Gaim Maintainer Rob Flynn Interviewed

Gaim rules by alatesystems · 2004-09-25 09:04 · Score: 4, Informative

Gaim is really awesome. We use it internally at work for Jabber(internal instant messenging). It's amazing just how many protocols it supports natively. It is a great client even though it's using GTK in windows. I already donated to the gaim project, and so should anyone else who uses it on a regular basis.

I love this project and hope it continues well into the future.

Chris

Re:Gaim rules by lunenburg · 2004-09-25 09:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

I use GAIM's MSN messenger stuff every day to talk to the Windows users on my project, and even use it through a Squid proxy. Works fine for me.

[shrug]
Re:Gaim rules by jilles · 2004-09-25 09:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

It didn't last a full 24 hours on my machine (a windows box). I installed it on a whim last night. At first I was rather pleased with it but then the error messages started appearing (both icq and msn). Also the GTK library for windows is very buggy. I had some problems with tooltips that just wouldn't disappear and the attempt at antialiasing made the GTK widgets stand out as notably blurry compared to the rest of the desktop.

So I am back using miranda-im which does a much better job in being both less intrusive and more feature rich. I've been using it for more than a year and it seems very stable. I was wrong in assuming gaim would offer similar stability.

--

Jilles
Re:Gaim rules by cjpez · 2004-09-25 11:02 · Score: 2, Informative

Windows Gaim != UN*X Gaim
I've been using Gaim for, well, a long time now, and the only problems I've ever had with it were protocol changes from yahoo which meant I had to wait for the next version of Gaim to come out before I could connect again. The Unix versions of Gaim *do* offer the kind of stability you're after, but the Windows port is apparently something else.

--
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
Re:Gaim rules by kundor · 2004-09-25 12:50 · Score: 1

I've been using GAIM primarily for MSN communication for over 2 years. I can recall a whole 2 days out of those 2 years that the MSN wasn't working.
Re:Gaim rules by Beale · 2004-09-25 12:53 · Score: 1

Am I seriously the only person for whom Miranda has never worked (i.e. crashed repeatedly before even getting started up), despite trying it in three different versions of Windows?
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-25 13:07 · Score: 1

I haven't written jack shit, since my time is spent better doing something most programmers *can't* do. Besides, I know I suck at programming so I leave it to someone else.

What I *am* doing is wondering about the 1.0.0 tag when one of the most widespread IM protocols aren't working. Now, that's a fair whine I'd think.

Now, go back to momma and complain about her not giving you a decent sized brain :-).
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-25 13:30 · Score: 1

I've been using Gaim for, well, a long time now

I have as well. The grandparent was a bit trollish, but the problems he mentions are real. With my previous ISP (ADSL PPPOE garbage), my IP address would change 2, maybe 3 times per day on a good day. For some reason, the feeling among Gaim developers is that there is a need for a dialog box to appear every time each protocol reconnects. I think its fantastic that there is now an option to disable the "you have been disconnected" dialog, because that in addition to the reconnect dialog is really too much. That compounded with Metacity wanting to give keyboard focus to every single window that appears. The solution suggested, is to disable auto-reconnect. So then all your protocols just drop offline, and you have to manually reconnect them.

Having said that, Gaim is a fantastic program overall. The advantage Gaim has over the proprietary clients is that I have the ability to fix those problems myself, even if the Gaim developers don't see them as problems. It's just a shame that getting the Gaim clique to agree is like trying to get XFree86 to accept patches, and also that people like the grandparent will be told to go find a patch on the patch tracker if they complain. Just wait, I bet someone has already posted a link to one.

For some background about the tooltips problem mentioned in the grandparent post, please see the thread Freakin' annoying tooltips from February/March of this year (thats not the entire thread either, it was very fragmented over the many weeks). Its a fascinating look into the mind of a developer. How one can justify saying that "options confuse users", and therefor they should simply open up their prefs.xml in a text editor, locate the option to set a timeout for the tooltip, and set that to some obscenely large number so that the tooltips never appear.

Its a good thing nobody was confused by the appearance of an option like "disable buddy list tooltips".
Re:Gaim rules by arodland · 2004-09-25 13:35 · Score: 1

Yeah, unfortunately GTK+ for win32 is still less than stable after all these years. But I use gaim and gimp on windows anyway, gaim because I'm used to using it everywhere else, and gimp because it's wonderfully free. Pisses me off when I lose my work in gimp running it on windows, but it's gotten me into a very good saving and note-taking habit :)
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-25 13:47 · Score: 1

when one of the most widespread IM protocols aren't working

Which one would that be? I'm currently online with MSN, ICQ, AOL, Yahoo, and IRC in Gaim.
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-25 14:23 · Score: 1

Exactly, MSN, ICQ, AOL, YAHOO are the most widely used IM's.. and if you include jabber I think you just about rounded up all of the ones people use (I don't consider IRC an IM btw, I do use it a lot however, but I prefer irssi as my client ;-).

Now, imagine you have an even percentage of friends using each of the 4 major protocols.. and MSN doesn't work, SLAM you're not able to IM 25% of your friends. I can tell you something else, MSN as a IM protocol has a lot more users than 25% in europe (unfortunately, I much prefer ICQ ;-).

All in all, calling something 1.0.0 when its clearly not, is.. well.. bogus :-). Had they called it 0.99.9 i couldn't have cared less, but 1.0.0 implies a fully functional product.
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-25 14:36 · Score: 1
calling something 1.0.0 when its clearly not, is.. well.. bogus

Well, let me be the first to tell you that the decision to call it Gaim 1.0.0 had nothing to do with Gaim itself. The major factors were that people kept asking when 1.0 would happen, and that Gaim's previous version number scheme conflicted with what most packages use (being major.minor.micro).

But my question was, which protocol is broken? You said:
- when one of the most widespread IM protocols aren't working. Now, that's a fair whine I'd think
Now that we've both agreed that all the major ones are working, I'm curious which protocol it is that isn't working for you.
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-25 14:45 · Score: 1

Eh, I stated that in the "sub"-parent ;-). E.g. my first post in this thread. But to make it clear: MSN is the protocol that has never worked for me (and several others).

I believe its possible for third party clients to get it working. Its working fine with Miranda-IM, its working with Amsn (or was, been a long time since i tried that). Its working with trillian. But it's NOT working with gaim.
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-25 14:57 · Score: 1

MSN is the protocol that has never worked for me (and several others)

I can't imagine what you're doing wrong. I can assure you it does work, and even back when Microsoft was sending out messages indicating that Gaim wouldn't work in the future, it remained working. But stick with what works I guess. I doubt anybody at Gaim HQ is going to miss you.
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-25 15:09 · Score: 1

I agree, its quite sad :-). Only trouble is I like gaim, and I want to use it, but I can't :-(.
Re:Gaim rules by letxa2000 · 2004-09-25 16:57 · Score: 1

No offence, but MSN has never EVER worked for me with gaim.
Works fine here, including file transfers. Have no idea what you're talking about.
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-25 18:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

What is with the "troll" thing around here?

A Troll is related to the 'flaimbait' moderation. It's like saying "I was wrong in assuming gaim would offer similar stability" in a thread celebrating the achievements of Gaim. It serves no purpose other than to attract a whole bunch of people telling you to go screw yourself.

I don't want to lose any more karma then I have left

That's a mistake. Karma is just a silly thing that it says on your user page. Nobody sees it but you, and it really means nothing. Anybody who has posted many comments has "Karma: Excellent" there unless all they do is post nonsense. Speak your mind, screw the groupthink.
Re:Gaim rules by PastaLover · 2004-09-26 00:36 · Score: 1

You're using a proxy probably? Yeah that doesn't work. :-)
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-26 00:59 · Score: 1

nope, I'm not using a proxy. I am however using a non hotmail email for it ;-).
Re:Gaim rules by PastaLover · 2004-09-26 04:02 · Score: 1

Are you building your own binaries? You need to have libgnutls?-dev installed for msn while building (for the encryption stuff when logging in). If you're using rpms, don't force them or anything and make sure they depend on a TLS library such as libgnutls.
Re:Gaim rules by pugdk · 2004-09-26 04:14 · Score: 1

I'm just using the .exe installer found on the gaim website...
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-26 08:25 · Score: 1

The following menu path will enable you to disable popups in the newest versions (from memory)

That is the "You have been disconnected" dialog, as well as the 'Unable to connect' dialog It's this one that serves no purpose, and can't be turned off without patching the source. If you are disconnected, or the MSN server is down or whatever, it will continue to harass you with those until you disable auto-reconnect.

