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GNOME Twitch releases a major update with notifications, offline channel searching and more

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Last updated: 22 Dec 2020 at 3:14 pm UTC

GNOME Twitch [github, Official Site] recently released a major new version of their open source desktop Twitch client and it's a beauty. The new version includes: Notifications of when people you follow go live, Language selection in the menu to filter livestreams, chat badges, viewer count for games and more. See the changelog here.

image

To grab it on Arch you need this package along with one of the players to actually view videos (listed on the page). For Ubuntu you can use this PPA. There's also a FlatPak, if that's your thing.

I much prefer it to using Twitch in a browser personally, since it's faster and I get better quality and the overall feel is much nicer than a browser window. One thing that is missing is the actual viewer count on each channel, something I would like to see. Also, the ability to see who is in the channel chatting too, a list would be nice. I actually requested these features and the developer was very receptive, as they plan to include such features in the next release.

There's other tools like "Streamlink" which will enable you to view a Twitch stream in your favourite desktop player.

Also, while you're here, be sure to follow GOL on Twitch. We have a livestream schedule to watch and you can submit your own there too.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
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15 comments Subscribe

itsraineing 4 Apr 2017
Good to see GNOME Twitch improving; it was pretty nice last time I tried it, but didn't quite have the features to replace the Streamlink GUI for me.

By the way, livestreamer's development has been dead for over a year now, [streamlink](https://streamlink.github.io/) is the actively maintained fork.
Shmerl 4 Apr 2017
Is Twitch now a game store? And do they sell Linux games? What about DRM there?
tuubi 4 Apr 2017
  • Supporter Plus
Is Twitch now a game store? And do they sell Linux games? What about DRM there?
Nope. :)

You can browse streams by game though.
Shmerl 4 Apr 2017
Is Twitch now a game store? And do they sell Linux games? What about DRM there?
Nope. :)

You can browse streams by game though.

Well, I actually just saw this: [Twitch to start selling video games this week](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/twitch-starts-selling-video-games-on-its-site-today/). So I thought this is a new open source client for their store.


Last edited by Shmerl on 4 Apr 2017 at 5:32 pm UTC
MaCroX95 4 Apr 2017
This is great news!

I've tried it out and I quite like it, it's way handier than having yet another browser tab open! It now features quite a few functions and features.
tuubi 4 Apr 2017
  • Supporter Plus
Well, I actually just saw this: [Twitch to start selling video games this week](https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/twitch-starts-selling-video-games-on-its-site-today/). So I thought this is a new open source client for their store.
Oh wow. I had no idea that was happening. I guess this isn't a big surprise, Twitch being owned by Amazon and all.
DelGro95 4 Apr 2017
oh it works also in ubuntu with unity! i didn't expect that xD btw ty for the advice it's a nice program
Liam Dawe 4 Apr 2017
  • Admin
By the way, livestreamer's development has been dead for over a year now, streamlink is the actively maintained fork.
Good catch, since one was forked from the other they are very similar, keep getting them mixed up, cheers.
tmtvl 4 Apr 2017
*sigh* I know some people like GNOME, but I just can't stand the whole "you've got two buttons that show the menus containing all the things" thing. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I just like having a good old-fashioned menu bar.
Kensworth 5 Apr 2017
*sigh* I know some people like GNOME, but I just can't stand the whole "you've got two buttons that show the menus containing all the things" thing. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I just like having a good old-fashioned menu bar.

That's the beauty of Linux, options! I personally love Gnome 3 but I can understand the preference of functionality in category menus.
ahjolinna 5 Apr 2017
I personally prefer as a KDE user the [Orion twitch client](https://github.com/alamminsalo/orion) which is made in Qt5/qml, it's also cross platform (including android version in the works):

![](http://i.imgur.com/W7NTEPE.png)


Last edited by ahjolinna on 5 Apr 2017 at 2:21 am UTC
neowiz73 5 Apr 2017
since Gnome Twitch added the emote, notifications and account login support i've started using this full time. I was using Orion from the AUR. which allowed for account login and notifications, while keeping a native looking UI.
Nezchan 5 Apr 2017
People keep raving about how good [Streamlink Twitch GUI](https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink-twitch-gui) is, but unfortunately they don't provide a .deb or .rpm package at all, and there seems to be little interest on the part of the dev to provide them. I tried installing via npm as the site suggests and it totally didn't work, so I gave it up as a bad experience.
tuubi 5 Apr 2017
  • Supporter Plus
People keep raving about how good [Streamlink Twitch GUI](https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink-twitch-gui) is, but unfortunately they don't provide a .deb or .rpm package at all, and there seems to be little interest on the part of the dev to provide them. I tried installing via npm as the site suggests and it totally didn't work, so I gave it up as a bad experience.
Just tried it this morning. Seems slick. There's no need for npm or anything, just make sure you've got streamlink (>=0.4.0), x11-utils and xdg-utils (or the equivalent packages) and then download the [latest release](https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink-twitch-gui/releases). Now you can just run start.sh from wherever you extracted the package or create a nice desktop launcher with the included script.
Micromegas 5 Apr 2017
People keep raving about how good [Streamlink Twitch GUI](https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink-twitch-gui) is, but unfortunately they don't provide a .deb or .rpm package at all, and there seems to be little interest on the part of the dev to provide them. I tried installing via npm as the site suggests and it totally didn't work, so I gave it up as a bad experience.
Just tried it this morning. Seems slick. There's no need for npm or anything, just make sure you've got streamlink (>=0.4.0), x11-utils and xdg-utils (or the equivalent packages) and then download the [latest release](https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink-twitch-gui/releases). Now you can just run start.sh from wherever you extracted the package or create a nice desktop launcher with the included script.

Thanks for this information! Installing "streamlink" is easy with "pip" and after that "streamlink-twitch-gui" indeed just works if you copy it to /opt for instance. It has also nice configuration options.
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