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Pidgin (previously Gaim) on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

by Pierre-Yves Landuré — last modified 2007-09-07 19:50

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. This article explain howto to install it on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Fast and obfuscated

If you are on the run, the following command lines summaries this arcticle. At first, initialize your sudo environment :

sudo echo

Then, copy/paste the following command lines in your terminal:

sudo sh -c 'echo "# Pidgin for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
deb http://falcon.landure.fr feisty pidgin
deb-src http://falcon.landure.fr feisty pidgin" \
        > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/feisty-landure-pidgin.list'
wget http://falcon.landure.fr/9FA7DC39.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -y install pidgin
sudo apt-get -y install pidgin-blinklight pidgin-encryption \
     pidgin-extprefs pidgin-guifications pidgin-hotkeys \
     pidgin-libnotify pidgin-librvp pidgin-otr pidgin-plugin-pack

Installation

Pidgin is not available from Ubuntu Feisty Fawn repository. There are some packages for it on the net, some of them (precisely, the ones from getdeb) are just a bunch of crap that break your system. To correct this, i've done a backport of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Pidgin packages for Feisty Fawn. We start by adding my repository to your apt configuration:

sudo sh -c 'echo "# Pidgin for Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
deb http://falcon.landure.fr feisty pidgin
deb-src http://falcon.landure.fr feisty pidgin" \
        > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/feisty-landure-pidgin.list'

We download the GPG public key to validate the signature of my repository :

wget http://falcon.landure.fr/9FA7DC39.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

We update the list of available packages :

sudo apt-get update

And we install Pidgin :

sudo apt-get install pidgin

You can now find Pidgin in the "Internet" sub-menu.

Plugins

Recently, i've backport all the available pidgin plugins from gutsy repositories. Here is the list of pidgin plugins presents in my repository :

pidgin-blinklight : Blink the new message led on IBM and Asus laptop.
pidgin-encryption : Allow to crypt your discussions.
pidgin-extprefs : Extended preferences.
pidgin-guifications : Microsoft Windows like pop-up notifications.
pidgin-hotkeys : configurable hotkeys for pidgin.
pidgin-libnotify : display notification bubbles in pidgin.
pidgin-librvp : MS Exchange RVP instant messaging plugin.
pidgin-otr : Off-the-Record Messaging plugin.
pidgin-plugin-pack : 30 useful plugins.

And here is the command to install those :

sudo apt-get install pidgin-blinklight pidgin-encryption \
     pidgin-extprefs pidgin-guifications pidgin-hotkeys \
     pidgin-libnotify pidgin-librvp pidgin-otr pidgin-plugin-pack

Thanks

Thanks to the developers of Pidgin.
Thanx to MacSim for his article Comment installer Pidgin 2.0 sur Feisty avec tous les plugins

pidgin-otr

Posted by Kevin at 2007-07-11 17:06

I cant get the pidgin-otr plugin to work. Its greyed out after installation and when I click on details it says Error: undefined symbol: otrl_privkey_generateFilep
Check the plugin site for details

Thanx for bug report

Posted by Lone Wolf at 2007-07-11 18:11

Thanx, i will check this as soon as possible.

pidgin-otr is working again

Posted by Pierre-Yves Landuré at 2007-07-12 09:34

I've corrected the problem by backporting libotr2 from Gutsy.

How do I install this

Posted by Kevin at 2007-07-12 13:56

Great - Thanks for the fix. How do I install this??? I tried sudo aptitude install libotr2 but didnt work. I also tried upgrading but that didnt work either.

Upgrade not working ?

Posted by Pierre-Yves Landuré at 2007-07-12 14:02

hum, that's strange, i was thinking that an upgrade would do the trick. I will check this when i get home where i have a clean computer to do the test ;)

libotr2 installed - Not sure if plugin works

Posted by Kevin at 2007-07-12 14:06

Ok, sorry, I got everything installed with an upgrade. The otr plugin in is no longer greyed out. When I go to configure the plugin (Config Tab), and select Generate in order to generate a key, nothing happens. Am I doing something wrong??? How do I generate the keys??

I'm not using otr plugin :D

Posted by Pierre-Yves Landuré at 2007-07-12 14:17

At the time I've backported pidgin from gutsy i've also backported all available plugins. I'm not using the otr plugin, so i can not help you in it's use.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Awesome man

Posted by ewH at 2007-07-12 02:08

Thanks for this!

dopper install?

Posted by Chris at 2007-07-22 04:31

Will this work for dopper?

i don't think it will

Posted by lwolf at 2007-07-22 09:57

It's a really recent package, so i don't think these packages will work on dapper... But you can try to install them. If they install, there is a great probability that they will work.

Please keep me up to date ;D

Encryption?

Posted by Jason at 2007-07-24 17:41

Hey thanks for this awesome guide. Worked like a charm and even then removed gaim nice to have only one installed.

I noticed pidgin-encryption seems to have installed without any errors but doesn't seem to be available in the plug in list. Is there something I need to do to get pidgin to recognise that it is installed? I restarted X as well.

