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callie510
April 5th, 2009, 04:14 PM
Hi y'all, I am wondering what you guys think about IM clients for Ubuntu!

On Windoz, I recently started to use Digsby and put a theme on it that made it look pretty (chat bubbles, etc). I like digsby because it organizes my contacts into two big folders by protocol & puts an icon next to each contact's name that says whether they're on Aim or Gmail.

I am very, very skeptical of Pidgin because I just hate the contact merging thing it does - and it works very hard to make things difficult for you if you don't want to merge contacts and you want to clearly see which protocol you're using to message someone. At least I remember this from a year or two ago when I tried Pidgin and then dropped it after a month of frustration. It's been a while - maybe I can make Pigdin do what I want. Anyone help?

Or other Linux/Ubuntu im clients to suggest? (If only Google Talk supported AIM, like the internet client does, and was available in Linux.... sigh)

collinp
April 5th, 2009, 04:20 PM
Pidgin probably is your best choice for a IM client on Linux. Its changed quite a bit from a year or so ago, give it another shot.

rizzeh
April 5th, 2009, 05:17 PM
Pidgin is what i use with facebook and Xfire plugins

http://www.pidgin.im/

callie510
April 5th, 2009, 05:45 PM
Yeah..... I know. Everyone is going to suggest Pidgin. Yeah, I use it, but very unhappily. I have been messing with it this morning since IM clients are on my mind thanks to me starting this post.

Besides the lack of iTunes, Pidgin and the lack of other options is my biggest problem with using Ubuntu as my main system.

Pidgin is just so ugly. I have read up about the developers' beliefs regarding skinning and it just makes me sad that I have to adjust the way my entire desktop looks to make Pidgin look better. And I don't buy any of this stuff about how "it is just supposed to look like a Gnome app" - I spent a while configuring, and everything else on my Gnome powered system looks really lovely. Pidgin still looks ugly as crap.

More specifically: It's a pet peeve of mine, having no options to display the protocol a buddy is on. Also, it's really absurd that Pidgin has no options or very, very basic ones to adjust how the buddy list or conversations look. This has nothing to do with skinning; it's just a display option that so many other IM clients (not the bloated ones, either) offer. Call me a graphics ***** (it's true) but I love being able to mess with how my conversations look! I like chat bubbles! I think they're cool looking! I'm used to them, and they look nice. Pidgin is like 1995. Pidgin is the only aim client I've ever used that doesn't let me make my conversations look pretty, or really have much control over their appearance at all, except for fonts. Seriously?

It just irritates me. I would rather chat in Gmail than use Pidgin, and I find that I do, despite how inconvenient it is to use Gmail chat within Firefox as my main chatting tool.

Sigh... I'm sure many people will think I'm dumb for posting this. It's just the kind of computer user I am. I stare at my computer for 12 hours a day - I like things to work smoothly and look pretty. Pidgin does neither of those for me. I know lots of people like it, and for good reason; it's just really not for me unless I'm totally missing some configuration options.

Sand & Mercury
April 5th, 2009, 05:54 PM
You could try Kopete as well, it supports conversation theming a la Adium and it's highly configurable too. It's a QT app so it doesn't integrate too great with GNOME, but evidently that's not a priority for you.

Yashiro
April 5th, 2009, 05:59 PM
Pidgin looks no better or worse than any other chat app. It's a box. With a list of names in it.
It looks less retarded than MSN does on Windows by default.
So I personally don't get it.

My version most definitely shows which protocol people are using, although why this really matters I have no idea.

Try kopete, or look for some UI mods for Pidgin like http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Human+Pidgin%2BGaim+Theme?content=59616

Eisenwinter
April 5th, 2009, 06:22 PM
Bitlbee. simple, fast, and virtually never crashes. (but you need an IRC client for it)

Polygon
April 5th, 2009, 06:24 PM
More specifically: It's a pet peeve of mine, having no options to display the protocol a buddy is on.

you obviously did not look very hard then.

http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6752/screenshot003g.th.png (http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6752/screenshot003g.png)


and at least on the pidgin blog, there has been talk about having CSS and other cool things for the chat windows, to make it look pretty.

But otherwise, pidgin looks like every other gtk application out there. And i agree somewhat that simplicity is good, cause applications like the official msn client, and trillian are just TERRIBLE with the amount of options and how the options are laid out, and how you do things, etc.

smbm
April 5th, 2009, 06:35 PM
My version most definitely shows which protocol people are using, although why this really matters I have no idea.

"

SomeGuyDude
April 5th, 2009, 06:36 PM
I hear good things about Epiphany.

I'd try it, but I don't want to install 400MB of GNOME libraries just to use a chat client. :rolleyes:

|Porsche
April 5th, 2009, 06:48 PM
Go to Buddies>Show>Protocol Icons and voila! You now love Pidgin.

cb951303
April 5th, 2009, 06:51 PM
there is a good looking IM client called http://synapse.im/
but, it's in alpha stage and only supports Jabber