Gaim

Written by Federico Voges on 02-Sept-02.

GAIM install:

GAIM is a IM client for many networks (ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN and more). This is good, because you don't need 30 different clients and there's always someone who uses only that unknown IM and refuses to create an ICQ/Yahoo account :)

So, grab the latest GAIM tarball from gaim.sourceforge.net (0.59.1 as of this writting).

Unpack the source code, cd to the source dir and run:

./configure --disable-gnome <-- This is for COL 3.1.1 YMMV
make
su -c "make install" <-- You can use checkinstall to build a RPM instead of plain old make install (recommended)

That's it! Just run gaim from your X desktop (in KDE Alt-F2 -> gaim [ENTER]) and configure your accounts (Tools -> Accounts or Ctrl-A). You may need to load extra plugins (ie, for Yahoo protocol), just go to Tools -> Plugins, click on the load button and select the desired plugin.

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Now, chances are that you have a large list of contacts in your ICQ...
Hmmm.... I know.... registering each one again is a PITA. Don't worry, there's light at the end of the tunnel.....

Here's a mini step to migrate your contact list from ICQ to GAIM. This assumes that your buddy list is stored in the ICQ servers.

1. Open ICQ on a windoze machine (and add your user if necesary).
2. Goto My ICQ -> Save / Load Contact List -> Save Contact List -> icqlist.txt
3. Copy the saved file to your Linux $HOME dir
4. By now, you should have gaim installed and working. Just look in ~/.gaim for a file named ########.X.blist where ###### is your ICQ UIN and X is a number (3 in my case). That's you ICQ buddy list. Take note of the filename (and make a backup now!!!!)
5. Now, you're ready to convert your icq list to gaim format. Just run (be sure gaim is not running):

sort icqlist.txt | awk 'BEGIN { FS = ";"; print "m 1"; group = ""} { if ($1 != group) { print "g", $1; group = $1} print "b", $2":"$3}' > ~/.gaim/###########.X.blist

Replace ###########.X.blist for the actual filename. This command assumes that the exported ICQ list is named icqlist.txt and it's in your home dir.

6.- Start GAIM. You should see your complete buddy list now. Congratulations.

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