Today, everyone uses a different instant messenger. Your boss may use Lotus Sametime, your colleague AIM, your friend Google Talk, and your kid Yahoo! Messenger. However, these all take up hard drive space, RAM, and CPU usage. In addition, many of these are proprietary and Windows-only (two big minuses for GNU/Linux users). Luckily, the free software world has several alternatives that enable users to chat with users of all of these programs (and many more). For KDE users, the answer is Kopete.

Note: This is part 3 of an instant messenger series. Part 1 deals with the history of instant messenger clients and protocols. Part 2 talks about the Pidgin instant messenger for GNOME.

History of Kopete

If ICQ hadn’t blocked Licq around Christmas in 2001, Kopete probably wouldn’t have been born. At that time, ICQ had changed their protocol, causing the popular ICQ clone Licq to stop functioning. Since he didn’t want to wait for Licq to fix its problem, Duncan Mac-Vicar Prett began coding a KDE ICQ client. Several weeks later, Prett changed the focus of Kopete to a multi-protocol client and added support for the AIM and MSN protocols. Four months later, emoticons and IRC support were added. Jabber and a better MSN protocol were then released. By 2005, the metacontact, a better IRC protocol, and a Yahoo! protocol had been added. In March of that year, Kopete became a part of the official KDE 3.4 release.

Installation

Kopete is available to virtually all GNU/Linux distributions. If your operating system uses KDE 3.4 or higher, Kopete is probably installed already. If not, it will most likely be available through the default package manager. If you need to build it from source, read the build tips and install tips from the Kopete site.

Kopete is also available for Macintosh OS X 10.4 (Tiger) if you use fink. Read more at the Kopete fink page. Eventually, Kopete may become available for Macintosh and Windows users without fink (probably when KDE 4 comes out with support for these platforms). In the meantime, use the fink version or the native Mac app Adium.

How to set up accounts

Once you have installed Kopete, you want to use it to chat with your friends. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to configure it.

Setting up an AIM account

All you need for Kopete to connect to the most popular IM network in the US is an AIM account (get one here). After that’s settled, open the accounts window by going to Settings→Configure. Under the Accounts section, click the New… button to add an account. Select AIM, and continue. Enter in your screen name, password (optional), and other preferences (you may need to be connected in order to edit these). Then, hit Next. At the last screen, hit Finish. All of your AIM contacts should show up.

Figure 1: AIM account set up

Setting up an ICQ account

Kopete started out as an ICQ client, so of course they have an option to connect to it. All you need is an ICQ # (available here). First, open the accounts window by going to Settings→Configure. Under the Accounts section, click the New… button to add an account. Select ICQ, and continue. Enter in your ICQ #, password (optional), and other preferences (you may need to be connected in order to edit these). Then, hit Next. At the last screen, hit Finish. All of your ICQ contacts should show up.

Figure 2: ICQ account set up

Setting up an MSN (Windows Live) account

We probably all know a lot of people who use the hated Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN Messenger). Luckily, you don’t have to be running Microsoft software to chat with them. Kopete makes it easy to connect to your Windows Live account (available here. First, open the accounts window by going to Settings→Configure. Under the Accounts section, click the New… button to add an account. Select MSN Messenger, and continue. Enter in your MSN Passport ID, password (optional), and other preferences (you may need to be connected in order to edit these). Then, hit Next. At the last screen, hit Finish. All of your Windows Live contacts should show up.

Figure 3: MSN account set up

Setting up a Yahoo! Messenger account

Like Yahoo! Messenger, but feel reluctant to download the 1.x version for GNU/Linux? If you have a Yahoo ID (available here), Kopete will do it for you. First, open the accounts window by going to Settings→Configure. Under the Accounts section, click the New… button to add an account. Select Yahoo, and continue. Enter in your screen name, password (optional), and other preferences (you may need to be connected in order to edit these). Then, hit Next. At the last screen, hit Finish. All of your Yahoo! Messenger contacts should show up.

Figure 4: Yahoo! account set up