Configuring Pidgin 2.0.0 final for Google Talk in Linux

Well guys, finally Pidgin (earlier Gaim) developers released the 2.0.0 stable release. It was after a long time we saw the final release coming out. Now with the new name , new website, new graphics and lot's of new features Pidgin is rocking.

I thought to give it a try on my Linux loaded Laptop. My howto is inspired by the already available step by step instructions available here.

First of all you need to download Pidgin. If it gives error regarding any dependency during the installation check out the project's sourceforge page.

After the installation is over we need to start Pidgin (Applications --> Internet --> Pidgin Internet Messenger). If it's your first run of Pidgin you would see something like this

Click on the Add button on the bottom and you will be shown something like this




I have filled almost all the values for my test but you need to change them according to your need.

Protocol: XMPP (earlier used to be Jabber)
Screen Name: Must be filled up with your gmail-id before @gmail.com.
Server: Should be gmail.com.
Resource: Can be anything the default "Home" will also work.
Password: You gmail password goes here.

You can select other options according to your need. It's all on choice. I have selected what I feel are necessary for me.

After you are done with this tab select Advanced Tab. It will look something like shown below:

Note the important thing to see here is the Connect Server. It should be talk.google.com. Well everything is done for now just Save the details about the account and Pidgin will automatically connect to the network. And after a few moments you will see that you are connected. Something like this (:( I have very less online contacts).

This is it. Hope you get your g-talk account working with Pidgin 2.0.0 in GNU/Linux.

Fedora 7

Well earlier today I finished downloading the Live cd release of Fedora 7 test 4 for i386. I booted out from the CD and when I saw it, it was just wow!!

Yeah the same wow!! that microsoft says for Vista. I don't know much of vista's wow! but fedora 7 is really wow!! and I can confirm that.

Notable features include fast user switching present at top right corner of the desktop (near clock). Detection of ipw3945 wireless without much hectic. The new Network Manager applet is cool in detecting these things. Pidgin (earlier called gaim) 2.0beta7. I think pidgin is specially compiled for this release. Really cool icon themes etc. Next in the line is the kernel. This release has a kernel version 2.6.20-1.3104.fc7 by default. Notable feature is KVM (kernel-based virtual machine). Next thing is the fedora live cd to hard drive installer. This is a trimmed version of anaconda basically that works wonders. It never bugged out for me even on a test release and was able to install the whole thing to the hard drive in just 10 minutes (I have 1GB RAM now). After installation I got more packages from the development repo's and installed Xen, Virtualization softwares, mysql, php etc. Xen kernel bugged out for me during booting and I couldn't try it. Maybe I install some other version of Xen kernel in it. This release comes with compiz. Desktop looks great, clear and attractive when we enable desktop effects (compiz) but then some problem occur during windows movement. And I have to close it.

This release comes with a blog entry post software and I am posting out this blog post using that software! Really cool piece.