Precise: Pidgin 2.10.7

July 14, 2013 — BarryK

Ayttm has been criticized as too buggy. The guy who was working on it, Siddhesh, hasn't done so for quite some time. It is small, and it would be good if it could be fixed, however, to fill the immediate need, I have compiled Pidgin, version 2.10.7.

The PET (2.6M):
http://distro.ibiblio.org/quirky/pet_packages-precise/pidgin-2.10.7-i486-precise.pet

Oh, one important thing. First install the latest SeaMonkey 2.19, as Pidgin links against its libnspr and libnss. Older libs might not work.

I would appreciate if this could be tested. I don't use any of those chat clients, and don't know how to connect to them. Well, I did used to connect to #puppylinux at irc.freenode.com, but I tried that and it didn't work.

Jonathon Marsden (JM in the Forum) once-upon-a-time created this startup script to go straight to #puppylinux channel, but I tried it, it doesn't work:

#!/bin/sh

#firstly, JM's code to setup #puppylinux at IRC, then launch pidgin.



#########################

# gaim-autosetup.sh -- generates autologin configuration for GAIM 

#                      so that starting GAIM will log user into #puppylinux

#

# Copyright 2006 Jonathan Marsden, GNU General Public License version 2

# FSF Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA

# bugfix bk 2006. Modified for Pidgin 2008.



BACKTITLE="Welcome, an account will be created automatically for

you in the #puppylinux channel at irc.freenode.net.

Type the nickname that you would like to be known by.

The entry already in the box has been autogenerated."

IRCHOST='irc.freenode.net'

IRCCHANNEL='#puppylinux'

IRCPORT=6667

PREFIX='PupUser-'

PURPLECONFIGDIR=~/.purple

PROMPT="Enter the IRC Nickname you wish to use,

as unique as possible to avoid conflict

with already-registered names:"



# Exit if either of the two files we are generating already exists

[ -f $PURPLECONFIGDIR/accounts.xml ] && exec pidgin $@

[ -f $PURPLECONFIGDIR/blist.xml ] && exec pidgin $@



# Generate a semi-random IRC username

USERNAME=$PREFIX`(date ;cat /proc/cpuinfo)|md5sum|sed -e's/^\(......\).*$/\1/'`



NEWNAME=`Xdialog --backtitle "$BACKTITLE" --stdout --no-cancel --title "Pidgin startup" --inputbox "$PROMPT" 0 0 "$USERNAME"`



[ $? -ne 0 ] && exec pidgin $@

[ "$NEWNAME" = "" ] && exec pidgin $@



USERNAME=`echo "$NEWNAME" |tr -cd 'A-Za-z0-9[-\`{-}'` # See RFC 2812 2.3.1



# Create the two config files

cat >$PURPLECONFIGDIR/accounts.xml <<EOF

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>



<accounts version='1.0'>

 <account>

  <protocol>prpl-irc</protocol>

  <name>$USERNAME@$IRCHOST</name>

  <settings>

   <setting name='username' type='string'>$USERNAME</setting>

   <setting name='encoding' type='string'>UTF-8</setting>

   <setting name='realname' type='string'>$USERNAME</setting>

   <setting name='port' type='int'>$IRCPORT</setting>

  </settings>

  <settings ui='gtk-gaim'>

   <setting name='auto-login' type='bool'>1</setting>

  </settings>

 </account>

</accounts>

EOF



cat >$PURPLECONFIGDIR/blist.xml <<EOF

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' ?>



<gaim version='1.0'>

        <blist>

                <group name="Buddies">

                        <setting name="collapsed" type="bool">0</setting>

                        <chat proto="prpl-irc" account="$USERNAME@$IRCHOST">

                                <component name="channel">$IRCCHANNEL</component>

                                <component name="password"></component>

                                <setting name="gtk-autojoin" type="bool">1</setting>

                        </chat>

                </group>

        </blist>

        <privacy>

                <account proto="prpl-irc" name="$USERNAME@$IRCHOST" mode="1">

                </account>

        </privacy>

</gaim>

EOF

##############################



#now run pidgin...

exec pidgin $@



###END###

Although, whether we want users to default to that channel is debatable. Over the years I have received so many complains about that channel, basically that the people who lurk there are very rude. No reports about it for last six months though -- does it even still exist?

There was a guy who contacted me, sometime earlier this year I think, who started another Puppy Linux chat channel, and he said that he would moderate it and keep it very clean. But, I don't recall the details.

For developers, this is the configure:

# ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --build=i486-pc-linux-gnu --disable-doxygen --enable-cyrus-sasl --disable-tk --disable-tcl --enable-nss=yes --enable-gnutls=yes --disable-nm --disable-dbus --disable-avahi --disable-gstreamer-interfaces --disable-gstreamer --disable-schemas-install --disable-consoleui --with-nspr-includes=/usr/include/seamonkey/nspr --with-nspr-libs=/usr/lib/seamonkey --with-nss-includes=/usr/include/seamonkey/nss --with-nss-libs=/usr/lib/seamonkey --disable-vv --disable-meanwhile

Note the --disable-vv. This disables voice and video. It needed another package named 'farstream'. If it turns out to be a "must have", then I can look into installing that package and recompile.

