“Yaaaawwwwn ! Hmmmm… What time is it ?” Bob checks up his watch. 10 a.m?!! Kaboom! A sudden jerk and peace! #ThankGodItsSunday’ he updates his status on Twitter and falls back to sleep.
Well, notice, Twitter and Tweeting has become a so very part of our life. People always like to share their stuff and not everyone love blogging to write pages of stuff. Thus came the Micro-blogging era ! Everyone out there is up on Twitter. Actors, Sportsmen, Celebrities, Geeks and who not ? Not to mention the grandpa next door:P It has become more like a medium of communication off late.
There is an app for Twitter on every single device. But, sadly, there isn’t one decent client to be found for Linux! Linux always, from the beginning, has had a ‘I-am-the-geeks’-playarea’ tag. Advent of Gnome and Unity desktops are slowly to trying to shed that image off Linux. It has shifted focus more towards computing for the masses now. We give you few options you may choose to go with to tweet, if you are in Linux.
First up is, the all famous Gwibber – an opensource micro-blogging client. It is the most popular of all. It supports not just twitter. You can connect with it, identi.ca, Facebook, Digg, Friendfeed, Qaiku among all others. It is simple, elegant and easy to setup. Gives you multiple column support for feeds and twitter lists. Interface is customizable using themes. If you’re new to twitter and tweeting, this may the best choice to get on with. There are no amusing features for the more advanced yours though – Proxy customization, Picture upload services for Twitter, less no of URL shorteners, Filters, User muting and the like.
Man next in line is the Twitux. It is much like the Old Twitter Feed, Very old-school. Suited to users who’re still stuck back in Gnome2 desktops. Has that usual timeline feature, updates, direct messaging. Personally not my best choice.
Guess you might know about Adobe Air, least must’ve heard of it. Air is a framework developed by Adobe Systems to deploy Rich Internet and Web based applications across multiple-platforms and Operating systems. If what I just said, should confuse you, take it to be “An app-design framework to create apps that can work across various platforms like Mac, Windows and Linux(earlier) and mostly used to provide Internet based applications and services to the desktop”. It brings together all the best things that Adobe has developed so far. Flash, Action Script, HTML and all under a single roof. Don’t take your hopes high just yet. Bad news is, Adobe has stopped supporting Air for Linux. Reasons ‘We’re more into developing Mobile platforms’ they say. Whatever the reason may be, Linux users are the ones hard hit.
Why are we talking about Air now ? If that is the question, that you’re thinking over, let me tell you, you’ve just missed the best Twitter client possibly for Linux – Spaz ! Best thing about it, its open source. Totally customizable. From URL shorteners, to look, themes, sounds and search. It has been written extensively in jQuery to give you the Ultimate web experience right from your desktop. My guess is, they wanted to deploy Spaz for all platforms, and at the same time, provide maximum features and the best UI. Air must’ve been their answer. Not anymore:( If you’re dying to taste it in Linux, you may install older versions of Air for Linux and try them out.
Tweetdeck was my personal favourite a little while ago. It used Air as well. But, it has now switched to native Windows and Mac app-design and doesn’t come for Linux Desktops.
Right now, Turpial is what that’s making news in Linux. Has all the best features at your disposal. Multiple columns, Extensive URL shortener support, Picture upload feature, Profile Search, Filters, proxy, muting. For those who’ve used Spaz and Tweetdeck, you may not like its interface much. It has been written in Python. Lightweight and easy to use.