Where can I find the Transmission executable

Question

I'm trying to download a torrent, and Transmission bittorrent isn't showing up on the list of programs to run the file with, and I don't know where to locate it.

Solution 1

Usually, the binaries of the programs that you download are located in /usr/bin, along with some other directories that could hold these binaries. You can tackle this through several ways.

Short Answer:

Transmission is located in /usr/bin/transmission-gtk.

Long Answer:

I'm no expert in this, but here's how I would go about locating where transmission is:

1. First, you need to know what exactly is the name of the application, the name of the binary, because it might not be a straight-forward transmission. So, you could simply do ls -l /usr/bin | grep transmission. This will output all the files that have transmission in them. When I execute that command, I get this:

   alaa@aa-lu:~$ ls /usr/bin | grep transmission
   transmission-cli
   transmission-create
   transmission-edit
   transmission-gtk
   transmission-remote
   transmission-show
   

   gtk usually denotes that this is a "graphical" program, so there you have it, Transmission is located in /usr/bin and it called transmission-gtk. So, browse to that file when you're opening your torrent file, and it should work.

2. If you don't get any output from the above ls command, then transmission might not be installed in the first place. You can check if it's installed by using dpkg:

   alaa@aa-lu:~$ dpkg -l | grep transmission
   ii  transmission-cli                          2.77-0ubuntu1                          i386         lightweight BitTorrent client (command line programs)
   ii  transmission-common                       2.77-0ubuntu1                          all          lightweight BitTorrent client (common files)
   ii  transmission-gtk                          2.77-0ubuntu1                          i386         lightweight BitTorrent client (GTK interface)
   

   This tells me that transmission-gtk is infact installed.

3. If you didn't find it in /usr/bin, you can use the command whereis transmission-gtk

   alaa@aa-lu:~$ whereis transmission-gtk
   transmission-gtk: /usr/bin/transmission-gtk /usr/bin/X11/transmission-gtk /usr/share/man/man1/transmission-gtk.1.gz
   

   Ignore the other two locations.

Solution 2

Should be /usr/bin/transmission-gtk for Ubuntu.

PS: In case you have a different version, let us know.

Solution 3

which my-random-command in this case substitute transmission-gtk for my-random-command. Listing and grepping is bad for people that might have user based installs of things that are in their PATH, but not in the /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin you would expect...say for example ~/bin.

Comments

[Esso]

possible duplicate of Where is the default folder for Apps? This can also help: askubuntu.com/questions/122930/…

[RobotHumans]

I voted to close as duplicate, but I think my answer might fit on the other question. If it gets closed, please merge my answer into the other question. Thanks.

[Esso]

You can also just run whereis <application name>

[Alaa Ali]

@Esso, yup, was about to add it. I also want to add dkpg -L, or that he can look in /usr/share/applications, but I think it would be going too far =), and turns out it's a duplicate.

[mikewhatever]

Good answer, but I don't think that the whereis addition is particularly useful. The thing is, in this particular case, you actually need to know that it's transmission-gtk, and not transmision, transmission-bt, transmission-qt, or transmission-something-else. Actually running whereis <application name> for transmission, returns something irrelevant to the executable.

[Alaa Ali]

Yes, that's why in step 1, I mentioned that "you need to know what exactly is the name of the application" =). The steps were meant to be followed in order. (1) Find the name of the application, then (2) search in /usr/bin, and if not present, (3) search for the binary using whereis, and if not present, (4) do a dpkg -L transmission-gtk or look for what's being executed in the /usr/share/application entry.