Tuesday, October 6, 2015

INSTALL POPCORN TIME IN UBUNTU OR DEBIAN VIA PPA REPOSITORY


As a reminder, Popcorn Time is an open source Netflix-style torrent streaming application for Linux, Windows and Mac. The application allows users to stream movies (with subtitles) and TV series, at no cost, and that may be illegal in your country so make sure you read the disclaimer before using Popcorn Time!

On the other hand, Popcorn Time can't exactly be considered illegal in most countries since the application itself doesn't include illegal content, but it can be used to download such content, like any other BitTorrent application. For instance, Ubuntu ships with Transmission, a BitTorrent client, by default. Furthermore, qBittorrent and Tribbler, two BitTorrent clients which come with a built-in Torrent search features, are available in the official Ubuntu / Debian repositories.

Important notes about the Popcorn Time PPA:
  • no Popcorn Time files are stored in the PPA. The PPA packages use an installer to automatically download and install Popcorn Time;
  • using this PPA, the Popcorn Time auto-update feature won't work (you'll receive updates through the PPA so you'll be notified just like with regular system updates - via Software Updater. Also, I tend to push updates pretty fast!);
  • besides official Popcorn Time releases, I may also push Git snapshots to the PPA if I consider that a feature or a bug fix is cool to have before the official release of a new version;
  • the package installer will display a warning and ask you to read the Popcorn Time Terms of Service before installing the application and only by agreeing to that you'll be able to install it (only the first time you install it; it won't be displayed every time you update the package);
  • this is the first Popcorn Time PPA installer release and there might be bugs;
  • the installer might fail behind proxies, firewalls, blocked ports.

Not exactly related to the PPA but it's still worth mentioning: a while back, a Debian bug was submitted, requesting Popcorn Time to be included in the Debian repositories (and thus, by sync, in Ubuntu) - the bug was closed when the initial Popcorn Time was shut down but now that Popcorn Time was brought back to life, who knows, we might see it in Debian at some point.


Install Popcorn Time in Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Debian via PPA


Note: when installing Popcorn Time from the PPA, you'll be prompted to accept that you're installing it on your own risk and that you've read the terms of service (only the first time you install it; it won't be displayed every time you update the package):




Important: Popcorn Time 0.3.6 has a bug and some movie covers do not load. You'll find a fix for this HERE.

To add the WebUpd8 Popcorn Time PPA and install the app in Ubuntu / Linux Mint (and elementary OS along with Ubuntu derivatives: Xubuntu, Kubuntu, etc.), use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/popcorntime
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install popcorn-time

To install Popcorn Time from the WebUpd8 PPA repository in Debian, use the following commands:
su -
echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/popcorntime/ubuntu trusty main" | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-popcorntime.list
echo "deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/popcorntime/ubuntu trusty main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-popcorntime.list
apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys EEA14886
apt-get update
apt-get install popcorn-time
exit

Important: if after an upgrade, Popcorn Time doesn't work properly (it doesn't start or the UI looks broken), remove its old database by running the following command:
rm -rf ~/.config/Popcorn-Time/

This is a known issue which the Popcorn Time developers can't seem to be able to fix and it can happen on both Linux and Mac. 
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