Typically when those dialogs come up, I'm busy typing something and it comes up focused on the cancel button. So by the time I've had a chance to even see the thing, and realize its there, I've already cancelled it. Gaim updates the docklet to tell you when its connecting, why shouldn't the docklet suppress that dialog, at the very least until a connection succeeds. It doesn't even just come up once and reconnect them all. You get one per account usually about 15 seconds or so apart.
Re:Gaim rules by Curtman · 2004-09-26 11:50 · Score: 1

you are a f&*^king sell out. we don't even need msn

Hahaha. Right on, thats the way to troll. You sure told me.

Balls out trolling.

I love GAIM but ... by SpooForBrains · 2004-09-25 09:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

GAIM is great, because it keeps pushing the boundaries of IM functionality on Linux, BUT that said, I keep switching back to Kopete, mainly because it integrates with KDE. For an IM client, intergration with the desktop is paramount IMHO.

--
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"

Re:I love GAIM but ... by IntergalacticWalrus · 2004-09-25 15:08 · Score: 1

KDE ugly? You're referring to Keramik I guess? That theme nobody uses anymore? News flash: KDE is themable.
Re:I love GAIM but ... by xsecrets · 2004-09-25 17:44 · Score: 1

I've tried kopete several times, and it is comming along quite nicely, but the one HUGE option that it does not have is autoreconnect. All of the IM protocols I use disconnect on a regular basis, and with kopete I keep having to open the budy window to see if I'm online. If they added that one feature I would seriously concider switching.
Re:I love GAIM but ... by Tolleman · 2004-09-25 19:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

And in my humble opinion, basicly all of them are ugly.
Re: I love GAIM but ... by Adhemar · 2004-09-25 23:57 · Score: 1

There are some GNOME bounties, one of which is worth US$ 2000, for those who implement some features integrating Gaim with GNOME.

gaim is great by deviantonline · 2004-09-25 09:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have been using gaim for sometime over msn/icq and I think its fantastic! It is very stable and has been a staple of my linux desktop for some time. I have also converted many of my windows based friends to the program as well. One thing that is so nice about open source software is that in many cases it is available on multiple platforms.

--

spend money here

You know it's popular when... by Justin205 · 2004-09-25 09:06 · Score: 5, Funny

You get beer donated. ;-)

Seriously, money is overrated. Send food, send beer, and then you'll really motivate many developers. :-P

--
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."

I use it everywhere... by Lispy · 2004-09-25 09:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's the Firefox of InstantMessenging. My friends adopt it quite easy. It's actually a shame it isn't part of the OpenCD. But I guess that's because it uses GTK (wich is great for a Gnome addict such as me.) ;-)

Re:I use it everywhere... by bizpile · 2004-09-25 09:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's actually a shame it isn't part of the OpenCD

But it is on GNUWin, which is, in my opinion, slightly better that OpenCD (which itself is very good). It's how I got started converting my Windows box to only open source programs (except Windows, of course).
Re:I use it everywhere... by cos(0) · 2004-09-25 11:50 · Score: 1

Gaim is, though, part of the Open Source Software CD which I maintain.

The reason by vijaya_chandra · 2004-09-25 09:10 · Score: 5, Funny

From the interview
I had met a girl at the beach that used AIM, and I had no way to talk to her, so, I joined the project to help development.

Now I know why I don't have any good projects to my name.
Time to spend more time on the beach I suppose.

Re:The reason by tdvaughan · 2004-09-25 09:36 · Score: 5, Funny

He could have just....talked to her, but noooo - he had to go and write a program to do it. God help him when he wants to have kids ;).
Re:The reason by randominator · 2004-09-25 09:44 · Score: 5, Funny

Girlfriend? Fast sports car(s)? Only 24? Social life on the beach? Maintainer on Gaim? What the bloody hell is going on?!? Sure makes me feel like a real achiever, yeah... If you want me, I'll be over there in the corner, hiding under a blanket and sobbing.
Re:The reason by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-25 09:51 · Score: 1, Funny

> He could have just....talked to her, but noooo - he had to go and write a program to do it. God help him when he wants to have kids

Um... GSEX? :ducks:
Re:The reason by adam+mcmaster · 2004-09-25 10:20 · Score: 1

Does anyone else find it odd that he got her AIM ID, but not her phone number?
Re:The reason by TheBurningDog · 2004-09-25 10:31 · Score: 5, Funny

obviously a mistranslation by the interviewer...

I'm sure he meant #thebeach
Re:The reason by SpaceLifeForm · 2004-09-25 10:35 · Score: 4, Funny

Just another tunneling setup problem, right?
Right?

--
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Re:The reason by PedanticSpellingTrol · 2004-09-25 10:54 · Score: 1

I tried that once... It turned out that she was an aol usesr and it was also her email address, so a few university directory, reverse phone-lookup, mapquest and terraserver queries later, I had aerial photos of her house. Then I drew her into conversation about the dangers of ever more prolific databases in our society and the corrolary loss of privacy, demonstrated my methods, and got "OMG! Cool!" in response. A few months later we accidentally went through security at a military base on our way to see Fahrenheit 9/11. Ahh, paranoid love.
Re:The reason by FuzzyBad-Mofo · 2004-09-25 11:11 · Score: 2, Funny

He could have just....talked to her, but noooo - he had to go and write a program to do it.

Typical lazy programmer. For instance, somebody sent me some ROT-13 encoded text the other day, and I was too lazy to decode it manually or find a program, so I wrote my own decoder in Javascript.. :)
Re:The reason by wolssiloa · 2004-09-25 11:26 · Score: 1

if it's any consolation, he said he sold the cars, but then he may have bought a real sports car to replace those two ^^;
Re:The reason by Deusy · 2004-09-25 11:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Girlfriend? Fast sports car(s)? Only 24? Social life on the beach? Maintainer on Gaim? What the bloody hell is going on?!? Sure makes me feel like a real achiever, yeah... If you want me, I'll be over there in the corner, hiding under a blanket and sobbing."

Yeah, I felt real sorry for the guy too. It's a real heart wrencher. Reminds me of buddy the puppy... *sobs* the... the... the heart of a champion!

--
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
Re:The reason by pyite · 2004-09-25 12:43 · Score: 1

Err... learn to use UNIX utilities more.
tr a-zA-Z n-za-mN-ZA-M < filename

--
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Re:The reason by djcapelis · 2004-09-25 18:08 · Score: 1

Conviently you also wrote an encoder. :)

--
I touch computers in naughty places

Gaim. by Eeknay · 2004-09-25 09:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

Gaim is a good program, I've been using it for a while now, but last time I formatted my computer, it kept dropping the connection to MSN... despite the fact that my ports are forwarded correctly, and it was working just fine previously. So I've had to revert back to MSN Messenger 6.2, where there's no problem. Otherwise, it's a great little program.

Re:Gaim. by Whyte · 2004-09-25 09:33 · Score: 2, Informative

You probably didn't have the newest version of GAIM installed, or you were using it right after MSN changed their protocol.

Since the various IM's keep changing their protocols, GAIM is constently needed to patch those changes. They have a rather quick release cycle though, which is one of the main reason I continue to use it.

Viva la Gaim!

--
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Re:Gaim. by Eeknay · 2004-09-25 09:45 · Score: 1

I was using 0.8.2, but I just downloaded 1.0.0, and I get the same disconnect. Actually, it's a new error, in that it can't communicate with the MSN HTTP server (or something to that effect).
Re:Gaim. by einhverfr · 2004-09-25 11:59 · Score: 1

Haven't had this problem.

