Linux speaks your instant messaging dialect

David M Williams
Tuesday, 30 September 2008 18:55

Opinion and Analysis

Others are surprising additions; IRC is the long-running forerunner to web-based chatrooms and allows vast multi-user conferences. MySpace and Facebook are, of course, popular web 2.0 social web sites.

In total, you’re pretty much guaranteed no matter the flavour of IM you – or your friends – use, you are covered.

This is where the clever name comes from. A pidgin language is a simplified one which develops as a way of communicating between different cultural groups so they have some sort of language in common. This especially developed for purposes of trade.

Pidgin languages aren’t the native language of any group of people. Instead, it facilitates communication between diverse groups that would otherwise have a barrier between them – which is precisely what Pidgin does with respect to IM protocols.

The second problem Pidgin solves is simple: there’s no official MSN client for Linux. Similarly, there are no official native Linux clients for some of the other protocols that Pidgin supports.

However, Pidgin removes the barrier to Linux adoption that might be faced by anyone who depends on those protocols. A heavy MSN user, for instance, is not constrained to rely on Microsoft Windows because they have a Linux alternative available to them.

Pidgin may be available on your Linux system under the Applications / Internet menu. If not, you can easily install it via System / Administration / Add/Remove Software. Search for Pidgin. You will find it listed with the description “A Gtk+ based multiprotocol instant messaging client” along with a collection of addons that provide scripting support and other abilities.

This month, I’d like to help nut out the little things – or even the big things – which get in the way of anyone having the most positive Linux experience they can. What are the issues which bug you?