I would like to start off by saying that I do not think it is fair to linux users to have to scrap around to find working drivers and things when micro$oft has the lions share.I think all aaplications and drivers should also be not just for window$ they should also be designed for linux.

Secondly,in regards to the messenger issue,I did attempt using the Empathy Messenger Client made by default in Ubuntu Karmic.It would be slow (and was slowing down ubuntu considerably)and most times would not even load up.Hence I removed it entirely and then started to use PIDGIN instead for my yahoo.

The results was astoundingly better.Not only did everything work,it was working faster.

Something is wrong... I have a default install of Karmic and empathy works _perfectly_. You're right, it isn't fair but companies go where the money is, and that's in windows (since about 90% of the population runs windows).