I do drop back to tkabber sometimes because advanced jabber features are not really easy or even possible to access from gaim.

Gaim is really nice for basic stuff with Jabber, but tkabber is much better if you need to do admin stuff, better off-line message/conversation differences, etc.

Gaim is a great project, but I would like to see a more complete Jabber interface.

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

GTK Runtime on Win32 by flonker · 2004-09-25 09:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

Since the dropline win32 GTK runtime distribution is no longer maintained, are they rolling their own? They have a standalone GTK installer download, but where did it come from?

Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by rainwater · 2004-09-25 09:59 · Score: 2, Informative

Since the dropline win32 GTK runtime distribution is no longer maintained, are they rolling their own?

Yes, they have developed their own gtk installer.
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by xant · 2004-09-25 10:40 · Score: 1

http://gladewin32.sourceforge.net/ makes excellent GTK installers for windows, btw. Better than GAIM's imho, because it includes more things you need for Python development :-)

--
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by flonker · 2004-09-25 12:30 · Score: 1

Thank you! I shall look into this, and hopefully it'll work with our project.
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by mikefe · 2004-09-25 18:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

The maintainer of dropline gtk said:

"I suggest users instead download the GTK+ libraries Tor Lillqvist builds ands hosts at www.gimp.org/win32. As the leading Win32 GTK+ developer, he is in the best position to release compiled binaries, and users will have the fewest head-aches by sticking with his packages."
here.

Which is exactly what I've been doing, even though I just heard of dropline.

It would be nice if Tor's gtk would allow multiple generations of the library to be installed at once. There was a (short) time when I couldn't upgrade from gimp 2.0.1 to 2.0.2 because gimp switched to gtk+ 2.4.x and gaim was still on gtk+ 2.2.x. A new version of gaim fixed that up a few weeks later. It wasn't a big issue for me, but I'd immagine it could if you have more apps that use gtk on windows and need multiple versions of gtk installed.

That said it would be nice to have gtk in a project with bug tracking like gladewin32 seems to have.

Has anyone tried gladewin32 with gimp?

--
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by tml · 2004-09-26 02:48 · Score: 1

It would be nice if Tor's gtk would allow multiple generations of the library to be installed at once.
But it does. Just install them in different places, and set PATH to point to the "bin" folder of the version you want to use.

Whether installers allow it or not is another thing, but that's their problem. I don't do installers.
Re:GTK Runtime on Win32 by mikefe · 2004-09-26 08:21 · Score: 1

The problem is that by default, the gtk+ 2.4.x is installed in c:\program files...gtk/2.0... (I forget the full path, and I'm not at a windows box here at home)

IMHO gtk 2.2.x should have been in c:\program files...gtk/2.2 and gtk 2.4.x should be in c:\program files...gtk/2.4... and the programs compiled against gtk should look for their gtk generation (2.2.x or 2.4.x or etc) there without any global environment variables being set.

My point is not that it is not possible, it is that the defaults do not make it easy without a lot of reconfiguration. And the easier it is to install in a desktop environment (because reinstalls are so common in the windows world) the more (likely) it will be deployed.

--
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.

gaim is great, and I especially like Adium by Trepidity · 2004-09-25 09:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

When I use OS X, I really like Adium. It uses libgaim for its messaging, but has its own native-OSX GUI. I think the GTK gaim could learn a few things that are particularly nice about Adium too---I like how it highlights your buddy's names in the buddy list with color codes depending on current messaging status: green if they're currently typing, blue if they've typed something into a window you haven't checked since then, etc.

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:gaim is great, and I especially like Adium by kjones692 · 2004-09-25 09:41 · Score: 1

Adium's great, but its support of Direct Connections and file transfers is abysmal; I always have to open up iChat or AIM to transfer files. It's great in almost all other respects; why'd they have to go and screw up that one critical aspect?

--

Love the Third Amendment?
Re:gaim is great, and I especially like Adium by Juanvaldes · 2004-09-25 10:32 · Score: 1

because it's not done? For now you can see the progress by opening up console.
Re:gaim is great, and I especially like Adium by Fancia · 2004-09-25 17:51 · Score: 1

Adium is nice enough, but the spell-checking drove me up the wall. I prefer to do my own manual spell-checking, and as far as I can tell there's no way to turn it off.

--

Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!

Why integrate everything into the DE? by tetromino · 2004-09-25 09:22 · Score: 1, Interesting

For an IM client, intergration with the desktop is paramount IMHO.

I don't see why. An IM client has fairly unsual UI requirements, so it seems unfair for it to follow the look'n'feel standards of the DE too closely. The only argument for integration with the DE is the contact list (being able to see if the guy who sent you an email is online), which isn't compelling enough IMHO.

I keep switching back to Kopete
I think Kopete is nice, but it suffers because its UI is too KDE-ish. Having to follow two levels in the context menus to do common actions just so that the structure of the context menu follows the KDE standards? Blargh.

Re:If he's 24 how did he install slackware at age by torstenvl · 2004-09-25 09:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

He's 24 in late September of '04 which means he was 12 in late September of '92. Which means he could have remained 12 until September of '93. That's two thirds of the year in question. So what was your beef with his claim again?

Wow. by mind21_98 · 2004-09-25 09:23 · Score: 1

This guy got a job offer (assuming it's IT) out of high school. He officially rules. :)

--
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature

Re:Wow. by auntfloyd · 2004-09-25 09:49 · Score: 1

Well, it was 1998, when the economy was booming, and IT budgest were huge. Pretty common, actually. Not to say he's not a great programmer (c'mon, Gaim rules. Admit it).
Re:Wow. by jrockway · 2004-09-25 10:45 · Score: 1

And interstingly, the most recent major security vulnerability (you can take over the computer with one IM) was in code contributed by Novell. Scary!!

link http://cr.yp.to/2004-494/gaim.html

--
My other car is first.
Re:Wow. by kundor · 2004-09-25 13:01 · Score: 1

gunzip < gaim-0.81.tar.gz | tar -xf -

Why do all sorts of instructions and manuals instruct people to use this hairy command, instead of just
tar xzf gaim-0.81.tar.gz
??
An insistence on making the command line look scarier than it is? Does it make them feel more geekly?
Re:Wow. by JFitzsimmons · 2004-09-25 16:23 · Score: 1

I have an IT job and I'm still in High School. I would't exactly say that I rule, but if you think I do, than more power to you. If you don't... why should I care? Just pointing it out.

--
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
Re:Wow. by pipacs · 2004-09-26 02:27 · Score: 1

Option "z" only works for GNU tar. Many older Unixes don't have it.

New features? by wicka_wicka · 2004-09-25 09:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

Maybe, before they start adding new features, they should work more on getting the thing completely stable. If I read a couple of my friend's infos, it crashes. If I reconnect and it doesn't work, it crashes. I think that should be a higher priority than a damn webcam.

--
hi

Re:New features? by big+daddy+kane · 2004-09-25 09:38 · Score: 1

yeah that happens to me too. it's an awesome program but it's still lacking a few things. such as file transfer compatability with the windows AIM client!
Re:New features? by DigitalRaptor · 2004-09-25 09:40 · Score: 1

Make sure you are running the latest version.

I use Gaim under XP and it has been very stable. Try upgrading your GTK, too, assuming you are on windows.

My experience with Gaim has been good, once I got used to it and they released a few upgrades. 1.0 is rock solid.

--
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Re:New features? by lakiolen · 2004-09-25 09:49 · Score: 1

I'm running Gaim v1.0.0 under XP and I've had it crash multiple times. Also it likes to eat up all the available cpu time when focusing any of its windows (might be because i have transparency set, but it didn't do this in v0.82)

--

What are you expecting to find here?
Re:New features? by dejamatt · 2004-09-25 10:09 · Score: 1

If I read a couple of my friend's infos, it crashes.

