Hi all,

I am wondering if this is possible...

My wife uses vista on her machine in the house
I use Ubuntu also in the house but in another room

Is it possible to have some sort of chat program set up so we can message each other over the network (LAN). For example I send her a URL via the messenger programme instead of having to send it via email and around the world and back again.

Of course this would need to be windows and linux compatible.

Any suggestions?

You could both just sign up for an IM account at one of the many providers

MSN
gmail/googletalk
Yahoo
many others....

And you have many choices of IM client. If you both want to use the same client there are many that have builds for both OS's. Pidgen is easy to use and setup. BTW, this wouldn't be limited to your LAN. Just saying that because you specified it. If you are using one of the public IM services your messages will go out of your network and then back in. There isn't much of an issue with that and nothing you'll need to do to your network gear to make it work, just thought you should have all the info.

We want to use an app within the network and not using the internet. So inside the firewalls etc etc.

You can setup terminal and type in that way. Like hyperterminal.

You could setup a jabber server but there's got to be an easier solution to that. JIC, there are jabber server VMware appliances you could run in a VM on either computer. This is one -> http://www.redbudcomputer.com/jabberim.htm. They say you can setup in 5 mins.

Then you could both connect with a IM client that supports Jabber (Pidgen as previously mentioned does) and chat away.

Thats a possibility but sounds very "old school".

Just wondered if there were any apps that could do the trick that were both compliant.

Cheers mglenney, I will take a look into that. Its down the right path I am after.