Thanks

It's working on my computer

Posted by lwolf at 2007-07-25 04:57

I can see the plugin in my plugin list. It is named "pidgin-encryption" and is the 4th plugin from the end of plugin list. Hope this help.

otr

Posted by Troy at 2007-08-05 23:20

Thank you. Install from source and .deb all failed but this worked like a charm.

Thanks for your help.

Incompatibilty with libavahi-compat-howl0

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-08 17:12

Had to downgrade today from 2.1.0 to 2.0.2 because of a conflict with the newly installed libavahi package. Any workaround available?

Could you give me more precisions ?

Posted by Lone Wolf at 2007-08-09 07:32

Could you be more specific with the conflict ? On my own, i disable avahi because it confict with my .local network. May be you could try this?

Incompatibility with libavahi-compat-howIO

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-09 13:43

I already downgraded -- but all I got was Segmentation fault - core dumped (and then a number). I was going to try to uninstall then reinstall pidgin using aptitude, and one of the many solutions presented to me, was to keep the current avahi package and downgrade pidgin. The other options presented to me had me uninstalling 10-20 packages. Anyway, I did this (downgraded pidgin), and now everything works as normal.

there is no problem on my system.

Posted by Lone Wolf at 2007-08-09 18:06

Are you sure that you use my packages ? Do you have the debuntu repositories activated ? They also provide a package for Pidgin. Is that not the one you've installed ? I find your problem very strange. It would be of great help for me to have the segfault log.

Thanx for your feedback

Where is the segfault log???

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-09 18:29

Where do I found the segfault log??

Segfault log

Posted by Lone Wolf at 2007-08-09 19:29

as far as i known, just copy paste me the content of the terminal after the run of pidgin, and the end of /var/log/syskig that you can get with : tail -n 50 /var/log/syslog

Thanx for help

Error Log

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-09 20:27

I just upgraded with to 2.1.0 from your repository. Here are the errors I am getting:

From command line:
libnm_glib_nm_state_cb: dbus returned an error.
(org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown) The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager was not provided by any .service files
<memory>:1: Invalid color constant ''

[1]+ Segmentation fault (core dumped) pidgin

There is nothing in the /var/log/syslog that says anything about pidgin (I checked it before I ran pidgin at command line, and then I checked it after I ran pidgin -- no difference)

Error Log

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-09 20:28

Im not running network manager by the way -- Im using WICD to connect to the internet. Im not sure how that would interact with pidgin however.

May be Network Manager is not the source

Posted by lwolf at 2007-08-10 06:58

By googling, i found out that what can be the trigger of the segfault is :

<memory>:1: Invalid color constant ''

It is a problem with gtk2. Are you using a different gtk engine than the ubuntu default one ? Have you a GTK theme installed ?

By the way

Posted by lwolf at 2007-08-10 07:00

here is a post of someone that has the same problem that you.... It's pidgin error message says that it may be a pidgin bug :

http://forum.ubuntu.pl/viewtopic.php?p=220396

Pidgin Bug

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-10 22:48

Its definitely a pidgin bug -- Ive seen this reported on a number of sites separate than yours. I had to remove everything from my system -- pidgin, pidgin data, gaim, etc. Even now the old version will not work -- definitely a conflict with some package that was recently upgraded (if I only knew what one that was???). Anyway keep me notified if there is a fix!

Sorry but,

Posted by Lone Wolf at 2007-08-11 06:22

I've always just the time to compile the new version of pidgin. Try to watch the changelog of pidgin at each new version. I'll try to keep up to date my packages.

Sorry for that, and thanks again for your feedback

Problem Solved

Posted by Kevin at 2007-08-12 06:34

Thanks for all your help ... I just went ahead and compiled pidgin from source v 2.1.0 along with compiling from source all the pidgin plugins along with the OTR plugin. I had to delete the .purple folder, but once I did that everything worked!! Im not sure why many people dont talk about compiling from source as an option, since it worked great for me on Feisty 7.04. Anyway, thanks for your help. I really appreciate it!

Cannot upgrade to 2.1.1

Posted by Kriston at 2007-08-23 02:20

I have a fairly basic Feisty Fawn system and added the Landure repository and installed 2.1.0 just fine.
I got an update notice today to upgrade to 2.1.1 and it cannot do a full upgrade, it will only do a partial upgrade.
When running Synaptic it wants to remove most of pidgin, gaim, and ubuntu-desktop to let me install the 2.1.1 update.

What do I need to do in order to make the system install the new 2.1.1 Pidgin update without removing ubuntu-desktop and all the other pidgin packages?

Thanks

Cannot upgrade to 2.1.1

Posted by oohp at 2007-08-23 05:09

Yup, I'm vahing the same problem; apt-egt complains about libc6 not being the right version.

ok, thanx for the feedback

Posted by lwolf at 2007-08-23 07:25

i've done some tweak on my system recently. I rebuild the package in a clean one just now, it will be ready in a few hours.

