IM on Linux

I've been playing with MSN Messenger clones the last little while. In the old days when I was an undergrad, the "talk" program on UNIX was popular among CS students. Since leaving university, I stopped using "talk". Sure, I know that lots of people use IM, and text-messaging is all the rage in certain parts of the world, but the phone has always been much more convenient.

Recently, after re-establishing contact with old high school friends back in China, I found out that many of them are enthusiastic IM users. All methods considered, it's a neat way of chatting with people in faraway places. I decided to join the rest of the world. First, I started with MSN Messenger on my Windows-based laptop -- no problem. Next, I downloaded Microsoft's Mac version, and installed it on the iMac -- not as good as the Windows version, but it works. Finally, Linux. I'm now using Ubuntu (it's the best Linux distribution I've ever had). A little on-line research suggested AMSN, an MSN clone. No troubles with installing it, and it appeared to work well until I tried to input Chinese characters: some characters won't show up. Turns out AMSN doesn't offer Asian languages support. All right, let's try the other MSN clone mentioned by Linux users, Pidgin. Well, this one is great, even better than MSN. It can combine several IM accounts (e.g. MSN, GoogleTalk, Yahoo), and it displays Chinese characters without a glitch. Excellent!

Another thing I did on my Linux box was to add Input Method support so I can switch easily between English and Chinese. It took some work, but I got it going. Later, I got the same working on the iMac and the laptop.