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If you're looking for a messaging solution on your Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron desktop, take a look at Pidgin Internet Messenger formerly known as GAIM. Pidgin is available on Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes.
Pidgin is an instant messaging program for Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr.
Pidgin, formerly known as Gaim, is a popular Instant Messaging (IM) client for Linux. It works with 16 different IM services, including AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and Google, and can handle simultaneous connections to as many of them as you like.
Pidgin is almost perfect, it doesn't support Video and audio conversations. Actually it's planned by pidgin authors. We can imagine how difficult this task to accomplish with all messaging protocols but still as dark point of this software. It's also criticized for saving password in readable text files which could put the user privacy at risk but the authors are convinced that "they won't give a false illusion of security" by doing encrypted files ( because they can be broken too).
This is a simple tool I wrote a few months ago to turn Pidgin, everyone’s favourite multi-client Instant Messenger (works with gtalk, msn, yahoo, aim etc), into a customized answering machine (and more) when you are away from your computer.
Did you know that Pidgin (formerly named Gaim), a Free and Open-source multi-platform (Instant Messaging) IM client, can be used to send and receive SMS text messages for free?
Listed on the roadmap to Gnome 2.24 is the integration with Empathy, a multi-protocol IM client. This integration could be a sign of a replacement for Pidgin and Ekiga with one single SIP and multi-protocol IM application.