Eddie, the AirVPN visual interface, is based on Mono and sometimes feels unresponsive. Eddie is subject to random crashes, although they do not happen very often:
Eddie – OpenVPN GUI crashing on Linux
Even if the AirVPN GUI crashes, active OpenVPN connections will not be interrupted.
“No latency” used to be a good thing
Another common problem with Eddie is the disappearance of the “latency” values from the servers list – for no apparent reason. Active OpenVPN connections will stay alive, but connecting to a different VPN server without latency information makes no sense.
Server latency disappearing in Eddie / OpenVPN (Linux Mint)
After disconnecting and restarting Eddie, the “latency” column will reappear – but restarting Eddie will interrupt the current connection.
AirVPN on Linux pros & cons
AirVPN pros
Most complete graphical user interface on Linux (Eddie)
Whitelisting and blacklisting of countries and servers
Eddie and Hummingbird are open source software released under GPLv3
AirVPN cons
Sluggish and crash-prone GUI
Outdated UI design, no HiDPI support
No WireGuard support
AirVPN has a many options that no other VPN offers on Linux, for example whitelisting / blacklisting entire countries or specific servers, a “Network Lock” (kill switch) based on firewall rules, Tor integration and a home-brew OpenVPN version 3.
AirVPN’s visual interface for Linux (Eddie) offers more options than any other VPN GUI on this platform. Despite being a bit unstable and antiquated, Eddie is probably one of the best options for Linux users in 2021.
In this post we’ll install Eddie, the graphical user interface (GUI) developed by AirVPN. Eddie can be used with any VPN service supporting the OpenVPN protocol, but Eddie is tailored for AirVPN.
1. Avoid the .deb AirVPN package on Ubuntu / Linux Mint
Installing AirVPN via the official .deb package can cause the following error to happen:
Screenshot
Text
Selecting previously unselected package eddie-ui.
(Reading database ... 232467 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack eddie-ui_2.18.9_linux_x64_debian.deb ...
Unpacking eddie-ui (2.18.9) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of eddie-ui:
eddie-ui depends on mono-runtime; however:
Package mono-runtime is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on mono-utils; however:
Package mono-utils is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on libmono-system-core4.0-cil; however:
Package libmono-system-core4.0-cil is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on libmono-system-windows-forms4.0-cil; however:
Package libmono-system-windows-forms4.0-cil is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on stunnel4; however:
Package stunnel4 is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on curl; however:
Package curl is not installed.
eddie-ui depends on libsecret-tools; however:
Package libsecret-tools is not installed.
dpkg: error processing package eddie-ui (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.3-2) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu4) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
eddie-ui
I could reproduce these errors on Ubuntu 20.10 as well as Linux Mint 19.x and 20 “Ulyana”. Trying to launch the AirVPN GUI produces the following error:
Screenshot
Text
eddie-ui
/usr/bin/eddie-ui: line 2: mono: command not found
Unfortunately, solving the problem is not so easy, as some mentioned dependencies won’t install trouble-free. Installing AirVPN via the PPA repository is much simpler, so that’s what the next paragraph is about.
2. Install AirVPN on Linux using the official repository
Here we will use the commands provided on the official AirVPN Linux download page, NOT the .deb packages. In a terminal, enter the following commands:
On Ubuntu, you can safely ignore the following warning: Warning: apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d instead (see apt-key(8)). as this instruction seem to be deprecated.
The AirVPN GUI is called Eddie and relies on Mono, which may cause a lot of dependencies being installed:
Ubuntu
Linux Mint
Text
Suggested packages:
libmono-i18n4.0-all libgnomeui-0 libgamin0 logcheck-database
Recommended packages:
libgluezilla
The following NEW packages will be installed:
binfmt-support ca-certificates-mono cli-common curl eddie-ui libgdiplus libmono-accessibility4.0-cil libmono-btls-interface4.0-cil libmono-corlib4.5-cil libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil libmono-i18n4.0-cil libmono-posix4.0-cil libmono-security4.0-cil libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil libmono-system-core4.0-cil libmono-system-data4.0-cil libmono-system-drawing4.0-cil libmono-system-enterpriseservices4.0-cil libmono-system-numerics4.0-cil libmono-system-runtime-serialization-formatters-soap4.0-cil libmono-system-security4.0-cil libmono-system-transactions4.0-cil libmono-system-windows-forms4.0-cil libmono-system-xml4.0-cil libmono-system4.0-cil libmono-webbrowser4.0-cil libmonoboehm-2.0-1 libsecret-tools mono-4.0-gac mono-gac mono-runtime mono-runtime-common mono-runtime-sgen mono-utils stunnel4
0 upgraded, 35 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 19,4 MB of archives.
After this operation, 69,7 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Eddie will automatically install icons in the menus, but can also be started running eddie-ui. Now you’re ready to start using AirVPN – or any other VPN service via OpenVPN.
3. Connect to AirVPN and configure Eddie
Don’t look for AirVPN in the menus but for “Eddie” and an icon with blue clouds. You will to enter the root password upon launch.
Don’t be fooled by the interface design (which may have looked fantastic 15 years ago): you won’t find a more complete VPN GUI on Linux.
1. Avoid the “bootstrap error” and subsequent crashes
If you happen to shut down your internet connection or have configured your router to shut down in the night hours, Eddie will throw hundreds of system notification, an error message (see below) and may become totally unresponsive.
