- How To Install pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04
- What is pidgin
- Install pidgin Using apt-get
- Install pidgin Using apt
- Install pidgin Using aptitude
- How To Uninstall pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04
- Uninstall pidgin And Its Dependencies
- Remove pidgin Configurations and Data
- Remove pidgin configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
- References
- Summary
- Pidgin
- Installation
- Spellcheck
- Services
- AIM
- Discord plugin
- Google (Hangouts)
- ICQ
- IRC
- Sametime protocol
- Skype plugin
- Slack plugin
- Rocket.Chat plugin
- Telegram plugin
- XMPP
- Security
- Privacy
- Pidgin-OTR
- Pidgin-Encryption
- Pidgin-GPG
- Other packages
- Auto logout on suspend
- Minimize to tray
- History import Kopete to Pidgin
- Backup
- Troubleshooting
- Version Match for Sametime
- Browser error
- ICQ Buddy Information encoding fix
- See also
How To Install pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04
In this tutorial we learn how to install pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04.
What is pidgin
Pidgin is a graphical, modular instant messaging client capable of using multiple networks at once. Currently supported are: AIM/ICQ, IRC, Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk, Napster, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, Bonjour, Groupwise, Sametime, and SIMPLE.
- gnome-panel | kdebase-workspace-bin | docker:
- To use the system tray icon functionality (minimizing to an icon, having the icon blink when there are new messages, etc.)
- To use Contact Availability Prediction plugin
There are three ways to install pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04. We can use apt-get , apt and aptitude . In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install pidgin Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
After updating apt database, We can install pidgin using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install pidgin
Install pidgin Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
After updating apt database, We can install pidgin using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install pidgin
Install pidgin Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
After updating apt database, We can install pidgin using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install pidgin
How To Uninstall pidgin on Ubuntu 22.04
To uninstall only the pidgin package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove pidgin
Uninstall pidgin And Its Dependencies
To uninstall pidgin and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu 22.04, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove pidgin
Remove pidgin Configurations and Data
To remove pidgin configuration and data from Ubuntu 22.04 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge pidgin
Remove pidgin configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove pidgin configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge pidgin
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install pidgin package on Ubuntu 22.04 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.
Pidgin
Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log into accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. It is compatible with Jabber/XMPP, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, and Zephyr, and many more chat networks with plugins.
Installation
Install the pidgin package. Notable variants are:
- Pidgin Light — Light Pidgin version without GStreamer, Tcl/Tk, XScreenSaver, video/voice support.
You may also want to install additional plugins from the purple-plugin-pack .
Spellcheck
The aspell package will be installed as a dependency, but to prevent all of your text from showing up as incorrect you will need to install an aspell dictionary. See the aspell article.
Note: The switch spell plugin is included in the purple-plugin-pack . It allows you to switch between multiple languages.
Services
AIM
Pidgin has out-of-the-box support for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). Although AIM has officially ceased, unofficial AIM-based servers like AIM Phoenix operate and can be used on Pidgin by changing the server address in the AIM protocol account settings.
Discord plugin
Warning: There is currently an open GitHub issue regarding temporary IP bans after using purple-discord .
Then add a new account, select Discord as the protocol, enter your Discord login e-mail address and its password.
Facebook
Then add a new account, select Facebook as the protocol, enter your Facebook username and password and login.
Google (Hangouts)
ICQ
Pidgin only comes with the original OSCAR ICQ protocol. Since December 2018, the old OSCAR protocol is no longer officially supported as it has been replaced by the newer WIM protocol. To make use of the new WIM protocol on ICQ, you should install the purple-icyque-git AUR plug-in.
IRC
This is a small tutorial for connecting to the Libera Chat network. It should work for other IRC networks as long as you substitute the port numbers and other specific settings.
Go to Accounts > Manage Accounts > Add. Fill/select the following options:
Protocol: IRC Username: your username
Now go to Buddies > New instant message (or hit Ctrl+m ), fill ‘libera.chat’ in the textbox and username@irc.libera.chat, then click ‘Ok’. Type:
The channel is irrelevant.
In order to register your nick, type:
/msg nickserv register password email-addres
Follow the instructions from the registration mail. For further help type:
/msg nickserv help /msg nickserv help command
This final step will add your channel to ‘Buddies’: go to Buddies > Add chat, fill the correct channel in the textbox named channel (#archlinux).
Sametime protocol
Install the libpurple-meanwhile AUR package. The ‘Sametime’ protocol will be available when creating an account.
Skype plugin
Slack plugin
Rocket.Chat plugin
Telegram plugin
This article or section is out of date.
Reason: The telegram-purple project is abandoned. See also Diff/704779. As mentioned in the previous links, telegram-tdlib-purple-git AUR is its successor package. (Discuss in Talk:Pidgin)
Enter your Telegram phone number when creating the account, after which you will receive an SMS text message with a confirmation code, which you will have to enter to authorize your Telegram protocol account on Pidgin.
XMPP
Pidgin has out-of-the-box support for the XMPP/Jabber chat protocol. Some additional plugins exist for support of XMPP extensions such as OMEMO ( libpurple-lurch ) or Message Carbons ( libpurple-carbons AUR ).
Security
Pidgin uses Libpurple 2 which stores passwords unencrypted (in plaintext) in $HOME/.purple/account.xml, see [1]. You can store them in a keyring by using a plugin like:
Privacy
Pidgin has some privacy rules set by default. Namely, the whole world cannot send you messages; only your contacts or people selected from a list. Adjust this, and other settings in Tools > Privacy.
Pidgin-OTR
This is a plugin that brings Off-The-Record (OTR) messaging to Pidgin. OTR is a cryptographic protocol that will encrypt your instant messages.
First you need to install pidgin-otr from the official repositories. Once this has been done, OTR has been added to Pidgin.