Thanx for your bug report

pidgin segmentatin foult

Posted by alekkova@yahoo.com at 2007-09-02 18:09

Hello!
I found and fix my problem with pidgin.
/usr/local/bin/pidgin -c /home/alekkova/downloads/
or md /home/alekkova/pidgin
/usr/local/bin/pidgin -c /home/alekkova/pidgin

Thanks for your software.

thanks

Posted by jml at 2007-09-03 19:53

Thanks for this. Getting pidgin-otr to install from anywhere else was impossible. With your repo it was breeze.

Thanks

Posted by Gaurav Misra at 2007-10-16 03:04

Thanks

amd64?

Posted by francisco at 2007-10-29 18:45

I'm wondering if you're going to backport the amd64 (x86_64) packages? The setup you describe here looks great, unfortunately I receive this error when trying to 'sudo apt-get update':

Failed to fetch http://falcon.landure.fr/dists/feisty/Release Unable to find expected entry pidgin/binary-amd64/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Fetched 11B in 14s (1B/s)
Reading package lists...
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

thanks!

nope, there is no more need

Posted by lwolf at 2007-10-29 18:57

you should upgrade to gutsy gibbon

no gutsy for me :(

Posted by francisco at 2007-10-29 21:06

unfortunately, I'm using a T60p which uses an ATI FireGL video card. From what I've read on the forums (phoronix, ubuntu, etc..), ATI will not be fully supporting this card on Gutsy until 8.43. Last I checked (about a week ago), 8.42 was still delayed, so I'm assuming I won't have full support for my video card until Hardy Heron comes out. With that said, I need full support for my video card for suspend & hibernate issues.... i'm not so concerned with 3D stuff as this is a dev box for work. If there aren't 64-bit otr plugin support for feisty, then i'll just have to resort to Gaim. If you know any other options i could try, that would be great. Thanks for your help!

no gutsy for me :(

Posted by francisco at 2007-10-29 21:07

ok, so here the method

Posted by Pierre-Yves Landuré at 2007-10-29 21:22

First, add my repository to your apt config, then do :

mkdir ~/PIDGIN
cd ~/PIDGIN
apt-get source pidgin pidgin-blinklight pidgin-encryption \
pidgin-extprefs pidgin-guifications pidgin-hotkeys \
pidgin-libnotify pidgin-librvp pidgin-otr pidgin-plugin-pack
sudo apt-get build-dep pidgin pidgin-blinklight pidgin-encryption \
pidgin-extprefs pidgin-guifications pidgin-hotkeys \
pidgin-libnotify pidgin-librvp pidgin-otr pidgin-plugin-pack
sudo apt-get install fakeroot dpkg-dev

You will then have many folders in your ~/PIDGIN folder. Go in each of them and do :

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot

This will build pidgin from my sources for your amd64 system. Good Luck

still no luck... no sorces?

Posted by francisco at 2007-10-29 23:27

thanks for your quick reply! i tried the steps you provided, but am still seeing errors. I have added your repos to my sources, added your key, but when i try to 'sudo apt-get update', i receive this error:

Failed to fetch http://falcon.landure.fr/dists/feisty/Release Unable to find expected entry pidgin/binary-amd64/Packages in Meta-index file (malformed Release file?)
Fetched 11B in 14s (1B/s)
Reading package lists...
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

which i believe is causing this error when i try to do the apt-get command above:

wunderpuss:~/PIDGIN >> apt-get source pidgin pidgin-blinklight pidgin-encryption pidgin-extprefs pidgin-guifications pidgin-hotkeys pidgin-libnotify pidgin-librvp pidgin-otr pidgin-plugin-pack
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Could not open file /var/lib/apt/lists/falcon.landure.fr_dists_feisty_pidgin_source_Sources - open (2 No such file or directory)

i get the same error using 'sudo'. it seems that i do not have a file with that name in my lists/ dir. I only have:

wunderpuss:~/PIDGIN >> file /var/lib/apt/lists/falcon.landure.fr_dists_feisty*
/var/lib/apt/lists/falcon.landure.fr_dists_feisty_Release: ASCII text
/var/lib/apt/lists/falcon.landure.fr_dists_feisty_Release.gpg: PGP armored data

thanks again for any help!

well sorry for that

Posted by lwolf at 2007-10-30 06:15

I'm surprised that sources are not available. I will se what i can do to make amd64 packages, but you'll have to wait.

no problem -- any help much appreciated :)

Posted by francisco at 2007-10-30 18:35

thanks lwolf... i can get around the issue by using Gaim for my otr connections and pidgin for everything else in the mean time. if ATI would just get my video card working with Gutsy... anyway, if you come through with these, that would be awesome! thanks!

Problem in installing pidgin using the instructions

Posted by Justin at 2009-09-07 08:27

Hi,

The above command (tips) is very cool to me . I tried to follow the above instructions. However, when I try to do sudo apt get update, it return some error on getting some packages.

I proceed to issue apt-get install pidgin and below is the error I received:-

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
pidgin: Depends: pidgin-data (< 1:2.1.1-z) but 1:2.2.1-1ubuntu4.3 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

Please advise. For your information, I am also using Feisty and plan to install the latest version to ensure Y! and MSN! can be logged on using Pidgin.

Thanks and hear from you soon.

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Pidgin (previously Gaim) on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Fast and obfuscated

Installation

Plugins

Thanks