Someone told me to turn on "Ignore font faces" in Preferences > Conversations > Message Text, and that fixed the problem with it crashing when I check certain people's infos. My guess is that it can't handle fonts you don't have installed or something like that.
Re:New features? by wicka_wicka · 2004-09-25 10:11 · Score: 1

Thanks dejamatt, I'll try that. The funny thing is that it only ever happened with two people, and since I've upgraded to 1.0.0 it only happens with one guy...here's one thing that pisses me off: there's nothing better than Gaim, so I guess I'm rather screwed.

--
hi
Re:New features? by sp0rk173 · 2004-09-25 10:14 · Score: 1

...the webcam version is a fork...it's not being developed in the official code repository by the main developers. But I agree, there are definitely some rought edges that need to be fixed (and i'm sure they are). If they really both you? Learn C and fix them. In the world of open source, you are only at the mercy of the developers if you choose not to code.
Re:New features? by wicka_wicka · 2004-09-25 10:24 · Score: 1

They don't really bother me enough to go learn C and fix them myself, but it does bother me that they manage to ignore all these bugs and start working on other features. You'd think at the very least they'd get file transfer implemented correctly.

--
hi
Re:New features? by DigitalRaptor · 2004-09-25 14:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, I have zero need for eye candy, so I don't have any turned on.

In fact, I really have a rather vanilla install, with 10 buddies on 4 different protocols.

But I use it quite frequently, and it hasn't crashed yet.

--
Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Re:New features? by xsecrets · 2004-09-25 17:49 · Score: 1

It can do file transfers with windows aim client. It just can't do them when both parties are behind NAT with no ports forwarded.
Re:New features? by Technonotice_Dom · 2004-09-26 07:03 · Score: 1

If the guy doesn't mind (although if it's MSN, then you could do it without adding him to the list) then file a bug report against Gaim (http://gaim.sf.net/) and give the developers an example they can test against. They should be able to track down a problem quite easily if they have an example of what is crashing it.

Re:One thing lets GAIM down badly by torstenvl · 2004-09-25 09:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Resizing is handled in the window manager. This is one of the 'problems' of the modularization of X. To repaint in the middle of a resize, the widget set would have to poll constantly for window size. That's a stupid waste of resources.

Trillian? by __int64 · 2004-09-25 09:29 · Score: 1

Anybody else here use Trillian? Besides the fact that it doesn't run on Linux and there's a pay version, how would you guys compare it to GAIM?

Re:Trillian? by DigitalRaptor · 2004-09-25 09:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

I like Trillian, a lot, but switched to Gaim as part of a moral stand in support of Open Source, and haven't regretted the switch.

1.0 is great and stable. I use ICQ / AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber, all simultaneously and it works pretty much flawlessly.

My MSN always shows me as offline and they can't send me messages, but I can send them messages. I strongly suspect this is some screwiness with the MSN protocol.

All in all I really like Gaim, and don't really miss Trillian. At the same time I switched from Office to Open Office, and haven't regretted that switch either.

Eventually I'll lose XP altogether, but I still use Dreamweaver MX 2004, which doesn't have an Open Source WYSIWYG counterpart as far as I've been able to find, so I'm stuck here for the time being (and no, crossover office / wine don't work).

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Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Re:Trillian? by Beale · 2004-09-25 12:57 · Score: 1

Trillian's UI bugged me constantly, for the whole month or so I used it. And yes, I tried other skins and they were all equally nasty.
Re:Trillian? by kundor · 2004-09-25 13:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

but I still use Dreamweaver MX 2004, which doesn't have an Open Source WYSIWYG counterpart as far as I've been able to find,

Quanta claims parity with Dreamweaver.
It's part of KDE, so you'd need to switch to linux to use it -- of course, you can always use knoppix to try it out without doing anything to your computer, and see if it meets your needs.
From what I understand, the next release of Quanta is supposed to be a big leap forward, the php debugger is getting a lot of praise.
http://quanta.sourceforge.net/main2.php?snapfile=s nap04
They're also going to update their embarassingly ugly website, apparently.
Re:Trillian? by DigitalRaptor · 2004-09-25 14:20 · Score: 1

Thanks for the heads up! That looks like a great project.

I'll fire up VMWare and give it a try.

There are so many things that I hate about Dreamweaver, and just a few things that keep me there. It really isn't one of the last things holding me to windows.

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Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix
Re:Trillian? by pebs · 2004-09-25 15:18 · Score: 1

Anybody else here use Trillian? Besides the fact that it doesn't run on Linux and there's a pay version, how would you guys compare it to GAIM?

Trillian is a giant turd compared to Gaim for Linux. But unfortunately, Gaim for Windows is not so hot because of the sucky GTK+ port.

--
#!/

Another true believer by saur2004 · 2004-09-25 09:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ever since they solved a nasty little persistent crash problem that was happening in Windows, Ive become a real fan of GAIM.

One suggestion I would make though.

On IRCs make the default character coding ISO-8859-1

I was on a server that had a channel name spelled with a "tilde e" which was consistently causing problems for UTF-8

Re:Another true believer by StevenHenderson · 2004-09-25 17:32 · Score: 1

I just downloaded it today, and I have it crash every time I check certain away messages. Do you have any idea how to fix this?
Re:Another true believer by ManiaX+Killerian · 2004-09-25 19:33 · Score: 1

A better idea, make the encoding configurable for all protocols, so I won't have to support this patch to be able to read messages in cyrillic...

We're just poor kids by Judg3 · 2004-09-25 09:36 · Score: 1

Ok, so we see "I owned two twin-turboed Mitsubishi 3000GTs" and then we see "We're just poor kids".

So which is it? And if that's whats classified as poor in your neck of the woods, then damn it I'm moving! :P

--
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!

What's with the Trillian ref? by maggard · 2004-09-25 09:41 · Score: 1

LQ) Having gone through the licensing ordeal with Trillian, do you have any comments on some of the recent GPL-related incidents?
RF) We're just trying ot handle them as we find out about them. We try to be upfront with the offenders and hope that they "do the right thing" so that we don't have to take more extreme measures. This usually works pretty well.

Umm, "...licensing ordeal with Trillian", "We try to be upfront with the offenders...", anyone care to explain/elaborate?

Should I be feeling uncomfortable about using Trillian?

--
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.

Re:What's with the Trillian ref? by Tezkah · 2004-09-25 09:50 · Score: 4, Informative

No, it was suspected that the Cerulean Studios were using GPL code in Trillian, but it has been determined to be false.
Re:What's with the Trillian ref? by JFitzsimmons · 2004-09-25 18:05 · Score: 1

There's also These Fucktards too.

--
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous
Re:What's with the Trillian ref? by trashme · 2004-09-25 18:46 · Score: 1

I'm not quite sure how you can so decisively say that it was confirmed false when the link you gave has some questions about that conclusion. Also this reply flat out rejects the conclusion that Trillian was not using GPLed code.

Re:We're just poor kids by DigitalRaptor · 2004-09-25 09:44 · Score: 1

It's not like he said Ferrari's or some other expensive exotic car.

My wifes new Ford F-150 cost as much as a 3000GT did.

He probably had a couple $400 car payments. Easy to cover for anyone with a good work ethic and self control.

No big deal. Get over it.

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Lose Weight and Feel Great with Isagenix

Separate upgrades for protocol plugins? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-25 09:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

GAIM is one of my favorite open source projects, and a wonderful app in itself. However, one thing annoys me: the fact that I have to upgrade the whole thing for every minor protocol change.

As in, when Yahoo! or MSN makes a switch to its protocols, I can't just download a file and fix it - I have to get a whole new package, or recompile, and so forth. This is particularly frustrating as newer GAIM releases (naturally) use newer GTK libraries and then all the libraries that depends on. Turns it into a Microsoft-esque upgrade cycle!

It'd be nice if I could just install GAIM 1.0, and then keep it like that for a few years, upgrading the protocol plugins whenever necessary. It'd save a lot of time, and mean I don't need to keep upgrading Glib, GTK, and a million other things (that tend to get heavier with each release) just to keep on chatting.

Perhaps I'm missing something - any thoughts on this? Either way, good work GAIM crew!

