i was wondering if i can chat with another linux based computer on the terminal ( console ). my room-mate is also on linux but not always logged onto msn so can i send him say a message that would open up on a terminal on his computer ? we are connected using LAN.

If you both install and tun talkd, you will probably be able to run talk friend@host . He'll get a short message about you desire to talk to him. If he runs talk too (the message will suggest it), he'll be able to chat with you.

hmm......interesting. i got the thing running, kind of. we connected to our university's SSH server and were then able to use the talk command to talk to each other. i however cannot figure out how to use it on our LAN. you see, both of us have our domains called "localhost.localdomain" and we are connected via 2 routers. i have no clue how to connect to him in such a case, what is the domain name to use ( localhost.localdomain shows an error, its not able to locate him ) any clues ?

hmm......interesting. i got the thing running, kind of. we connected to our university's SSH server and were then able to use the talk command to talk to each other. i however cannot figure out how to use it on our LAN. you see, bot of us have our domains called "localhost,localdomain" and we are connected via 2 routers. i have nno clue how to connect to im in such a case, what is the domain name to use ( localhost.localdomain shows an error, its not able to locate him ) any clues ?

Sorry, i hit post reply too many times ! dint mean to spam.

use ip as the address. you probably have dynamic ips that might be a problem for you... you might use some dns redirection service or something perhaps... since you are inside another network it might not work though.