitter a simple GTK+ based application for Linux, designed to interact with Twitter web service. Its written using Mono/C# and some of GNOME dependant libraries. GUI is inspired by Mac client Twitterrific.

3. Spaz (download)

Spaz is a Twitter client for users who value free, open-source software, attractive design, and customizability. It is built entirely in XHTML and Javascript and can be styled using a custom CSS styling file. It is built on the Adobe AIR framework so to install it all you need to have is Adobe AIR on Ubuntu (See the end of the post for this tutorial)

4. Twhirl (download)

Twhirl is a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform. It is one of my favorite Twitter clients as it really very easy to use. Scroll down to see how to get this app working using Adobe AIR on Ubuntu.

5. TwitterFox (download)

TwitterFox is a Firefox Extension that displays updates from your friends and lets you update your status. This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets. As Ubuntu already comes preinstalled with Firefox so installing this Twitter app is as easy as a pie.

6. Twitter Deskbar (download)

Twitter Deskbar is a Twitter app that integrates with the Gnome Deskbar and lets you post status updates right from your desktop. The installation requires you to have Deskbar widget for Gnome. For detailed instructions please use the download link provided.

7. Twitter Terminal

This is basically a hack for posting to Twitter using the Linux Terminal. You will need cURL ( a client for getting files from servers) to post to Twitter through the Terminal which can be installed using the following command:
sudo apt-get install curl

With cURL installed, you can post to Twitter from the terminal window by using the following syntax:
curl -u yourusername:yourpassword -d status="Your Message Here" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml

You will receive a response containing the XML coding for your post which acts as a confirmation that your post was submitted.

8. Alert Thingy (download)

Alert Thingy is basically an Adobe AIR app for FriendFeed but also works for Twitter as well. You can get status updates from your friends and can also post live status updates yourself.

All of these apps work brilliantly on Ubuntu so you are good to go with any one of these. For the apps requiring Adobe AIR you can install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu using one of our guides.

If you know anymore Twitter clients for Ubuntu, Please share in the comments.

  • http://www.ehsan.pk Ehsan

    Nice little tools although i don’t use Linux and Hate it but these Look cool.

    • sveden

      Thanks for sharing.

    • Jordan

      How can you hate linux?

      • Yes sir

        Hey hates linux because of ignorance.

      • http://paulvoth.net Paul Voth

        Man hates that which he does not understand.

  • http://www.shankarganesh.com Shankar Ganesh

    Great post, #6 is something I need to try.

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  • http://www.techzilo.com/ Sumesh

    You know I’ll be trying the deskbar applet :)

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  • http://www.drostan.org Rolf Kleef

    Thanks for including the AIR-on-Ubuntu link, that opens up a whole new world (often closed source, but more useful). For the completeness of your list: I’m currently using phpitter, http://code.google.com/p/phpitter/ — very basic, but based on PHP and GTK and with clickable links (I think TwitUx and/or gTwitter didn’t have that)

  • http://maozzz.com maoz
  • Jason

    You missed the best of them all!! Gwibber is an open source microblogging client for GNOME that supports Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, Pownce, Identi.ca and other popular social web services. I have it on my Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 laptop and it’s terrific!
    https://launchpad.net/gwibber/

  • Spankbot

    Links aren’t clickable in gTwitter. Fail!

  • Pingback: Twitbin, A sidebar twitter addon for Firefox

  • James

    It would be helpful to have a twitter client that I could install via apt-get and that worked. I tried this with gTwitter which installed, but while it let me see the people I folllow in list view, I couldn’t access Tweet view or find any way to configure the client.

  • http://www.simplisticthoughts.com Nick

    Great list, Thanks.

  • http://www.owlcat.co.cc/ Orlsend

    I use twitkit for Firefox, Is a completely light firefox add-on that works on linux and all platforms. Open source and the biggest selection languages.

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6845

  • http://millionchimpanzees.blogspot.com/ James

    Installed TwitKit in Firefox on both my work and home computers (Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 respectively). So far no problems, but the plugin does need to mature. It’s still pretty primitive.

  • http://daz71.livejournal.com Daz71

    I highly recommend Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com). Now you can fill your entire screen with Twitter. Another Air application, requires air 1.5.

  • http://www.vieuxsteak.ch elbouillon

    You can too use Gnome-Do + twitter plugin

    http://do.davebsd.com/

  • Mohan

    Deskbar plugin is awesome!

  • Max

    DestroyTwitter:
    http://www.destroytoday.com/?p=Project&id=DestroyTwitter

    Seems to include a lot of functions, but needs adobe air too.

    • http://twitter.com/s0l1dsnak3123 s0l1dsnak3123

      Thanks for that – very nice :D

  • David, Chandler, AZ

    Adobe Air doesn’t install in 64-bit linux without some extra work. I figured I’d stick with TwitterFox until they take care of that.

