TweetDeck Installation On Ubuntu 10.10 64bit

TweetDeck Download Now buttonSomething I was struggling with before, was installing TweetDeck on my Ubuntu 64bit. Normally I would go to the TweetDeck website, hit the “Download now, It’s free” button and it would start installing TweetDeck!

Clicking this button under Ubuntu 10.10 64bit didn’t work! So why doesn’t it? Saving you from some boring text, the problem goes with Adobe Air, the platform on which TweetDeck runs. When you click this button, it (don’t ask “who”, I haven’t checked) is supposed to check for Adobe Air, and if it ain’t installed, it should start the installer. This actually works fine on MS Windows (32bit and 64bit), but the 64bit Ubuntu version doesn’t. Clicking it does actually “noting”.

TweetDeck Adobe AIR UbuntuYou can solve the problem by installing Adobe Air from the adobe website, and choosing for the .bin option. So do not choose the .deb version, as it is a 32bit package. If you still feel the need for choosing it, apt will trow you an error complaining “wrong architecture”. You can get Adobe Air from this link. At step one, choose “Linux”, and at step two, choose “Adobe AIR {version} for Linux (.bin)”.

Click on “Download now”, change permissions of the AdobeAIRInstaller.bin to allow execute, run the installer and you’re good to go! Go back to http://www.tweetdeck.com/desktop and click on “Download now, it’s free”. Open the tweetdeck.air file, and have fun using TweetDeck!

Set AdobeAIRInstaller.bin Execute Permissions to install Adobe AIRClick on open to start TweetDeck installation

TweetDeck Icon Tray On Ubuntu 10.x

TweetDeck Account Settings

As regular Twitter user, I really like my TweetDeck. One of the more practical arguments in favor for TweetDeck, is that I like the fact that I can use it cross platform. TweetDeck runs smoothly on MS Windows, Apple OS X and last but not least, Linux! Not to forget, TweetDeck is actually also very handy when you like to post your message on more than Twitter alone.

Another nice TweetDeck feature is that it is capable of minimizing itself to the icon tray. So, it stays running on the background! This means less pollution on my taskbar (indeed, just moving the clutter…)! Anyhow, a problem with TweetDeck I have since I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04, is that the icon in the notification area draws itself with an ugly white/gray border. And I just don’t like that.

TweetDeck Ugly Icon

As you can see in the image above, it displays the TweetDeck Icon tray image with an ugly gray or white box arround it. I haven’t found a solution to this yet (so if you do, please let me know!). Only hint I got, was that Ambiance, the Ubuntu theme, uses SVG format for its icons, and TweetDeck uses PNG. So, just change it then? Right! TweetDeck is build on top of AdobeAir, and just replacing the images simply won’t work. Again, please let me know if you’ve got any idea!

I’ve put a forum post on TweetDeck support forum over here: http://support.tweetdeck.com/entries/259224-notification-icon-background-on-ubuntu-ambiance-theme-is-light-grey