Make Demands! by maggard · 2004-09-25 09:48 · Score: 1

Maybe, before they start adding new features, they should work more on getting the thing completely stable. If I read a couple of my friend's infos, it crashes. If I reconnect and it doesn't work, it crashes. I think that should be a higher priority than a damn webcam.

Demand your money back!

Oh wait...

Demand the developers do as you say!

Uh, hmmm...

Demand you be able to give developers money to do as you say!

Or, ummm...

Do it yourself?

--
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.

gaim, ehhhh by miseryinmotion · 2004-09-25 09:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

This will probably be modded as a troll considering it isn't the common Slashdot opinion, but oh well.

I've used gaim off and on over the past year, (on both Linux and windows) and found that the windows port really doesn't compare at all to the Linux version, and to put it simply, on windows, it's really just a waste of resources.

For all the windows users that can't stand the bloated msn messenger or latest official aim client, I suggest at least checking out Miranda. I was introduced to it a few weeks ago by a long time gaim user (who was fed up with all the inconsistencies and problems with gaim under windows) and have been using Miranda almost exclusively since then. Albeit, it has some current issues with file transfers, but I'm sure that's only a momentary problem.

Re:gaim, ehhhh by HungSquirrel · 2004-09-25 10:12 · Score: 1

Don't worry, Gaim has problems with file transfers too. Am I the only one here who has NEVER had a successful AIM file transfer when using Gaim? Don't get me wrong, I love Gaim and use it in both Linux and Windows, but I don't like having to switch to AOL's official client every time I see a Direct Connect dialog pop up.

--
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
Re:gaim, ehhhh by finker · 2004-09-25 10:56 · Score: 1

I guess we're all in the same boat. I can't get Direct Connect to work worth beans with Gaim on Windows. I'm not behind a router or anything like that, and I sure know I have my firewall setup correctly, it just always fails to connect. As soon as I wait 30 minutes for AIM to start, Direct Connect works fine. Also, I love Miranda, I really do. I used it for a couple days and I must say, it's better than Gaim on Windows. However, I couldn't get over the fact that because they use the TOC protocol and not the OCSAR protocol, I couldn't view my contacts away message. It might sound silly, but that's the only reason I switched back to Gaim. Once OSCAR is supported, I think I'll probably be ditching Gaim (as long as the folks at Miranda fix some of the bugs that cause the client to crash everytime I try and configure something). Cheers.
Re:gaim, ehhhh by Minna+Kirai · 2004-09-25 11:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Am I the only one here who has NEVER had a successful AIM file transfer when using Gaim?

Hate to talk like an AOLer, but "me too!". The frustrating part is that this is clearly a widespread problem, but it never gets documented on the gaim FAQ or changelog.

(I haven't used gaim in a while, so I just installed the latest to check that it was still broken before replying. I discovered that they've managed to sink the Open File dialog box to previously unimaginable lows- worse than any other GTK program I've seen so far)
Re:gaim, ehhhh by pebs · 2004-09-25 15:21 · Score: 1

I would hope that IS common Slashdot opinion, because Gaim for Windows really does suck. I mostly blame the GTK+ port for that. I would like to see the seperation of core and GUI to fully happen and would like to a see a native Windows GUI written using the Gaim core.

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#!/
Re:gaim, ehhhh by xsecrets · 2004-09-25 17:53 · Score: 1

I agree that this is a widespread problem, and until recently I had never been able to get it to work either, but the other day I opened the proper port and tested with my brother and direct connect and file transfers worked.

Thanks for GAIM and all it's offsprings by xiando · 2004-09-25 09:52 · Score: 3, Informative

What I really like about Gaim is the libraries, they have been the basis for many other excellent tools. Like BitlBee http://www.bitlbee.org/, a very nice gateway that allows you to talk to anyone using anything through your irc client. Aterm + Screen + Irssi is my personal favorite communication's suite.

BitlBee Guide - Talk to msn, icq and jabber contacts using any IRC client: http://linuxreviews.org/software/irc/bitlbee/

--
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation

Anyone know? by knewman_1971 · 2004-09-25 09:57 · Score: 1

Did they ever fix the issue with global away messages? (Issue being that there weren't any!) That was the one thing I always hated about Gaim, and the reason I never even bothered with the Windows version when I switched back to the dark side.

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where is the "I feel for ya, but that's some funny ass shit" moderation?

Re:Anyone know? by yipyow · 2004-09-25 13:15 · Score: 1

Gaim has had this feature for a long time. Click: Away -> set all away -> pick the away message. Some crappy protocols (MSN, Yahoo) only support predefined away messages.
Re:Anyone know? by knewman_1971 · 2004-09-26 15:24 · Score: 1

So, what you're saying is "no, they have not fixed this." If Trillian can code around the problem, I would expect Gaim could as well. When I spoke to the developers about it, they sent me some CVS code that supposedly could be modified to make it work, but they didn't have plans at that time to fix it.

--
where is the "I feel for ya, but that's some funny ass shit" moderation?

Re:I beg to differ by smacktits · 2004-09-25 10:02 · Score: 2, Informative

I second that. I was a user of Trillian Professional and was most impressed, but after finding out about Miranda I never bought another copy of Trillian.

Phonegaim? by Goonie · 2004-09-25 10:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Lindows people have hacked voice chat into gaim. They've called it PhoneGaim, and they claim they'd like to merge this into the main gaim tree.

This functionality would be extremely nice to have. Does anybody know if there actually any plans to make this merge happen?

--

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)

Re:Phonegaim? by seringen · 2004-09-25 12:01 · Score: 1

Phonegaim is just http://gaim-vv.sourceforge.net/ packaged nicely. And yeah, they've been saying for a long time now that they'll merge it back in when it gets stable.
Re:Phonegaim? by seringen · 2004-09-25 12:09 · Score: 1

i take it back, i was wrong. phonegaim is something else. Knowing that Lindows is a big supporter of gaim, i wouldn't be surprised if at some point it gets hooked back in
Re:Phonegaim? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-26 02:19 · Score: 2, Informative

Phonegaim will not merge, because the code is too different from gaim. However gaim-vv will eventually merge. See this bugreport for extra info http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=deta il&aid=993724&group_id=235&atid=35023

Re:I beg to differ by teprrr · 2004-09-25 10:05 · Score: 1

So, well, I just think it's sad that Gnome and KDE users have to lean on Gaim for an IM'ing solution right now.
Well, there's Kopete for KDE users and at least it's enough for me. I can communicate via MSN with a couple of friends who don't irc and Kopete works just fine for this.

Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users? by fire-eyes · 2004-09-25 10:12 · Score: 1, Funny

Darn, I wish I had known this was going to happen, I'd have asked him why they're such asshats (especially Sean) to Gentoo devs and users.

This mainly stems from this bug.

--
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.

Just don't use GroupWise... by generationxyu · 2004-09-25 10:16 · Score: 1

Or anyone can overflow the keyword buffer when it's parsing RTF messages.

"Oh, but GroupWise uses SSL so it's not vulnerable to attack..."

But gaim doesn't check the cert.

"Oh, but you can plainly see, in the unchecked for loop that overflows keyword, it only allows alphabetic characters, so you couldn't put shellcode in it."

But the x86 has several instructions that pass isalpha(). Use GroupWise on gaim and ride my 'AI' NOP sled.

--
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.

so talented by The_reformant · 2004-09-25 10:19 · Score: 1

wow! and he can code too...who'd have thunk it http://www.machinehead1.com/bio.html

--
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this post is too small to contain.

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by erikharrison · 2004-09-25 10:21 · Score: 1

GTK had issues on Win32, expecially early on. This made Gaim hard to use, and I had lots of periodic crashes. On Windows, I _still_ prefered it to Trillian.

I wanted to use Trillian so bad, but it had one of the worst interfaces I have ever used. Period. Those of you getting ready to yell at me, are you using .78, the free version, or are you using 1.x the pay version? The pay version's only signifigant advantage to me was the interface didn't suck ass. "nowhere near ready for 1.0" - Ha! Apparently neither was the free version of Trillian, in the developer's mind.

Gaim's core is stable and fabulous. It's the basis of just about every instant messaging client outside of windows.

