HOWTO: Instant Messaging in GNU/Linux: Kopete
I took a quick look at Gaim the other day, and now I’m going to take a quick look at Kopete. As Gaim has its roots in the Gnome project, Kopete is developed by the KDE team. I’ll be honest and say that I like Kopete a little bit better than Gaim these days. It’s not a functionality issue - they both do the same job for me - it’s this new Sip phone signing up thing that Gaim keeps throwing in my face whenever I launch it. I haven’t bothered to investigate it because I’m not in the market for a new Sip phone account thingy, but it pisses me off that it keeps popping up every time I start Gaim.
Anyhow, on to Kopete:
Kopete is an instant messenger supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more. It is designed to be a flexible and extensible multi-protocol system suitable for personal and enterprise use.
As far as messaging goes, I find Gaim and Kopete’s performance to be on par with each other. I’m a heavy Skype user, but a very light MSN,AIM,Y!M user and therefore I don’t notice any real advantage to using one over the other. Kopete does have one neat-o feature that I think some user might like, however. Since Kopete is a native KDE application, it can make use of the Knotify infrastructure.
So what?
Well, Knotify is a pretty mature infrastructure that allows any application to send event notification through the KDE system. This means that you can configure Kopete to do things to your desktop when instant messaging events occur such as flashing the taskbar or popping up a dialogue box. You can even tell it to run a shell script that you wrote. That’s the real power - the shell script. You can theoretically write scripts to perform functions from rebooting to sending email to calling you Mom and then assign those scripts to IM events. Whoa…remote control via IM, anyone?
Go play!
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7 opinions for HOWTO: Instant Messaging in GNU/Linux: Kopete
New Linux User » HOWTO: Instant Messaging in GNU/Linux: Gizmo
Feb 10, 2006 at 1:02 pm
[…] The last instant messaging application I’m going to look at is a relative newcomer to the scene. Gizmo has come out of nowhere and has taken on Skype head-on. I’ve already looked at Kopete, Gaim, and Skype, so where does Gizmo fit in to this group? […]
am a new linux user too!
Feb 14, 2008 at 11:45 pm
hi! i would like to ask how can i install yahoo messenger for linux? i’m a basic computer user and would only like to avail of the pc-to-pc and webcam feature of the yahoo. pls give me a tutorial for dummies. i have ver basic computer background and kindly use layman’s terms.
ubuntu forums say i should install libssl0.9.6 using synaptic. but i cant find libssl0.9.6 in my synaptic. i only have 0.9.8. what to do? i’m using ubuntu 7.10.
thankyou very much!
Clair
Feb 15, 2008 at 3:42 am
Hi, fellow linux user! :) Well, the webcam thing is somehow quite tricky. All I know is that you could use GyachE or variations of it in order to use the webcam option. However, I also heard that it’s also dependent on the kind of webcam you have because there might not be drivers for it or you might have to compile a kernel. Could you please try to describe how you want to use the YM web cam function? What app are you using? Kopete?
am a new linux user too!
Feb 16, 2008 at 1:33 am
thanks for the immediate reply. :)
i’m using pidgin right now. and all i want to do is to call my relatives abroad at the same time seeing them live. i have simple computer needs really. :)
some recommend i install gaim but i dont know if it has a webcam feature.
thanks again.
am a new linux user too
Feb 16, 2008 at 1:36 am
thanks for the immediate reply. :)
am a new linux user too
Feb 16, 2008 at 1:36 am
i’m using pidgin right now. and all i want to do is to call my relatives abroad at the same time seeing them live. i have simple computer needs really. :)
some recommend i install gaim but i dont know if it has a webcam feature.
thanks again.
zizi
Jun 18, 2008 at 4:55 am
i like the linux windows but my problem is that i cant make use of the webcam in kopete messenger. people cant view or me view their web cam. What can I do to remedy this situation. I am not a computer wizard but with instructions on how to make my kopete messenger work on web cam will be welcome.
thanks
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