How to install Popcorn Time movie player on Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus Linux - LinuxConfig.org

Popcorn Time streams movies and TV shows from torrents directly into your screen. The objective is to install Popcorn Time movie streamer on Ubuntu 16.04 Linux.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-popcorn-time-movie-player-on-ubuntu-16-04-xenial-xerus-linux

Vangelis Tzardis

I m trying to install popcorn time in raspberry pi 2, running Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I see all the directories are made… but when i try to launch popcorn time through Applications->Other->Popcorn Time nothing happens. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

Shamim Ahmed Laskar

Thanks a lot. It worked on my 2nd attempt. Cheers!

Mentor Gashi

makes you feel like you know shit xD

Sergio de Alba Sánchez

how do i do the part of Vim, i just got my terminal full of this ~

Homie -> Sergio de Alba Sánchez

Press “i” to go to editing mode and copy-paste this text:

[Desktop Entry]
Version = 1.0
Type = Application
Terminal = false
Name = Popcorn Time
Exec = /usr/bin/popcorn-time
Icon = /opt/popcorn-time/popcorntime.png
Categories = Application;

Then,

  1. Press “Esc”
  2. Press “:” (colon)
  3. Press “wq” and hit “Enter”

Enjoy, Vim!

Milton Schwengle -> Sergio de Alba Sánchez

instead of using vi in the command, replace it with nano

Ken

Excellent, if you plan to download the movies as well as just watch them, and you want to save them to say burn to a DVD to play in someone elses location by creating with Devede. Do this. Open Up Popcorntime, click on the Options at the top right the Gear Icon. Click on the top Advanced Settings. Scroll down to Cache directory, uncheck the delete torrent after exit. (It normally deletes all the movies and shows after you watch them). Then for ease of access, you can click in the box where it stores the torrents, and select another folder, such as on mine I chose to save them in home Videos/Popcorntime. Then you can use Devede or whatever your favorite DVD creation software in Linux, and create DVD easily with that. If quality is not an issue you can even stack up to maybe 4 movies on a DVD. I choose 1080p quality. Then you can either manually delete the movies after or you can retick the checkbox to delete the files after you close the program.

Ken

It Worked. I just wish they would have just made a .deb distribution of it, for those. But I will have to download this page and print out the instructions. I subbed leafpad for vi since I can use that, but you have to launch it from terminal and not just edit the file out, manually because you cannot save to the usr folder without sudo or root permissions.
But it works beautiful, and so I can just launch it and configure it and be done.

Daniel Guerrero

Works like a charm
Thank you

Stavros Michalovits

how can I uninstall?

Pulkit Kumar -> Stavros Michalovits

sudo rm -rf /opt/popcorn-time
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/applications/popcorntime.desktop

Aulia Hakiem Noersedya

Thanks for the clear step by step guide!

DUCHARME

Hi Lubos, I made it easily to step where you create a desktop launcher but then I couldn’t figure how to insert the content. I tried pasting it and typing it but either way I just had an error message and the terminal went acting strangely. Do you have any clues about that ? (please excuse my poor explanations, I’m a real beginer)
Thanks for your time and help =)

Lubos Rendek -> DUCHARME

vi ( vim ) editor is an extremely powerful tool but it may be tricky for beginners. Try nano editor instead. Alternatively try some GUI editors like gedit or kate. However, make sure that you have root privileges whether it is GUI or text based editor, hence the “sudo” prefix.

Ken -> Lubos Rendek

Substitute your editor name for the vi in the line you can left arrow backspace over vi and type in the editor of your liking. I use leafpad, and then you just copy paste the tutorial into that, and works fine. Gedit or nano etc is same, when you close it after the pasting, it will save and done. You can add it to the desktop or add it to a launcher or whatever works best for your mind. Has to be done from terminal with sudo or root terminal.

Ken -> Lubos Rendek

Using MX-16 I have leafpad so I just sub leafpad for the vi in this tutorial. Linux did nor complain. I have a root terminal in MX so I can leave out all the sudo and use that, but main point is it works. I notice the actual program like windows is called Butter.

Sylvain Petit

Thank you sooooo much, i was trying to download it from external sources, i got pbs with libs etc… you’ve just made the installation so much easier , thank you :smiley:

jauad pts

when i press the icon, the icon shows on the taskbar but nothing appears on the screen, then it disappears from the taskbar, nothing then. any help? im running ubuntu 16.04 LTS
all the commands worked fine, no errors.

Ken -> jauad pts

the wget process does not like apt-get show any progress but it did download the folder and so it works. You actually do not even have to download the .xz file as that is what it is doing with wget is downloading the folder and all the files.