Feedback welcome!

Comments

Pidgin icons
Username: BarryK
Note, I tried to make the PET package as small as possible, and cut down the icons. This might mean that small 16x16 icons will display in a context where a bigger icon would look better. If you do experience some icons looking crappy, let me know.

pidgin bug
Username: pemasu
"There is something wrong with irc plugin. pidgin --debug: plugins: probing /usr/lib/purple-2/libirc.so plugins: /usr/lib/purple-2/libirc.so is not loadable: undefined symbol: sasl_client_step It disables testing of freenode and puppylinux channel. #puppylinux channel is ok. There is all the time people asking help about how to get this and that working. I think that discussion of how bad things are in #puppylinux channel, tells more about those complaining people. The same complainers have created havoc in murga-forum sometimes. My explicit experience is that #puppylinux forum is the right forum to ask help in chat and there is nothing wrong with it.

Re pidgin
Username: BarryK
"pemasu, This is so weird. I am running on the machine in which I have just compiled pidgin: [code](22:53:48) plugins: probing /usr/lib/purple-2/libirc.so (22:53:48) plugins: /usr/lib/purple-2/libirc.so is not loadable: undefined symbol: sasl_client_step (22:53:48) plugins: probing /usr/lib/purple-2/libjabber.so (22:53:48) plugins: /usr/lib/purple-2/libjabber.so is not usable because the 'purple_init_plugin' symbol could not be found. Does the plugin call the PURPLE_INIT_PLUGIN() macro? [/code] Does your libjabber.so work in Precise 5.6.4? How on earth could those libraries compile if there are missing symbols? Unless they are not linked at compile-time, but only loaded at run-time. Thanks for fixing that script! Would you mind also posting that library file? And the jabber one if it works.

pidgin auto login
Username: 666philb
"hi barry, i agree with pemasu, #puppylinux chat is 98% of the time a friendly place to get help. In my 3 years frequenting there thousands of people have been helped, myself included. A chat program that opens at #puppyinux is something that should be in every puppy. Ayttm should definately be completely removed from puppy. It has never worked properly and reflects badly upon puppy linux. As far as chat programs go, pidgin is one of the best, and supports a wide range of protocols (eg skype,googlechat,facebook etc) 'Xchat' is good but only supports irc, but is smaller. depending on which browser you go with, chatzilla is a very good chat app, and i believe opera has one as well (maybe an addon) here's a modified version of that auto logon script, it won't work with your compile of pidgin though because of the broken IRC plugin, as noted by pemasu above. http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19554672/pidgin_auto_logon

Pidgin hack
Username: BarryK
"Thanks very much guys! I grabbed the irc plugin from the Ubuntu 'libpurple0' DEB, that works. The Ubuntu Pidgin has many more deps, which is why I am not using it. I pulled out the other plugins that don't work. So, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo are gone. I have re-uploaded the PET, same package name. This is a quick hack for now. Users are probably going to complain about no Yahoo support. But, I think the cause of those failed plugins is because I compiled without gstreamer. I don't want to introduce that big dependency.

pidgin bugs part 2
Username: pemasu
"Official Ubuntu pidgin with all dependencies gives the same liboscar, libjabber and libymsg errors. Also my own compile effort. Libirc error comes form curys-sasl inclusion. Letting it out fixes libirc. Pidgin has internal plain sasl support, so there probably is not many sites with need cyrus-sasl inclusion for authentication. I am not sure if those above mentioned errors in fact stops the plugins to work. Aim, Icq and Yahoo shows up in protocol listing when you start to add new account. Bug reports in net tells same thing. Those errors of 3 libs are explained to be mostly harmless. I dont use Aim, Yahoo or Icq so I cant verify what is the status of them.

IRC chat, Opera, Pidgin
Username: vicmz
"The IRC chat module, email client, adressbook, RSS reader and user-agent-switcher are built-in to Opera, as well as a useful panel and right-click tool to save quick notes, which are synchronised just as the bookmarks and passwords. The only reason I'm not using Opera the most at present is that I've got sight problems, configuring font size and making the websites dark for reading at night is easier in SeaMonkey, and FlashGot is not available for Opera. Besides, SeaMonkey is a fine browser, it's easy to understand why it's been very important for Puppy. More on-topic, just for sharing information that could be useful - here is the thread where dejan555 and Makoto usually post their Pidgin PETs: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=64385 And here are two threads where each one posted their own PET of v2.10.7 sometime ago: Dejan (compiled in Precise 5.4.3, includes compile instructions) http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84380 Makoto (compiled in Puppy 4.3.1) http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84362

Chat clients implemented in latest distro(s)
Username: GCMartin
"Thanks everyone. User options in your distros will be 1. a browser option (Seamonkey with Chatzilla) 2. and a desktop option (Pidgin). [b]Question:[/b] Would it be appropriate for Chatzilla to have an OOTB default in SeaMonkey to the Puppy Linux IRC? Just a thought.

Tags: puppy