On my post entitled "How to use BitTorrent in Linux" I've taught you the basics of downloading torrent files using Transmission, a popular BitTorrent client with GUI (Graphical User Interface). This time, I will show you how to use an ultra-lightweight text-based ncurses BitTorrent client --rTorrent.

Torrent is a great way to transfer large files very quickly. However most torrent clients are gui based and have quite some impact on system resources (e.g. Azureus). rTorrent is a lightweight client running from the terminal.

In this article I’d like to describe a text-mode Bittorrent client - rTorrent. It will be helpful to people that share a computer with other household members because it allows them to download files regardless of the logged in user.

In this article I’d like to describe a text-mode Bittorrent client - rTorrent. It will be helpful to people that share a computer with other household members because it allows them to download files regardless of the logged in user.

rTorrent is a popular command line based bittorrent client. It provides very powerful features yet it is very light on the system - contrary to other bittorrent clients like Vuze. There are a couple of webinterfaces for it but they are not truly needed. SSH access combined with the "screen" program provide you all the tools you need.

rTorrent is a popular command line based bittorrent client. It provides very powerful features yet it is very light on the system - contrary to other bittorrent clients like Vuze. There are a couple of webinterfaces for it but they are not truly need. SSH access combined with the "screen" program provide you all the tools you need.

The reason I am writing this post is because I tried many howto's which didn't work and I eventually ended up combining some to get both rtorrent and wtorrent to install and run on my Debian 5 Lenny VPN. In case you don't know: wtorrent is a WebUI for rtorrent, a command line Bittorrent client. Be aware, there are quite a few steps on doing this, so you need a lot of patience and time.

I have a constantly running server that would be a perfect on which to run torrent downloads. The only catch is that the server is headless -- it has no monitor or keyboard. To overcome this obstacle, I use rTorrent as my torrent client, and GNU Screen so that I can disconnect my terminal session and leave rTorrent running.

There are quite a few applications in linux that has the ability to download torrent from the terminal. rtorrent is perhaps the easiest to use and widely configurable out of all of them.