Article by George Norman

On 07 Sep 2010

For a long time, Windows users have had the pleasure of using popular BitTorrent client uTorrent on their PCs, while Linux users were left out in the cold. But they didn’t take it lying down – they kept asking the uTorrent development team to start working on a Linux version of uTorrent. This summer the development team finally gave in and announced they will come up with uTorrent for Linux.

“While the BitTorrent Python code has always been available for Linux users and uTorrent runs very well for many with Wine, a resounding number of BitTorrent fans have asked for a native µTorrent for Linux. When we started our Idea Bank a few months ago, a Linux version was immediately the most requested feature, and has stayed #1 ever since,” commented BitTorrent’s Brett Nishi (BitTorrent acquired uTorrent back in 2006).


The fruits of the team’s efforts are now starting to show – uTorrent Server for Linux has been released. This is the first of the two new products uTorrent aims to release for Linux users. The second is the uTorrent for Linux client, which is similar to the Windows version (it has the GUI and everything).

Now before you get all excited, there are a few things you need to know. uTorrent Server for Linux is still in its early development stages; the version that was rolled out last week is an Alpha (3.0 build 21701). The second thing you need to know is that uTorrent Server for Linux doesn’t have the features and the complexity of the native GUI. On the upside, it is lightweight, fast and powerful.

“The server is a daemonizable 32-bit binary of the µTorrent core, built for x86 compatible Linux. It can be managed programmatically via an HTTP API or interactively by using the (included) customized version of the popular uTorrent Web user interface. µTorrent Server is a native Linux build from the same codebase as our very latest clients, featuring µTP support and all of the protocol improvements and extensions µTorrent users expect,” explained Nishi.

If you know your way around Linux and would like to give uTorrent Server for Linux a shot, you can download it here.

The full-featured uTorrent for Linux client is “coming soon”. If you want to enjoy the UI that Windows users have been enjoying for years, you will have to wait until the full-featured client is rolled out. According to BitTorrent, a testing version should be released “in a few months.”



Tags: Linux, uTorrent, uTorrent Linux Server

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