Finding teh groovy on these Internets

Welcome, solstice_sings!  I believe this is first time I have ever had an LJ friend living in the same county where I am!

So I sent Solstice an "e-mail" (because that's, like, just how *old* I am) and he suggested that we should chat on IM.  Have you ever seen that adult-literacy ad on TV about the fellow who's told "Sure we'll hire you; just give us a call" and he goes into a phone booth (yes, the commercial is very old) and freaks out in a cold sweat because he doesn't know how to use a rotary telephone so he can't get the job?

I wrote a chat client for VAX/VMS, 25 years ago.  It was only for local users at my Uni and wasn't very popular, but then very few programs were, back in those pre-WWW days.  I've, um, never actually *used* one of these new-fangled GUI clients.  Back in 2005, one coworker wanted to IM me—I got him to do a remote log-in to my Linux workstation and use the write command!

So.  An IM client.  I can do this!  Start up synaptic and search for "chat".  Nothing.  Google for "debian chat client".  Google suggests jwchat.  Go back to synaptic and install it.  Configuration is rather hairy; how exactly do I contact people on AIM or MSN with this thing?  Uninstall.

LiveJournal recommends Kopete, Pidgin, or Psi for Linux chat.  Kopete is a KDE thingy, while I'm mostly using GNOME (except for kmail, which occasionally warns me that I'm at risk of getting pickpocketed because I'm *not* using kwallet, but I digress...)

Go to Pidgin's website.  No Debian package available.  Download the source tarball.  (I think I still have a button that says "Use the source, Luke!" that I wore a few times in high school).  Unpack and configure.  Fail: "XML::Parser perl module is required for intltool".  Uh oh.  When programs want Perl modules, I hardly ever get them working.  I just don't understand why brad likes Perl so much.  Its dependency system seems rather rickety.  When I install a PHP program, it JUST WORKS™, like Free Software should.  Ah, whatever.  Delete Pidgin source.

Install Psi via Synaptic.  Looks very nice!  Connects to LJtalk with no problems!  So how about AIM and MSN?  The docs suggest that I have to find a gateway server, but the wiki page that's supposed to list public servers is empty.  Some blogger says he's using jaim.at, so I use that.  The docs suggest that it is possible to connect to the MSN server without having a Passport account with them, but the description for how to do it is obscure.

Wait!  I've got LJtalk!  rabitguy is available for chat and he's a Linuxhead!  Hey Rocky, watch me pull a Rabit out of this hat!  *r-r-r-rip* Nothin' up my sleeve!  Presto!  I've got instant messaging!  Rabit says Psi is a Jabber-only client and difficult/impossible to use with those acronymic walled-garden chat systems.  He's using Kopete.  Thanks, Rabit!  I'll get by with a little help from my friends...

Uninstall Psi (cause I'm just anal about such things).  Install Kopete via Synaptic.  Works!  Connects to LJtalk.  Has a button to press to get a free AOL chat username, which works.  Connect to AIM.  Add Solstice to my friends list.  It all WORKS!  And Solstice is... offline.  Well, it's Saturday night.  Hours go by and it's just me and rabitguy and that stupid Frank-the-robot-goat that LJ includes on my friends list, even though the only thing it does is post to your journal anything you say to it; I deleted it and then when restarting Kopete, LJ *insisted* that Frank the cute cuddly mascot goat is my friend, whether I want him or not.  I suppose there's no reason to hope that SUP will be any less dictatorial about these things than 6A has been.

Oh, and also there was giza, who was online-but-unavailable because he was at a 'wuffmeet'.  So what's a spottycat doing at a... no, I shouldn't ask.