- To enable OTR, start Pidgin and go to Tools > Plugins or press Ctrl+u . Scroll down to the entry entitled «Off-The-Record Messaging». If the checkbox beside it is not checked, check it.
- Next, click on the plugin entry and select «Configure plugin» at the bottom. Select which account you wish to generate a key for, then click «Generate». You will have now generated a private key. If you are not sure what the other options do, leave them, the default options will work fine.
- The next step is to contact a buddy who also has OTR installed. In the chat window, a new icon should appear to the top right of your text input box. Click on it, and select «Start private conversation». This will start an ‘Unverified’ session. Unverified sessions are encrypted, but not verified — that is, you have started a private conversation with someone using your buddy’s account who has OTR, but who might not be your buddy. The steps for verification of a buddy are beyond the scope of this section; however, they might be added in the future.
Pidgin-Encryption
pidgin-encryption AUR transparently encrypts your instant messages with RSA encryption. Easy-to-use, but very secure.
You can enable it the same way as Pidgin-OTR.
Now you can open conversation window and new icon should appear beside menu. Press it to enable or disable encryption. Also if you want to make encryption enabled by default right-click on a buddy’s name (in your buddy list), and select Turn Auto-Encrypt On. Now, whenever a new conversation window for that buddy is opened, encryption will start out as enabled.
Pidgin-GPG
Pidgin-GPG transparently encrypt conversations using GPG, and taking advantage of all the features of a pre-existing WoT.
The plugin is available on AUR as pidgin-gpg-git AUR . It can be enabled the same way as the previously mentioned ones.
Other packages
Arch has other Pidgin-related packages. Here are the most popular (for a thorough list, search the AUR):
- pidgin-libnotifyAUR — Libnotify support, for theme-consistent notifications
- pidgin-latexAUR — A small latex plugin for pidgin. Put math between $$ and have it rendered (recepient also needs to have this installed)
Auto logout on suspend
If you suspend your computer pidgin seems to stay connected for about 15 minutes. To prevent message loss, it is needed to set your status offline before suspending or hibernating. The status message will not be changed.
Therefore create a new systemd unit pidgin-suspend in /etc/systemd/system Take the following snippet and replace myuser with your user.
[Unit] Description=Suspend Pidgin Before=sleep.target StopWhenUnneeded=yes [Service] Type=oneshot User=myuser RemainAfterExit=yes Environment=DISPLAY=:0 ExecStart=-/usr/bin/purple-remote setstatus?status=offline ExecStop=-/usr/bin/purple-remote setstatus?status=available [Install] WantedBy=sleep.target
Minimize to tray
To make use of the Xfce system tray go to preferences and enable the system tray in the section «Interface». You can now close the main window and run pidgin minimized. You will also be able to see message notifications in the tray.
History import Kopete to Pidgin
#!/bin/sh KOPETE_DIR=~/.kde4/share/apps/kopete/logs PIDGIN_DIR=~/.purple/logs CURRENT_DIR=~/bin cd if [ ! -d $KOPETE_DIR ];then echo "Kopete log directory not found" exit 1; fi if [ ! -d $PIDGIN_DIR ];then echo "Pidgin log directory not found" exit 2; fi for KOPETE_PROTODIR in $(ls $KOPETE_DIR); do PIDGIN_PROTODIR=$(echo $KOPETE_PROTODIR | sed 's/Protocol//' | tr [:upper:] [:lower:]) for accnum in $(ls $KOPETE_DIR/$KOPETE_PROTODIR); do echo "Account number: $accnum" for num in $(ls $KOPETE_DIR/$KOPETE_PROTODIR/$accnum); do FILENAME=$(Xalan $KOPETE_DIR/$KOPETE_PROTODIR/$accnum/$num $CURRENT_DIR/history_import_kopete2pidgin_filename.xslt) if [ $? = 0 ]; then echo "$KOPETE_DIR/$KOPETE_PROTODIR/$accnum/$num" echo " -> $PIDGIN_DIR/$PIDGIN_PROTODIR/$FILENAME" mkdir -p $(dirname $PIDGIN_DIR/$PIDGIN_PROTODIR/$FILENAME) Xalan -o $PIDGIN_DIR/$PIDGIN_PROTODIR/$FILENAME $KOPETE_DIR/$KOPETE_PROTODIR/$accnum/$num $CURRENT_DIR/history_import_kopete2pidgin.xslt fi done done done
- Make ~/bin/history_import_kopete2pidgin.sh executable
- Create ~/bin/history_import_kopete2pidgin.xslt with this code:
~/bin/history_import_kopete2pidgin.sh
Backup
Save ~/.purple to backup all message logs, accounts and other application data.
Troubleshooting
Version Match for Sametime
There was an issue if you would connect to the Sametime via Pidgin, it prompt «Version Match». A potential solution on the client side is to fake the version in accounts.xml. Insert/change the lines:
in the section of Sametime account in accounts.xml which is located in $HOME/.purple/ folder.
Browser error
If clicking a link within Pidgin creates an error message about trying to use ‘sensible-browser’ to open a link, try editing ~/.purple/prefs.xml . Find the line referencing ‘sensible-browser’ and change it to this:
This example assumes you use Firefox.
As an alternative if the method above does not work you can set the desired browser in the pidgin preferences in the section «Browser».
ICQ Buddy Information encoding fix
You can change encoding for ICQ account if encoding in Buddy Information is not correct:
Account > your ICQ account > Edit account > Advanced tab
Select Encoding: CP1251 (for Cyrillic).
See also
- Using Pidgin
- Wikipedia:Pidgin_(software)
- History import Kopete to Pidgin
- Connecting to HipChat using Pidgin
- finch , a console based libpurple client, essentially Pidgin in a terminal