How to Install CouchPotato on Ubuntu

CouchPotato helps you in downloading movies automatically, easily and in the best quality as soon as they are available, via Usenet and torrents. In this article, we will explain a step by step process on how to install CouchPotato on Ubuntu.

We have run the commands and procedures mentioned in this article on a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system.

Install CouchPotato

Please follow these steps in order to install CouchPotato on your Ubuntu.

Step 1: Install the prerequisites

Before installing CouchPotato on your system, you need to have certain packages running on your system.

Open the Ubuntu command line, the Terminal, either through the system application launcher search or the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut.

Then enter the following command as sudo in your Terminal:

$ sudo apt-get install python git -y

Please note that only an authorized sudo user can add, remove, and configure software on Ubuntu.

The above output indicates that I already have the latest version of Python installed on my system. If your system lacks it, the above-mentioned command will install Python on your system.

Step 2: Create a CouchPotato directory in your system’s opt folder

The next step is to create a directory where we will install CouchPotato. This directory should be created in your system’s opt folder.

Run the following command in order to create a directory named “couchpotato” in the opt folder:

$ sudo mkdir /opt/couchpotato

Step 3: Change your location to the newly created directory

Now change your current location to the newly created directory so that we can perform further operations there. You can do so through the following command:

$ cd /opt/couchpotato

Step 4: Clone a copy of Couchpotato from the github repository

Let us now get a copy of CouchPotato from the github repository through the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/RuudBurger/CouchPotatoServer.git

This might take some time after which CouchPotato will be cloned to your /opt/couchpotato/ folder.

Step 5: Configure CouchPotato to be started automatically on each boot

It might be pretty cumbersome starting CouchPotato on every boot. So let us configure it to be automatically started every time you boot your Ubuntu.

Run the following commands in order to add CouchPotato to your system startup:

$ sudo cp CouchPotatoServer/init/ubuntu /etc/init.d/couchpotato
$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/couchpotato

Step 6: Create a CouchPotato configuration file

The next step is to create a text file named couchpotato in the /etc/default location of your Ubuntu system.

You can use any of your favorite text editors to create such a file; we are using the nano editor to do so. Thus, we will run the following command to create the file at the desired location:

$ sudo nano /etc/default/couchpotato

The above command will open an empty text file. Enter the following configuration text to your file:

CP_USER=username
CP_HOME=/opt/couchpotato/CouchPotatoServer
CP_DATA=/home/username/couchpotato

You will be using your own username instead of “username” in the above text.

Tip: Instead of typing this text in your file, you can copy this text from here and then paste in your file through the following ways:

• Right-click in your nano editor and then select paste from the menu.
• Use the Ctrl+Shift+V shortcut to paste the text.

Now save the file by hitting Ctrl+X. The system will ask you if you want to save the file, enter Y in order to save the file.

Step 7: Update the boot sequence

After you have added a new file to /etc/default/, you need to run the following command in order to update the boot sequence:

$ update-rc.d couchpotato defaults

Step 8: Start CouchPotato daemon

You are now ready to run the CouchPotato daemon.

Run the following command in order to start the couchpotato service:

$ service couchpotato start

You can also stop the service any time you want by running the following command:

$ service couchpotato stop

How to use the CouchPotato web page for downloading movies?

In order to use CouchPotato, we will be using the CouchPotato web page. Enter the following URL in your web browser to open the page:

http://localhost:5050/wizard/

This is how the Couchpotato web page looks like:

Scroll down in order to make the required settings:

You can change the port that CouchPotato listens to. For people with sensitive eyes, CouchPotato also provides a dark theme; you can also change to that theme through these settings.

Then, scroll down some more to make some more settings:

Here you can specify the directory where your downloaded files will be saved. Also, please make sure that your Use For settings are configured as “usenet & torrents”. The page provides many more settings options. Scroll down to the end of the page and click the “I’m ready to start the awesomeness!” link.

 This will launch the CouchPotato login screen as follows:

Enter your username and password and click the Login button. You are now ready to search for, and download movies from CouchPotato!