So I've given up on Twhirl and am trying out gwibber. Notes to install it (based on stuff here) are: sudo apt-get install bzr python-simplejson bzr checkout https://code.launchpad.net/~segphault/gwibber/main Note that it says change into gwibber dir which did not exist for me. cd main/gwibber sudo python setup.py install Then simply run it from the menu. update If launched from a console will give the following errors when opening the preferences:

1. (gwibber:9886): libglade-WARNING **: Error loading image: Failed to open file '/usr/share/gwibber/ui/gwibber.png': No such file or directory
2. (gwibber:9886): libglade-WARNING **: could not convert string to type `GdkPixbuf' for property `logo'
3. (gwibber:9886): libglade-WARNING **: Error loading image: Image file '/usr/share/gwibber/ui/.' contains no data

Also it will not show messages the first time. Quitting and restarting seems to fix that. To fix the errors above. For error 1 copy http://launchpadlibrarian.net/16144756/gwibber.png into the /usr/share/gwibber/ui directory. /update