How to launch Tor from the command line

14.04 command-line gnome-terminal browser tor-browser

15,794

As @bodhi.zazen said in the comments, the tor command is working fine; it's just that Tor is already running. If you read the output from the tor command, you'll see that this is indeed the case.

This is similar to how you can't have to instances of Audacity running at the same time.

If the tor command were really not working, you'd get this output:

user@ubuntu:~$ tor
The program 'tor' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install tor

15,794

cheesits456

About Me NodeJS developer for hire (11 years experience) - contact if interested [email protected] https://cheesits456.dev Timeline I started in Grade 4 with HTML and CSS, making simple static web pages and expanding my knowledge over time. Once I hit middle school, I started to learn how to use JavaScript to create dynamic web apps. In high school I found NodeJS, and started using it to create some basic bots for various chat platforms. Vision My goal with coding is to help others. I enjoy being able to create something that other people can use to make their lives easier. I take criticism well, and use suggestions to improve the product. The wants and/or needs of the userbase are always my highest priority. Skills Over the last few years, my knowledge and experience with NodeJS have expanded tremendously. I am currently fluent in using JavaScript and JSON within the Node environment, as well as all the features of ES8. I also have a solid understanding of HTML and CSS, and am able to work with web apps, web pages, and other browser-based environments. Previous Projects My past projects are available on my GitHub profile at https://github.com/cheesits456, and the best of them are showcased on my portfolio site at https://cheesits456.dev.

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

cheesits456 over 1 year

I downloaded the Tor Browser DEB file from the official website and installed it - it works fine when I search for it in the dash and click on the icon, but I use the terminal a lot and would like to know how to launch it from the terminal. I've tried tor-browser and numerous variations of that with no success. I can't find anything useful online. I want to launch tor-browser from the terminal. It is already downloaded and installed. I do not want tor.
- cheesits456 over 7 years
  
  Okay I'll edit the question to clear up confusion - I didn't know that tor and tor-browser were different
cheesits456 over 7 years

question has been edited, please edit answer :)
You'reAGitForNotUsingGit over 7 years

@ChristianF97 - Please run this command for me and post the output: ls /usr/share/applications | grep tor
cheesits456 over 7 years

Not going to list all my applications for security reasons, but one of the items in the list is tor-browser-en.desktop
cheesits456 over 7 years

that's the only tor-related item
You'reAGitForNotUsingGit over 7 years

@ChristianF97 - Okay, please run this command then: cat /usr/share/applications/tor-browser-en.desktop | grep Exec (The part after grep is CaSe SeNsItIvE)
cheesits456 over 7 years

Thank you so much! That put a file at /usr/bin/tor-browser-en.sh and I marked it as executable with chmod then I put a file at /usr/local/bin/tor-browser and wrote a bash script telling it to execute tor-browser-en.sh, just so the command is a bit cleaner. Perhaps make this into a proper answer?