As for your complaints about MSN, I wonder how many of those are parts of the protocols design that the maintainer speaks of. I left MSN because I had problems with the MSN client and with Trillian - contant disconnects, and obscure errors.

IM test bots? by rduke15 · 2004-09-25 10:26 · Score: 1

Never tried IM before. Are there some IM test bots around, with whom I could have a little chat to try it out?

Maybe someone like Eliza? My regular therapist being on holidays...

Re:IM test bots? by Quattro+Vezina · 2004-09-25 10:58 · Score: 2, Informative

Well, I know that AIM has SmarterChild. Dunno about other networks tho.

--
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Re:IM test bots? by rduke15 · 2004-09-25 11:26 · Score: 1

Thanks. Didn't work, though. Maybe because I'm on ICQ, and that is on AIM. Someone have another suggestion?
Re:IM test bots? by Minna+Kirai · 2004-09-25 11:40 · Score: 2, Informative
Maybe because I'm on ICQ, and that is on AIM.

If you haven't used IM before, you shouldn't be on ICQ. Sign up for AIM (or MSN, yahoo, or whatever).

Here's another way to test AIM:
1. AOLSafetyBot: Hi ya! I'm the AOLSafetyBot, and I'm here to answer your questions about how to stay safe online. Type privacy to read my Privacy Policy. Ask me a question or type menu for a list of options.
Re:IM test bots? by rduke15 · 2004-09-25 12:20 · Score: 1

OK. It worked through AIM. Thanks.

That SafetyBot is funny. It reminded me of the pre-Windows days, and telnet or Dos menu interfaces. And reminded me of Compuserve (not surprisingly since they are the same company now) in the late eighties, and it's weird universe.
Re:IM test bots? by rduke15 · 2004-09-27 10:22 · Score: 1

Seriously though, it's 2004 and you don't know a single person who uses any Instant Messenger client whatsoever?

Well, yes. Seriously. Maybe it's because it seems to have started on services like AOL or MSN, on which I never knew anybody (I used to have a CompuServe address, but that was more than 10 years ago). Maybe it's a generation thing (I'm 40). For synchronous communication, the phone seems more practical. For asynchronous, which I tend to prefer, there's email. I sort of never quite saw the point in IM, except maybe for some very special circumstances, of which I can't imagine an example right now.

Anyway, I managed to test Gaim, so if some day I feel it could be useful, it's there.

That's the problem with being a stupid technophile: I always prefer exploring some technology which I don't need, rather than doing something useful like earning money with the technology I already know...

Only one minor problem by SCHecklerX · 2004-09-25 10:33 · Score: 1

It's the same one I have with firefox. I use this on my libretto, which has a 800x480 screen. The hard-coded configuration window is taller than that.

It would be nice if the config window came up at a reasonable size.

This seems like it could be an issue as IM seems like one of the 'killer apps' for smaller computers.

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by cynyr · 2004-09-25 10:37 · Score: 1

Not to be overly hostile... but have you looked thru the prefs and noticed that you can tell it not to reconnect if the connection drops. That would have solved your problem. Also it's not Gaim's fault that they have to hack, the constantly changing, MSN protocol, go yell at Micro$hit for that. Tell them to make the protocal an open API. I will agree that the file manager needs some work. The mandatory connect window that you were complaining about works fine in linux, at least for me, but I run IceWM and have it set not to strict focus undermouse and not to raise windows unless I move my mouse into them. So again a problem with something other than Gaim.

--
All of the above was encrypted with a Quad ROT-13 method. Unauthorized decryption is in violation of the DMCA.

Why abandon GTK1? by evilviper · 2004-09-25 10:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

I just wonder why the GTK1 branch was abandoned... I'm sure there's plenty of people like myself why use all GTK1 programs, and aren't going to install another library, that uses up lots of memory, needs entirely seperate themes installed and configured, etc.

It's not as if all projects are getting rid of GTK1 in order to support GTK2. gtk-gnutella is a good enough example of that.

Also, there are lots of popular programs that are GTK1-only... GMPlayer, Sylpheed, GPA, AxYFTP... I could go on forever. Why force people to load-up multiple toolkits when maintaing GTK1 support wouldn't be terribly difficult? Surely you wouldn't decide to switch to a (dynamic) Motif-only version, and leave GTK1/2 users behind...

I'm personally sticking with 0.59.8

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant

Re:Why abandon GTK1? by dmaxwell · 2004-09-25 11:47 · Score: 2, Insightful

GTK1 is an unmaintained deprecated toolkit. It has been for almost three years. At this point you have to wonder why projects are still using it. It isn't as though it was a big surprise and they had no time to switch over.

Without resorting to a hack, you can't have antialiased GTK1 fonts and GTK2 fonts on the same system. The toolkit itself just seems more code rotted the longer it persists. Those apps still on GTK1 really should have started porting their codebases to GTK2 years ago.
Re:Why abandon GTK1? by evilviper · 2004-09-25 15:17 · Score: 1

At this point you have to wonder why projects are still using it.

Because it's smaller, faster, more popular, etc.

In any case, the question still stands. Since GTK1 *IS* still being used widely (despite your opinion on the matter) why drop support for it, all at once?

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Why abandon GTK1? by Kurrelgyre · 2004-09-25 16:26 · Score: 1

It shouldn't be supported since it's not under development. It's like sticking to the Windows 3.1 widgets, whatever they were called. GTK1 doesn't do proper internationalization aside from all the visible nicities that its successor does do. If you never want your application to be used by half of the world, feel free to keep using it. Just remember, time waits for no toolkit and someday people will be asking why they have to install GTK+1.x just to run an application and have another toolkit use up the extra memory *it* entails.

"24-year" and "we are poor kids" by Anonymous Coward · 2004-09-25 10:49 · Score: 1, Funny

man, I don't know many kiddies who own a couple of mitsubishi 3000GT and they even have some money to throw away on powerhorses for such bi-turbo machine.

He abso-fucking-lutely must have been giving his ass for some bucks... You all, let's try his way!

Re:"24-year" and "we are poor kids" by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:32 · Score: 1

I'm well known on the corner of Peachtree and Ponce de Leon in Atlanta.

--

---
Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Re:Miranda by sik0fewl · 2004-09-25 11:03 · Score: 1

Oh yeah.. well.. Trillian is.. uhh.. a trillian times better.

PS: I use gaim

--
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by 0racle · 2004-09-25 11:06 · Score: 1

But the reconnection feature could be so handy without being irritating. Every other IM client will try and silently reconnect, not pop up 3 Windows every 4 seconds just to say it still can't get a connection. It really is poorly done.

--
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."

MSN webcam support by Deliveranc3 · 2004-09-25 11:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Apparently no one can get this damn thing working.

This is really a shame, there are tonnes of features that are kind of useful but webcaming will onyl be useful if it's popularly adopted.

Kinda like IM...

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite · 2004-09-25 11:26 · Score: 3, Insightful

Upstream wanting distros to mark their versions so that they don't have to support anything but the latest version downloaded directly from them, or compiled from their sources are beginning to get more and more common. This imho is a good thing, distros should handle their own problems and the maintainers of that distro would then communicate with upstream to reduce the signal to noice ratio. Gentoo users may feel that they are somehow exempt as they compile from source but I have no reason to belive Sean is complaining unless he has valid reasons, I simply fail to see the problem. For a real asshat check what happend to debian with the mirc package when the package maintainer refused to do a similar thing (the package maintainer was wrong but the reaction was far worse). lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2003/02/msg00771.htm l (there are other threads discussing this but this was the one i found first)

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite · 2004-09-25 11:28 · Score: 1

That of course should have been micq and nothing else.

Re:Dreamweaver? by DaScribbler · 2004-09-25 11:42 · Score: 1

How long has it been since you've used Dreamweaver? Because apparently you're using a much different version than I am.

The CSS support is very very nice in MX 2004, has near to flawless code generation, and as for layouts it supports CSS WYSIWYG as well so you're not stuck using nested tables.

