Linux® For Dummies®, 8th Edition

Taking Advantage of Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) between people is like using a telephone — except that you type your conversation rather than speak it. In addition, you can simultaneously hold multiple instant messaging conversations without the need for additional connections to the Internet. America Online (AOL) provides one popular instant messaging service, named AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM. Others are ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, and Google. A wide variety of computer operating systems, including Linux, support these various services. Fedora 7 uses the Pidgin instant messenger client, which allows you to connect to any of these instant messaging services.

Until recently, the Pidgin software package was called GAIM. Unfortunately, the name of the package had to be changed due to copyright restrictions. If you’ve used GAIM in previous versions of Fedora, Pidgin works exactly the same way.

Using the Pidgin Instant Messenger

To launch Pidgin, choose ApplicationsInternetInternet Messenger. After the application starts for the first time (see Figure 10-13), its main dialog box (called the Buddy List) and the account management dialog box both appear. To tell Pidgin about one of ...