Nov

Torrent Clients for Linux

Rai

Linux

azureus, bittorrent, client, deluge, download, ktorrent, Linux, qbittorrent, torrent, transmission, utorrent

I am a huge fan of torrent downloading. It makes downloading files so much easier and faster. For one, I would rather download Linux ISO’s by torrent than using the traditional HTTP and FTP transfers. Torrent downloading is faster and more reliable, and of course you can resume the download anytime without losing the integrity of the file. This is handy for those whose Internet connection just cannot stay connected for more than an hour, which is quite normal in my area.

There are quite a few torrent clients available for Linux which are free (as beer) and free (as freedom). To name a few, these are the clients that I have found so far:

1. Azureus or Vuze

Azureus, now called Vuze, is a free bittorrent client, which is Java-based packed with so many features that caters both new and advanced users. This is one of the best clients around, but I find this a bit heavy on resources, maybe because it is Java-based. It has nice interface and you can perform your torrent search inside the client. Vuze HD Network is also included in the client so you can have the latest movie previews and reviews in your torrent client.

The download page is here and you can read the installation howto’s in Azureus Wiki.

2. Deluge

Deluge is another popular and free torrent client for Linux with a front-end powered by PyGTK. It is a lightweight client since it uses Python, and it claims to be unobtrusive and will not hog all the resources of your machine. It is also packed with features for both novice and advanced users.

The download page for Deluge is here.

3. BitTorrent (the client)

BitTorrent is the first client I have used way back 8 years ago, although I used the one for Windows. It is very simple, no-BS torrent client which is great for no-fuss users. In Linux, BitTorrent is a CLI client, which is very simple to use and available in package repositories.

The client for Linux machines can be found here.

4. KTorrent

Written in C++. KTorrent is another torrent client that works great in Linux because it is, well, built for Linux and KDE. I find KTorrent to be super lightweight and very easy to use since I use it in my Fedora machine. The package is also available in repositories and as usual, free and open source, so installing is not so hard to do.

It can be downloaded here or install it using your package manager (yum or apt-get).

5. Transmission

Transmission is a torrent client built with Ubuntu distribution, so it must be a really good client. It claims to be simple, fast and lightweight, a must-haves for Linux packages. It is written in C and available for Mac machines as well. Although I have not tried Transmission, some users find it a very good program to use.

The package is available in repositories of Ubuntu, but if you want to download the package, it can be found here.

6. qBitTorrent

If you are into lightweight and fast client for downloading torrents, you can try qBitTorrent. It is built using C++ and Qt4 and is available on Ubuntu’s package repositories. I have not tried this one either so I appreciate any feedbacks from users who are currently using qBitTorrent.

The download page is here, and it also contains instructions how to download using apt-get.

If you are wondering what clients I personally use, I have uTorrent in my Windows XP machine and kTorrent in my Fedora machine. I appreciate any feedbacks that you have about the clients I have listed and you can also share here what client you are using.

5 Comments to “Torrent Clients for Linux”

Mojo November 18, 2008 at 12:57 pm
I love deluge, esp. now that they put the engine in a daemon and the GUI can run spearately… I can put it on the server and use the webUI, or i can attach my desktop client to the server engine… sahweeet! I seed several hundred torrents with it! Seedbox anyone???

kudos to all the devs
zenwalker November 19, 2008 at 1:40 pm
The Transmission torrent client was originally developed for Mac OS X platform by the developer of the popular Mac DVD ripping application, HandBrake (http://handbrake.fr/).

Transmission was only adapted official Ubuntu torrent client starting in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) release replacing the Gnome BitTorrent client.

Except for the BitTorrent (the client), most of the listed torrent client above are for GUI/X Windows. rTorrent is a good CLI torrent client (http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/).
Matt April 26, 2009 at 8:07 am
I have tried them all but I still prefer to use utorrent with wine although rtorrent is 2nd best also looks good with the wtorrent gui.

Seedbox Hosting
John December 20, 2009 at 2:24 am
Out of the six clients listed here for comparison, I have Deluge, Transmission, Qbittorrent, and Ktorrent , and use them all regularly. The author here says he has not tried qbit or transmission. I offer an observations that I feel critcal for choosing. Transmission is very very lightweight, so much so that it offers no other features that make searching easy. It is not bad though and can be configured easily enough as I have done to download to a centralized folder as I have done for deluge ktorrent and transmission combined. I download files to be added to my desktop temporarily and distribute them equally from that location. However this leads to my favorites qbit and ktorrent. Qbit is a wonderful client that searches well and adds well, downloads well. It can be updated by adding a ppa key to your software choices, and the proprietors will regularly update any kinks or bug fixes almost every other day. It is by far the most convienient torrent clients to be had. That being said, the comparison of qbit and ktorrent are quite similar. Ktorrent is in the repositories and is satisfied in all the ubuntu distributions fully out of the box. Further, you find that when downloading the exact torrents , first in qbit and then in ktorrent afterward, qbit is easy on resources but heavy on bandwidth, and you will have trouble rendering separate pages in another open window. In short, it will slow down your network, whereas ktorrent is hardly noticable at all. Try it yourself and see, or trust me and add ktorrent to your regular app list along with whatever choices you enjoy, and try ktorrent on the side and enjoy the best of what it has to offer, an all-inclusive client that does everything within the client itself. My best regards to all.
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