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by Whyte · 2004-09-25 11:45 · Score: 1

But the reconnection feature could be so handy without being irritating. Every other IM client will try and silently reconnect, not pop up 3 Windows every 4 seconds just to say it still can't get a connection. It really is poorly done.

If any of you would have bothered to check the preferences, you would notice that you can suppress the disconnect/reconnect dialog popups in Gaim. Thus allowing silent reconnection should you expereience any connection hicups.

I have used ICQ since around 97, and to be honest I've had just as many disconnect issues with all of their clients as I have with Gaim.

I'm not totally convinced these disconnects you are talking about are exlusive to Gaim.

--
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by Deusy · 2004-09-25 11:57 · Score: 1

Woah Noah. Let's put this into perspective.

"It drops [MSN] connections all the time"

This was a problem a few versions ago. 1.0.0 (and indeed the few releases prior to it) have worked excellently for moi.

"[Gaim] displays a big, mandatory connect window whenever it tries to reconnect."

Only for people that are too fucking stupid to explore the preferences.

"I had to terminate the client while watching a movie during an internet outage because it kept superimposing messages over BSplayer every 5 minutes."

Another case of the previous issue. This can all be disabled if you have a little bit of IT nouse and a few grey cells. It's just a checkbox or two, nothing too difficult, y'know.

"The file manager is absolute garbage"

I have to say I never tried using Gaim as a file manager. I always mistook it for a multi-protocol IM/chat client. *shrugs*

(Of course, if you refer to the open/save dialogs, they're Gtk2.4 related and you can't really blame the Gaim guys for that.)

"the directory shortcut buttons point to ridiculous places"

Erm, change them. ?

"GAIM is nowhere near ready for 1.0."

People have said the same about, oh, I dunno, Windows. But that reached version 2-frickin-thousand a few years back.

"Maybe [gaim] is tolerable ... if you have low standards"

Or if you managed to find the preferences under the Tools menu. It's not like Gaim has loads of menus, so that's not even an excuse.

What a pathetic rant by a loser user, the ones who bitch before thinking, whine before looking, cry before trying. I thought those kinda people were only a subset of non-tech-savvy people... y'know... people out in the normal world. It's kinda scary that they have inflitrated /. - where will we be driven to next to escape the horror of their ignorant-and-lazy-ass kind.

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Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by Minna+Kirai · 2004-09-25 11:58 · Score: 1

GTK had issues on Win32, expecially early on.

I'm going to randomly attack you on vocabulary correctness here, because I enjoy precision in language. You said "issues" when you actually meant "problems" or "bugs".

"Issues" are things that come out in a sequence, and can be good or bad. Time Magazine has issues, but there's nothing wrong with that. "Issues" is a cowardly euphemism. If you mean the software was buggy, come out and say so.

libGAIM (or should be libIM) by mikefe · 2004-09-25 12:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, there is Miranda IM. I have yet to try it out yet though. The major reason why is exactly because of the lack of cross platform support in Miranda-IM[1].

I mostly use AIM and IRC (with plans to use MSN and Jabber in the future) and I haven't had much trouble with gaim on windows. There are a couple things like the main window not popping up when someone logs in (and I have yet to report that bug -- DOH!). Oh, and just watch the page fault count keep growing as usage continues (which seems to be prevalent in windows programs in general -- the page fault counter on windows can be a better indicator of activity than the CPU time counter, with some exceptions of course).

Now, I don't know if there is anyone working on merging Miranda-IM and Gaim, but Gaim is working on libgaim. Here's a quote from the article:

"RF) I'd like to see the Core/UI separate move further so that other interfaces can be slapped on to the core."

At the very least the protocols will be in libgaim (which is what is the "core" that is being seperated out of the "UI"). This way, Miranda, Kopete, and Gaim can all compile against the same library (which really should be called libIM), and all move forward faster instead of duplication where there should be none[2].

[1]The idea is to slowly transition and train my users to this cross platform software (FF, TB, OOo, Gimp, Gaim, etc) and move to a hybrid of windows desktops and "Linux Desktops" over VNC, and then look into Windows terminal services with Linux on the Desktops. Anyway, that's the long term plan. Moving in that direction is slow and step by step -- as it should be with any transition.

[2] They all have different front ends/UI and that's where they should be competing/trying to differentiate themselfs.

--
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by darkmeridian · 2004-09-25 12:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

There is a reason Gaim devs hate Gentoo users. The users mess with all the settings instead of compiling the source "straight". They put all these compile flags and stuff trying to optimize the hell out of an instant messenging client. Then they bitch and complain to the devs about how the software sucks.

This is just to illustrate both sides. I used to use Gentoo and I was annoyed by my fellow users.

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A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/

Informative? Gimme a break mods.. by oldosadmin · 2004-09-25 13:49 · Score: 1

Troll if you're a gentoo user (like I am), maybe Funny if you're a cold bastard, but definately not insightful.

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Jay | http://oldos.org

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by Sir_Stinksalot · 2004-09-25 14:18 · Score: 1

That is quite odd I have been using gaim and msn for years now and I have never had any problems with it. My most used protocol is msn. I thought I was gonna be in big trouble when msn switched there protocol over to the newest stuff but I upgraded and everything was just honky dorey. So I think the problem you have is yours and yours alone.

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"We can no longer live as rats... we know too much." -Secret of NIMH

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by pugdk · 2004-09-25 14:31 · Score: 1

nope, I have the same problem. MSN simply refuse to work for me with gaim. I know several other people have the same problem. I know the gaim developers know people have problems. Yet they still release an 1.0.0. Now, do you find this odd? I do :-)

Encryption by 0x0d0a · 2004-09-25 15:48 · Score: 1

GAIM is nice, but *boy* would I love to see GPG support being available (and in the base distribution, instead of in a plugin that doesn't always build with the current main GAIM release, as the existing encryption support is).

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May we never see th

An anecdote about GAIM by w1z7ard · 2004-09-25 18:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

I remember back in the day, probably 3 or 4 years ago, when gaim was a much smaller but up and coming project, I had a stupid issue involving my password not working.

It turned out that the developer's either forgot to include a key, or there was a little kink left in the reverse engineering procedure. In particular, some code listed all the acceptable characters for passwords, i.e., AOL's protocol accepted the _ (underscore) key, but gaim didn't.

Conclusion? My password didn't work. I was quite confused. Then something magical happened- I looked at the code, and found the list of accepted symbols. I added my key of interest (although it turned out there were others too), and tada, my first patch at the age of 19. A couples year later and I have one of my own opensource projects (http://xmms-projectm.sourceforge.net/). The point? Gaim will always be a fond memory for me because it was my first blood helping the free software world, and in some way it contributed to my desire to write my own project.

Thanks Gaim!

Carmelo

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"Recursive bipartite matching"- try it!

Re:An anecdote about GAIM by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:35 · Score: 1

Did you submit that patch, because I think I remember that! Hahaha.

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Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by Dasher42 · 2004-09-25 18:21 · Score: 1

That makes me wonder, since I quite enjoy the solidity of my mostly 686-compiled Gentoo box. I save Athlon XP-specific flags for OpenGL libraries, and even then, I steer clear of the flags that haven't been tested out so carefully.

I love Gentoo, though it gives foolish people the chance to prove that just because you can doesn't mean that you should.

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by JFitzsimmons · 2004-09-25 18:26 · Score: 2, Funny

Amen. We all get such bad reputations from all the stupid gentoo ricers. Someone actually tried to convince me that -O9 was real, and -ffast-math was a good idea since he could notice the speed difference. :( **sigh**

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Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. -Anonymous

Listen up -- rare guys like Rob are why OSS works by jimduchek · 2004-09-25 19:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

I was the maintainer and lead developer on GAIM for over a year before Rob took over. I will NEVER lead an OSS project again, or even donate my fixes to projects I use (except anonymously), with the exception of some SE or EDA projects that the 13-year-olds will NEVER get ahold of. Why? Because 99% of you all are a bunch of whining, stupid, ignorant bitches. I don't want you contacting me and wasting my time. I couldn't STAND it. _Especially_ on a project that is designed to allow people to get in touch with you, almost all I got to hear was people bitching about this and that. OSS developers DO have a 'real life' and you incessantly bug them about a feature YOU want but are too ignorant/stupid to write yourself, or if you're not, totally ignore the code style used in the project (It makes it a horrible BITCH to integrate.) You drive off talented developers because they don't want to be the whipping boy of the completely ungrateful "OSS community".

