Tor Installed on Xubuntu VM: Port/Config Problem?

Question

I'm running Xubuntu Bionic in a Virtualbox VM. I downloaded and installed Tor using the instructions here: https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en

Tor does not appear in my application menu, but it is installed. I can run tor from the command line with the following output:

$ tor
Feb 22 04:52:12.449 [notice] Tor 0.4.2.6 running on Linux with Libevent 2.1.8-stable, OpenSSL 1.1.1, Zlib 1.2.11, Liblzma 5.2.2, and Libzstd 1.3.3.
Feb 22 04:52:12.449 [notice] Tor can't help you if you use it wrong! Learn how to be safe at https://www.torproject.org/download/download#warning
Feb 22 04:52:12.449 [notice] Read configuration file "/etc/tor/torrc".
Feb 22 04:52:12.452 [notice] Opening Socks listener on 127.0.0.1:9050
Feb 22 04:52:12.452 [warn] Could not bind to 127.0.0.1:9050: Address already in use. Is Tor already running?
Feb 22 04:52:12.453 [warn] Failed to parse/validate config: Failed to bind one of the listener ports.
Feb 22 04:52:12.453 [err] Reading config failed--see warnings above.

Tor was not already running. Checking the port with netstat gives this:

$ netstat -tulpn | grep LISTEN
(Not all processes could be identified, non-owned process info
 will not be shown, you would have to be root to see it all.)
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:631           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:9050          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:70              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -                   
tcp6       0      0 ::1:631                 :::*                    LISTEN      -                   

Apparently tcp is listening on the port in question.

So, questions:

1. How can I fix this?
2. Should I install Tor in a VM using a different procedure?
3. How can I get Tor to appear in my application menu?

Answer 1

The first things to know is the different between the Tor application and Tor Browser. You installed the Tor application. It is separate and not required to install the Tor Browser.

Tor Browser is the graphical tool that you are looking for. It is a browser that is based upon Firefox.

The Tor application is a service that allows you to run a local proxy for Tor, run a bridge, run a relay, run an onion service, etc. If you're a Linux newbie, I would stay away from this for a while until you are more comfortable on the command line and editing configuration files.

Easy answer to installation Tor Browser: Download it from here, decompress it, then run the start-tor-browser.desktop file. After you run it the first time, you can put this file on your desktop or in your menu if you know how to edit XFCE menus.

I don't know if this still works since Ubuntu had some bugs previously, but you can also try:

sudo apt install torbrowser-launcher

This should install it automatically and put it into your menu but if Ubuntu hasn't fixed it, put in a comment and I will edit this answer. I personally use OpenSUSE and it works great there.