Pidgin

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Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is an instant messaging client for Linux that can connect to many different IM networks, such as Live Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, AIM, etc. One of Pidgin's key features is that you can use many networks at the same time.

Contents

Installation

# pacman -S pidgin

You may also want to install extra plugins from the purple-plugin-pack.

Spellcheck

Aspell will be installed as a dependency, but to prevent all of your text from showing up as incorrect you will need to install an aspell dictionary:

# pacman -S aspell-en

This installs the English dictionary. Use pacman -Ss aspell to list available languages.

Note: The switch spell-plugin is included in the purple-plugin-pack (see above). It allows you to switch between multiple languages.

Sound fix

If the sound does not work with the automatic settings, configure ALSA, then change the play method ('Command') to the following:

aplay %s

Another (unconfirmed) solution is toinstall following package and use 'Automatic':

gstreamer0.10-good

Browser error

If clicking a link within Pidgin creates an error message about trying to use 'sensible-browser' to open a link, try editing ~/.purple/prefs.xml. Find the line referencing 'sensible-browser' and change it to this:

<pref name='command' type='path' value='firefox'/>

This example assumes you use Firefox.

IRC

This is a small tutorial for connecting to Freenode. It should work for other IRC networks as long as you substitute the port numbers and other specific settings.

Go to Accounts -> Manage Accounts -> Add -> Fill/select the following options:

Protocol: IRC 
Username: <your username>

Now go to Buddies -> New instant message ( or hit ctrl + m) fill 'freenode.net' in the textbox and <username>@irc.freenode.net -> then click 'Ok'. Type:

/join #archlinux (channel is irrelevant)

In order to register your nick, type:

/msg nickserv register <password> <email-addres>

Follow the instructions from the registration mail. For further help type:

/msg nickserv help
/msg nickserv help <command>

This final step will add your channel to 'Buddies': go to Buddies -> Add chat -> fill the correct channel in the textbox named channel (#archlinux).

Xfire

Install one of the two pacakages from the AUR:

Stable:

pidgin-gfire

Or the development/SVN:

pidgin-gfire-svn 

Now add a new account and select xfire as protocol.

Privacy

Pidgin has some privacy rules set by default. Namely, the whole world cannot send you messages; only your contacts or people selected from a list. Adjust this, and other settings through:

Tools -> Privacy

Perl plugins

If you encounter problems loading any perl plugins you need to modify the PKGBUILD removing "--disable-perl" or use pidgin-perl.

Sametime protocol

Sametime support is not available in the default version of Arch Linux's Pidgin package. This section will demonstrate how to enable this feature via AUR and the 'Meanwhile' plugin. This section assumes that you are familiar with using the AUR and that you are performing the following commands in ~/builds directory.

First, download and extract the AUR package for Meanwhile.

$ wget http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/meanwhile/meanwhile.tar.gz && tar xfvz meanwhile.tar.gz

Then change in to the extracted directory:

$ cd meanwhile

If you are building this on a x86 machine you will probably need to add the following to the PKGBUILD

arch=('i686')

Now the package must be built:

$ makepkg -s

Install the package as root:

# pacman -U meanwhile-version-arch.pkg.tar.gz

Now download and extract Pidgin from AUR (this will use pidgin-gnome, change to preference):

$ cd ~/builds && wget http://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pidgin-gnome/pidgin-gnome.tar.gz && tar xfvz pidgin-gnome.tar.gz

Change into the extracted directory:

$ cd pidgin-gnome

In order to have 'Sametime' support you must remove the following from PKGBUILD

--disable-meanwhile 

Build the package:

$ makepkg -s

Install the package as root:

# pacman -U pidgin-gnome-2.5.8-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz

Pidgin now has the 'Sametime' protocol as an option when creating accounts.

Other packages

Arch has other Pidgin-related packages. Here are the most popular (for a thorough list, search the AUR):

  • pidgin-libnotify - Libnotify support, for theme-consistent notifications
  • pidgin-facebookchat - To use facebook chat
  • pidgin-guifications - Toaster-style popup notifications
  • microblog-purple - Libpurple plug-in supporting microblog services like Twitter

External links

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