New user, wondering about huge install size, CLI-only version

Hi, I’m new to Tribler. I was just about to install it on my Ubuntu 20.04 remote server but was surprised to see that Tribler needs ~200 MB download worth of packages and that the install will take up ~550 MB additional disk space, with packages like Qt, VLC and gstreamer included. That’s a huge total size with stuff, like windowing and media playback, that I definitely don’t need on a small remote server.

Is it possible to run Tribler in a way similar to rtorrent/rutorrent or transmission-daemon, and in a smaller package without all the extra fluff? I saw some mentions of ‘headless Tribler’ and ‘Tribler cli’, but as I’m just familiarizing myself with Tribler, I could use some pointers in the right direction.

Edit: found this topic (Headless + WebUI) from Nov 2019 stating that GUI-less operation is not yet possible. Is the current situation the same, a half year+ later?

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It is possible to run Tribler headless on Linux from command line. You need to install from source though. Also, we do not support remotely connecting to the Core from the GUI at the moment. This is planned for the upcoming 7.6 release that is planned for this November. But it is still possible to use the “watch folder” feature to add torrents to the headless Core.

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FYI There is a simple bash command line interface for controlling Tribler here:

But it still needs Tribler core to connect to.