Linux: Instant Messenger

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Home - Linux - Instant messaging

Instant Messaging
XChat
Gaim .60

Instant Messaging

There are a few tools for instant messaging, gaim and lmme are the two most notible. gaim is graphical and lmme is cursors based (text).

One wierdness that doesn't appear to be documented well is getting MSN and other protocols to work straight away. Well it turns out that you need to "load" them. (gaim < 0.60, for gaim 0.60 you can skip this bit)

Start gaim.
click plugins.
click "load"
scroll on the list on the right and click on "libmsn.so"
click okay.
Repeat for other protocols you want.
Click "Close"

Then set up your account.

Click "Tools -> Accounts" menu
Click "Add"
Enter your username and password (eg blokecom@hotmail.com)
Select the MSN protocol.
Click Okay

If you want to use ICQ, you need to use the AIM/ICQ protocol, and you need the settings to be something like:

Screename: 86.....
Protocol: AIM/ICQ
auth host=login.oscar.aol.com
auth port=5190

The problem I saw with just using ICQ protocol was that people could see you and talk to you , but you couldn't talk back to them .. or that just the first time that you talked to them they could hear you, and after that it didn't work.

Finally ICQ works :-), Also there was a wierd problem where Yahoo was failing. I deleted the account and added it again and it worked. Looks like possibly the password was corrupted, as it behaved like the password was wrong (but I never changed it).

So now I'm happy, and I have Yahoo/ICQ/MSN all working hapily together.

XChat

Play a sound when you name is mentioned etc..

AutoResponseV0.3.tar.gz - local copy

But move into ~/.xchat, rather than ~/.xchat/scripts so that it will auto load.

I had a brief problem with my sound card (no idea why), but it was failing, and so xchat, gaim and other programs that produced sound all caused the CPU to be pegged from the programs that they ran to play sound. My quick solution was to

chmod 0 /usr/bin/sox and /usr/bin/esd

Then my sound card magically started working again, so I put it back:

chmod 755 /usr/bin/sox and /usr/bin/esd

Gaim .60

I installed in /usr/local using:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
su 
make install

Because I have gtk/glib 2.0 in /usr/local/*, I needed the above variables set. Only one small problem when I ran it, seems that it asked me to authenticate one of my buddies that I already thought I had. But I could be mistaken.

It looks much nicer, but as for the functionality, I'll tell ya later after I get used to it. Certainly I start to notice that < .60 versions really sucked as far as CPU usage. Commonly taking ages to refresh etc..

For linux users, you might want to change the Browser to "Mozilla" and set "Open new window by default" under "Browser" settings in the "Tools -> Preferences".

Links

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
licq - altnative icq - since I'm having trouble with gaim and icq (and receive messages but not send).

Last Change: Monday, 10-Jan-2005 07:41:20 EST

Disclaimer

The information provided within these pages is provided AS IS, and without any warranty. Following these directions may (but not limited to) crash your computer, delete all the information on your hard disk, open up security holes or cause your house to burn down. I made these pages to provide some information about the setup that I have done, but I did not proofread it for correctness, and in most cases did not test it. There are commands in these pages that would definately delete or corrupt all the data on your computer (especially the dualboot section). In fact it happened to me.... So you are on your own!

Cameron Gregory