Easily Install Adobe AIR and TweetDeck on Ubuntu Karmik

Today I tried to install TweetDeck in Ubuntu Linux. It is a desktop application for different social networks. The main feature being to stay updated on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

To know more check out their features page.
Ok, now lets start.

Note: I am using Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Kola) right now, so I don’t know if this tutorial will work with other versions too and my Web Browser is Firefox 3.5.7.

A. How to install Adobe Air in Ubuntu

STEP 1: Go to Adobe website and visit AdobeAir page for more information. You can directly download the latest AdobeAIRInstaller.bin file from this page: http://get.adobe.com/air/

STEP 2: Save the downloaded file in your Home folder.

UPDATE 30 NOV 2010: (a) If you download  the .deb version, then you can just ignore the next step 3 and double-click the deb file to install the program. (b)  Run this command in terminal below to start the installer:

sudo dpkg -i adobeair.deb

STEP 3: Open your Terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and run this command below.

chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Next command -

sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

Now follow the instructions, until you complete the installation and see this screen below.

UPDATE – If you get the following error: “An error occurred while installing Adobe AIR. Installation may not be allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator.”
Try in terminal:

sudo aptitude remove adobeair-enu

Or:

apt-get remove adobeair1.0

Or this:

apt-get update

(last one worked for me)

B. How to install TweetDeck in Ubuntu

STEP 1: Visit Tweetdeck website and you will find a download tweetdeck link as in the image below, but it didn’t work for me. I tried twice to receive only installation error.

If you are lucky you may find a Download TweetDeck link for Linux (manual installation) as suggested by many older users but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Somehow I managed to get a link for v0.32.6 from this page below:

To get the .air file CLICK this short url:
http://bit.ly/thedeck or http://tweetdeck.com/go/download/tweetdeck

Now you will get a download-able file named TweetDeck_0_32.6.air (or the latest version)

STEP 2: Save the downloaded file in your Home folder or desktop.

STEP 3: Right click and open the file with Adobe Air as below. The installation will start now.

STEP 4: By default it will load in your /opt folder but you may change it if you wish. After finishing the installation you will see a similar screen as below.

FINAL STEP: Get social!

MORE TIPS:
1. To learn more about using Tweetdeck, this is an interesting read at 1stwebdesigner.com.

2. Another Tweet deck usage tutorial at edgehopper.com