That's why I say that Rob (and guys like Rob) are why OSS works. Somehow (for four years now, I guess ), Rob has been willing to put up with the bullshit involved with leading an OSS project. He's a rare commodity. Most of those of us talented enough to do the development can't (or simply aren't willing to) put up with the crap involved.

So take some time to thank the guys who write the software you use, send them some beer (I was living with Rob when the beer mentioned in the article arrived -- and it was MUCH appreciated), some cash, some interesting hardware, an email, or in GAIM's case, an IM, SOMETHING just to show that you are at least a little grateful for the hours and effort put in, instead of bitching about one little thing wrong with the software and talking crap about how much better it could be, when you're not willing to lift a finger yourself.

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If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by caluml · 2004-09-25 22:08 · Score: 1

Yeah, and of course they can filter out "dangerous" flags in the ebuild.

Snipped from the current gaim ebuild:

src_compile() { # Stabilize things, for your own good strip-flags replace-flags -O? -O2 # -msse2 doesn't play nice on gcc 3.2 [ "`gcc-version`" == "3.2" ] && filter-flags -msse2

So, if there was a flag that kept causing problems, they'd just remove it in the ebuild for the compile. More Gentoo FUD.

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Get your own free personal location tracker

I'm willing to head your OSS Crap Division by thegnu · 2004-09-26 04:13 · Score: 1

I'm not a talented programmer, but I'm excellent at putting up with people's bullshit. And telling them to sod off eloquently.

So if you ever need a Lead Crap Taker, I'm your man.

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Please stop stalking me, bro.

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by spyrochaete · 2004-09-26 04:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Okay, looks like someone here has a career in manually pleasuring penguins.

"It drops [MSN] connections all the time"
This was a problem a few versions ago. 1.0.0 (and indeed the few releases prior to it) have worked excellently for moi.

Well la dee da for you. If you had the cranial capacity to look at the changelog you'd be well aware that they have not addressed this issue at all. This means, senor narcicist, that if it worked for you before it'll work now. But thanks for coming out.

"[Gaim] displays a big, mandatory connect window whenever it tries to reconnect."
Only for people that are too fucking stupid to explore the preferences.

Yuh huh. And that preference would be where? I configured it up the ying yang and even (gasp!) installed a plugin or two. My complaints are about features that are unaddressed by the programmers for whatever reason. Wow buddy, never get a job in QA.

"I had to terminate the client while watching a movie during an internet outage because it kept superimposing messages over BSplayer every 5 minutes."
Another case of the previous issue. This can all be disabled if you have a little bit of IT nouse and a few grey cells. It's just a checkbox or two, nothing too difficult, y'know.

Indeed, if this were programmed in, I would do it. Alas, nay. Instead you've hurt the GAIM staff's feelings by making their omission appear easy to implement. ... You realize we're talking about GAIM here right? Maybe you've just misspelled Trillian. G-A-I-M. I'll spell it again for you if exceedingly that long acronym caused too many CRC errors in your brain's buffer.
...... did he say "nouse"?

"The file manager is absolute garbage"
I have to say I never tried using Gaim as a file manager. I always mistook it for a multi-protocol IM/chat client. *shrugs*

Then you may be interested to learn that, in this astounding day of rocket ships and test tube babies, some IM protocols allow file transfer. Yeah, it's amazing, so take a minute to catch your breath. True, someone added the feature to drag a file onto the chat window to send it, but recieving files is a nightmare. Upon recieving a file, the programmers could have left the file manager tasks to the OS instead of writing their own crappy one. Instead, they implemented a very substandard one which is incapable of remembering where you want to save incoming files. My point is that just because a bundled feature is not a program's main feature, it doesn't mean there is any excuse for it to be poor.

(Of course, if you refer to the open/save dialogs, they're Gtk2.4 related and you can't really blame the Gaim guys for that.)

Read my original post again and you will quite plainly see that I do. A poor worker blames his tools.

"the directory shortcut buttons point to ridiculous places"
Erm, change them. ?

How? There is no feature in the GUI. "Then why don't you edit the source, you twit" you shall retort. Well, my fatheaded friend, you must understand that no good program relies on user source editing in order to make it function the way you want it. It's called ergonomics, intuitiveness, useability... sorry, I forgot who I was talking to. "E-Z". Got it? You sure?

"GAIM is nowhere near ready for 1.0."
People have said the same about, oh, I dunno, Windows. But that reached version 2-frickin-thousand a few years back.

You can spot a simpleton a mile away when their only argument is badmouthing Microsoft without actually saying why. It's the Linux snob's way of crawling into the fetal position. Even if this was true, you're saying that it's okay for GAIM to prematurely declare version 1.0 because another programmer has done it in the past? Sure, if you're a corner cutter scrounging for

Re:We're just poor kids by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:24 · Score: 1

That's why I'm poor, ha. Actually, I was just young and wasteful with money. I wish I could go back and do it over again and save instead of spending it on everything.

19yrs old + good job = bad idea.

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Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Re:Why Sean is such an Asshat to Gentoo Devs/Users by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:29 · Score: 1

I don't approve of his behavior with interacting with the gentoo users.

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Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Re:Listen up -- rare guys like Rob are why OSS wor by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:39 · Score: 1

"... don't mess around with Jim."

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Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Re:If he's 24 how did he install slackware at age by RobFlynn · 2004-09-26 05:41 · Score: 1

I turned 13 in April of 93. Thinking back, I maybe been 13 at the age I installed Linux, it was so long ago that I can't clearly remember.

Either way, it fit on just a few floppies back then.

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Rob Flynn
Pidgin

Yes by w1z7ard · 2004-09-26 06:30 · Score: 1

Wow, I am surprised you remembered! Gaim has come a long way since then, thats for sure. Keep up the good work, Rob.

Carmelo

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"Recursive bipartite matching"- try it!

Re:Listen up -- rare guys like Rob are why OSS wor by jimduchek · 2004-09-26 07:23 · Score: 1

Damn skippy. Love ya Rob. Do you have any idea where all my crap is? (Bass, CD's, books)

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If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by spyrochaete · 2004-09-26 08:25 · Score: 1

Well, it took me all of 2s to enable the "auto reconnect" plugin that came with my installation of Gaim. Then it's just a case of checking all the options in the preferences of that plugin.

Plugin? So let me get this straight... you're berating me because I can't find an option that doesn't come with the program? Keep on braying, you edonkey.

Re: UN*X by cjpez · 2004-09-26 12:37 · Score: 1

is the word "UNIX" now a swear word on Slashdot

No, that has to do with old trademark nonsense that went on way back when with the "unix" tradename. It's been around for some time. A link!

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Al Qaeda has ninjas!

Re:1.0.0, my tail feathers by Deusy · 2004-09-28 22:37 · Score: 1

What don't you understand about the words "came with my installation of Gaim"? I suspect it came with yours too, you "braying edonkey".

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Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary

Colored buddy names by cbr2702 · 2004-09-30 00:01 · Score: 1

I like how it highlights your buddy's names in the buddy list with color codes depending on current messaging status: green if they're currently typing, blue if they've typed something into a window you haven't checked since then, etc.

I agree that it is nice, but Gaim does it was well.

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This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.

it does? by Trepidity · 2004-09-30 04:40 · Score: 1

I haven't noticed that. Is that a recent feature (I haven't upgraded in 2-3 months)? Or is it an option somewhere? I've seen the little icon in the chat window that says "your buddy is typing", but no highlighting of the buddy names in the buddy list window.

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10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:it does? by cbr2702 · 2004-10-03 01:54 · Score: 1

I'm running Gaim 1.0.0, and the names turn colors only when the converstion is not in focus. (which is what seems reasonable to me)

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This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.

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