In February 2013 Transmission 2.77 was released. This mini-guide demonstrates how to build this version from source under for the latest Ubuntu release: Quantal Quetzal. I will update this guide periodically for newer versions of both Transmission and Ubuntu. Support for this guide can be found on the Ubuntu Forums.

Some Preparation

Transmission is fairly easy to compile but even so some careful preparation is required. First it is best to remove the repository version:

Remove the repository version

First we need to remove the repository version, which has been split into a few different components (we will be building instead a single package that has the gtk frontend, the cli client, the remote utility and the daemon). The following is a single command:

sudo apt-get remove transmission transmission-daemon \
transmission-common transmission-gtk transmission-cli transmission-qt

Next to install some dependencies and compilers:

Dependencies and compilers

Next download some compiling tools and dependencies with the following single command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential automake autoconf checkinstall libtool \
pkg-config libcurl4-openssl-dev intltool libxml2-dev libgtk-3-dev \
libnotify-dev libglib2.0-dev libgconf2-dev libcanberra-gtk-dev libappindicator3-dev

And now to install an updated dependency external to the Ubuntu Repositories:

Compiling libevent

The newest Transmission requires an external copy of libevent so we will download and compile this, then install it locally so as not to interfere with system software, we also create the build directory. The following is a single command:

mkdir -v $HOME/transmission_build && cd $HOME/transmission_build && \
wget https://github.com/downloads/libevent/libevent/libevent-2.0.21-stable.tar.gz && \
tar xvf libevent-2.0.21-stable.tar.gz && \
cd libevent-2.0.21-stable && \
./configure --prefix=$HOME/transmission_build/libevent && \
make && make install

Next to finally deal with the Transmission source code:

Download and compile Transmission...

Next download the Transmission source code, open the tarball and compile and install it with the following single command:

cd $HOME/transmission_build && \
wget http://download.transmissionbt.com/files/transmission-2.77.tar.xz&& \
tar xvf transmission-2.77.tar.xz && cd transmission-2.77 && \
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/transmission_build/libevent/lib/pkgconfig" && \
./configure && make && \
mkdir -vp doc-pak && \
cp -v AUTHORS COPYING INSTALL NEWS README doc-pak && \
sudo checkinstall --pakdir "$HOME/transmission_build" --backup=no --deldoc=yes \
  --fstrans=no --deldesc=yes --delspec=yes --default --pkgversion "2.77" && \
make clean

And that is it! This gives you the newest version of a great BitTorrent program, perfect for downloading and sharing the latest versions of Ubuntu. Remember: Have Fun!!

CategorySoftware