How to Install Kibitzr on Linux Mint

Kibitzr is an open-source automation tool written in Python that helps users monitor websites and receive updates. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the process of installing Kibitzr on your Linux Mint system.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, make sure that you have the following prerequisites:

• A system running Linux Mint
• Python 3.4 or later installed
• pip package manager

If you don't have Python and pip package manager installed, open the terminal and type the following command to install them:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip -y

Installing Kibitzr

To install Kibitzr on your system, follow these steps:

1. Open the terminal window by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T or through the application menu.

2. Type the following command to install Kibitzr via pip:

   sudo pip3 install kibitzr
   

3. Wait for the installation to finish. Once it is done, you can verify the installation by typing the following command:

   kibitzr --version
   

   The command should return the current version of Kibitzr that you just installed.

Configuration

Now that you have installed Kibitzr, you need to configure it to monitor the websites of your choice. The configuration file for Kibitzr is in YAML format and can be edited using any text editor.

1. To start with the default configuration, type kibitzr init in the terminal. This command will create a sample kibitzr.yml file that you can customize.

2. Open the kibitzr.yml file in your preferred text editor and modify it to include the websites that you want to monitor. Here's an example configuration that monitors a single website:

   actions:
     -
       name: Check GitHub
       trigger:
         url: https://github.com
         interval: 3600   # check every hour
       actions:
         -
           name: Get GitHub Star Count
           css: '.js-social-count'
           extract: 'text'
   

   This configuration checks the GitHub homepage every hour and extracts the star count of the repository using a CSS selector.

3. Save the kibitzr.yml file in a directory of your choice.

Running Kibitzr

Once you have configured Kibitzr, run the following command to start monitoring the websites specified in the kibitzr.yml file:

kibitzr start /path/to/kibitzr.yml

This command starts the Kibitzr daemon in the background and monitors the websites according to the specified configuration. You can stop the daemon anytime by typing kibitzr stop in the terminal.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Kibitzr on Linux Mint and configure it to monitor websites of your choice. With Kibitzr, you can automate website monitoring tasks and get notified of any changes or updates.

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