irssi pwns... but then I have much love for perl :)

aMsn. No real reason other than I like it...lol

I love GAIM, in fact, i'm using it right now.
Very useful, keeps most of the features of the clients it replaces!

gah, wasn't expecting all of these choices. i had to go with gaim though. though, skype is a good application, it seems a bit behind in the linux field =/

Gaim, because it's good.

Kopete got my vote.

I've used Gaim for a while. Not sure exactly how long, but i think it was the first piece of OSS I used. Whatever version what latest on apt refused to hold a connection with the MSN server for more than about ten minutes at a time. About 60% of my contacts are on MSN, including the vast majority of those I 'need' to talk to. I couldn't find any solutions to this problem, so decided to try out the 2.0 beta.

It didn't tell me I'd need an SSL module til i'd already compiled it, then it gave me a nice error message.

So i fired up Kopete to see what it was like. Feels far, far more finished, easier control over what the thing looks like and, best of all, it connects to the MSN server for hours at a time. Which, really, is all I need of an IM client.

What I use
 

I like to use Gaim for regular IMing, but I use x-chat for IRC.

definitly i go for SKYPE

I voted for xchat. Too bad one couldn't choose both xchat and gaim. Just so everyone knows: I do use gaim as well.

hoo-rah!

Agreed.

Irssi here - I don't use IM clients at all.

I use the beautiful Gajim for Jabber, Irssi for IRC.

xchat is always default for me! Too much betas of Gaim is sad :(

Gaim for Msn and the like. Xchat for irc.

I prefer Kopete over Gaim, but they are both fine apps.

I use Kopete for im mostly but I prefer to just call people so Skype it is.