  • http://derschreckliche.wordpress.com/ derschreckliche

    Nice List – thanks for that, but you forgot Choqok – it runs without AdobeAir!
    I'm writing an Article about it on my Blog (german – if there will be much requests i'll maybe translate it in english.)

    Here you can find more clients for ubuntu:
    http://www.n20.cc/twitter-clients-fuer-ubuntu/

    and if that's not enough try this:
    http://twitdom.com/tag/linux/

    Have fun and find your favorite!

  • http://derschreckliche.wordpress.com/ derschreckliche

    Nice List – thanks for that, but you forgot Choqok – it runs without AdobeAir!
    I'm writing an Article about it on my Blog (german – if there will be much requests i'll maybe translate it in english.)

    Here you can find more clients for ubuntu:
    http://www.n20.cc/twitter-clients-fuer-ubuntu/

    and if that's not enough try this:
    http://twitdom.com/tag/linux/

    Have fun and find your favorite!

  • http://www.cosp.org.pk Hisham Najam

    Well any way to use twitter on Pidgin?

    • vrybas

      There is a package named pidgin-microblog, which gives you availability to add twitter as account. You will have a chat-like window and all twitter history will be saved to your .purple/logs directory if you want to :) Pretty good, but unforunately Pidgin crashes from time to time with this plugin. Try it though

  • http://nokiaaddict.com gerrymoth

    You not tried TweetDeck http://tweetdeck.com its like Twhirl in that it needs Adobe AIR to run, but can handle multiple twitter accounts and runs great in my Ubuntu 9.04 system.

  • vrybas

    Gwibber is the best!
    http://is.gd/26RsD

  • vrybas

    There is a package named pidgin-microblog, which gives you availability to add twitter as account. You will have a chat-like window and all twitter history will be saved to your .purple/logs directory if you want to :) Pretty good, but unforunately Pidgin crashes from time to time with this plugin. Try it though

  • vrybas

    Gwibber is the best!
    http://is.gd/26RsD

  • vrybas

    Gwibber is the best!
    http://is.gd/26RsD

  • jPax

    Hi :) I'm using a twitter terminal-based client which id very easy of use, its name is twidge.
    You have to start your session with
    #twidge setup
    Then, if you wanna tweet “Hello world”, you have to run
    #twidge update “Hello world”
    If you wanna see your timeline you run
    #twidge lsrecent
    and if you wanna see only new tweets, you have to run
    #twidge lsrecent -s -u
    automatically it makes web addresses shorter, using tinyurl, so if you paste one, your tweet will have a tiny link. :)

    I'm still learning their commands :D have fun.

  • http://ivanenviroman.com ivanoats

    I use Gnome-Do's twitter plugin, works great.

  • FriskerBitey

    Is the Curl method secure for transferring your password? That is my favorite method, but don't know how curl will send the passwd

  • scherezada

    Hello. I use TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop with Adobe Air.

    I would like to know where that comic is from! I totally love it! :)

  • yoskar

    What about Gwibber which is used and loved by many? I personally use TweetDeck which works great for me…I love the fact that I can have four columns open at once.

    -Yos

  • http://twitter.com/jonny172 Jonnathan Weber

    muito bom.. vou testar alguns :D

  • freshfitteds

    dude . . . . tweet deck!!!?!?!?!?! AND Seesmic too!!!!

    Both available thanks to the Adobe Air Api

  • http://www.rabidcentipede.com/ rabidcentipede

    Thanks for number 7! It can be pretty easily turned into a bash script, which has been amazingly useful.

  • http://www.zhukoff.com/ Alex

    Thanks! Alert Thingy is ok for me!

  • http://www.zhukoff.com/ Alex

    Thanks! Alert Thingy is ok for me!

  • Klara

    Cheers! for this very usefull app-listing! :-)

  • Jordan

    How can you hate linux?

  • http://blog.bretagne-balades.org/ femme cougar

    great ! thank to that post

  • Axel Keltin

    Thank you for the post, have twhirl now onmy linux netbook and vista notebook…

  • http://sukiprattle.blogspot.com sukiminna

    every each of them look nice but i used a plugin in pidgin called mbpidgin. so that ym,msn and twitter and everything else is in one place and i dont have tu switch between apps.

    ubuntu lynx comes with social networking broadcast app called gwibber. But i don really like it since its a bit slow in updating/getting new twits

  • nan

    For whatever reason, basically none of these work for me. Twitux, gtwitter, and gwibber all kind of hang or refuse to be useful. Adobe air doesn’t work on my machine and just kind of ignores newly downloaded .air packages I might want to install.

    Perhaps its nonsense like this that make ehshan hate linux. I’m sure pretty pissed with it at the moment.

  • Jeanlucpicard1966

     don’t want to use adobe Air

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