How to use Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, Skype and other Chat Account in Ubuntu

People are becoming more and more interested in opensource softwares. These are free and the best thing is if you have knowledge about this, you customize the softwares yourself. Opensource community is growing at a great speed. But most users come from MS windows platform and they feel that there is not enough powerful software for Linux system as there is for Windows platform. So, they think that it was a mistake to choose Linux. But this is not true infact. Linux especially Ubuntu has software for every kind of operation. Though you may not find direct software like Gtalk or Yahoo Messenger, but still there are powerful softwares which can you instead. If you are using Ubuntu, there are few softwares which you can use to run Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, Skype and similar services.

1. Install Empathy in your Ubuntu. It may be installed in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. See how to Check, Install and remove software in Ubuntu for details information. Empathy supports all the prominent Messaging services. You can also use multiple accounts from the same software. Isn't it a great advantage?

2. To use it go to Applications → Internet and select Empathy IM client. From Empathy menu Select Edit → Accounts or type F4. Then you will get a prompt box like this.

3. Select “Yes, I'll enter my account details now” and click Forward. You will get window for entering your account information.

4. Select the account type and enter your account ID and password. You will also find another option “Do you have any other accounts you want to set up”. If you want to add another account, select “yes” and then click “forward”.

5. This way you can add as many account as you want. When you are done select “No, that's all for now” and click “forward”. Now you are done and you can use as many account as you want in Empathy.

Pidgin also supports many chat accounts.

1. To use this service at first install it. For instruction see How to Check, install and Remove Software in Ubuntu for details information.

2. After installing, go to Applications → Internet and select pidgin. A window will apear.

3. Select Accounts → Manage Accounts and you will get a prompt window to add acounts. Click Add and you will be prompt to Login option.

4. Choose your account type and fill up your username and password. Now you are ready to use your chat account in Pidgin. If you want to use another account, click add again. You can add as many account as you want.

Empathy and Pidgin has service for the following account type-

1. Facebook Chat

2. Google Talk

3. Jabber

4. People Nearby

5. AIM

6. gadugadu

7. Groupwise

8. ICQ

9. IRC

10. MSN

11. mxit

12. myspace

13. sametime

14. SIP

15. Yahoo

16. Yahoo Japan

17. zephyr

18. Bonjour

19. Simple

Quite a great list to choose from. It includes almost all the popular chat service.

Skype has support for ubuntu. Though the graphics is not as great as the latest version, but it works great.

Now you have access to all the chat services. Like this, Ubuntu has softwares for all other kinds of things that you may want to do. Another option is to use Wine. It is a powerful software that helps you to run windows software on Linux. You can run Google talk, Yahoo messenger software of Windows platform on Ubuntu using this. But, I don't recommend this for managing your chat account. It has a few drawbacks. I will show you how to use Wine in another article.