How-To: Install FrostWire 4.18.0 in Debian Lenny

FrostWire is an open-source, free Java-based peer-to-peer client with support for the BitTorrent protocol, skins and iTunes. The latest release, 4.18.0, contains many improvements, bug fixes and several changes. See the official announcement here.

FrostWire 4.18.0 running in Debian Lenny

Debian Lenny doesn't come with FrostWire included in its repositories, but installing it is very easy if you follow the steps below.

1. Download the DEB package
First, grab the DEB package from the official website and save it to a location on your hard disk. It is the same package for both Debian and Ubuntu.

2. Enable non-free repositories
If those are not enabled yet, use your favourite text editor to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file as root:

su
nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Then make sure you have a line which says:

deb ftp://ftp.ro.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

Or add it if it's not already there. Make sure to save the sources.list file (Ctrl+O followed by Ctrl+X to exit Nano).

3. Install the Java Runtime Environment
As root, install the sun-java6-jre package:

su
apt-get install sun-java6-jre

4. Install the FrostWire DEB package
Make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the frostwire-4.18.0.i586.deb package and type as root:

dpkg -i frostwire-4.18.0.i586.deb

FrostWire should be now installed, and there is only one more step left.

5. Select the Java binary
This step is about making the /etc/alternatives/java symbolic link to point to the actual Java binary (/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java) instead of the default OpenJDK, so run as root the following:

update-alternatives --config java

Something like the following should appear:

# update-alternatives --config java

There are 3 alternatives which provide `java'.

Selection    Alternative
-----------------------------------------------
     1    /usr/bin/gij-4.3
*+        2    /usr/lib/jvm/java-gcj/jre/bin/java
         3    /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java

Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number: 3
Using '/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java' to provide 'java'.

What you need to do is make sure to select the third option, /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java, and then press Enter.

This should be all. To run FrostWire, either type frostwire in a terminal window or type Alt+F2 and write frostwire in the run box that appears.

Updated: July 17, 2009