Yahoo Instant Messenger and Slackware
 

How do I get Yahoo instant messaging to work with Slackware? I have never done instant messaging of any type before but recently discovered that two of my relatives use the Yahoo Instant Messenger and want me to exchange messages with them.

On a Yahoo webpage they have versions of the Yahoo Instant Messenger program for RedHat and Debian but nothing for Slackware. Unfortunately, I use Slackware most of the time and do not use Red Hat 9 much any more. I still have Red Hat 9 installed so as an experiment I booted up into Red Hat 9 and installed the Yahoo rpm version of Instant Messanger for Red Hat 9 and it did work. Is there anyway I can install it under Slackware 10? Is it possible to intstall an rpm file that was created for Red Hat 9 under Slackware? Has anyone tried converting the rpm file into tgz format by using either the rpm2tgz command or the alien command? Even if that worked would I also have dependancy issues that would need to be resolved?

I have thought about using Gaim instead because it came already installed with Slackware 10. Whenever I try using Gaim to log onto my Yahoo account it says that my password is incorrect. I used the same password that works when running the Yahoo Instant Messenger under Red Hat 9. I briefly tried turning off the firewall but that did not solve the problem. Are there any special ports that need to be open for that to work? Has anyone here managed to get Yahoo Instant Messaging to work with Slackware 10?

download the one for Redhat and convert it into a Slackware package by running "rpm2tgz packagename" and then install using "installpkg", then run "yim" or create a shortcut to "yim" on your desktop. You can also use GAIM or Kopete to access yahoo, msn, icq, aol, etc from one interface.

I had this problem with GAIM myself and overcame it by not putting an alias, i.e. just your username and password. Not sure why or how this works but it did for me.

When I tried using GAIM I did not put in an alias but still kept getting the error about the incorrect password. My password works when using Yahoo Instant Messenger under Red Hat 9 but not when using GAIM under Slack 10.

I have an extra copy of Slack 10 installed on another partition that I can use to experiment on so that I will not accidently mess up my main copy of Slack 10. So anyway, when running my extra copy of Slack 10 and while logged in as root I used the rpm2tgz command to try converting the rh9.ymessenger-1.0.4-1.i386.rpm file to the Slackware tgz format. That seemed to work, so I then ran installpkg to install the tgz file. I was not totally sure which file I should run at that point to start the program but I tried running the /usr/bin/ymessenger file and received and error message that said this:

bash: ./ymessenger: permission denied

I then used the ls -l command to see what permissions the file had and saw that the file did not have execute permission. I then used chmod a-x to add execute permissions the file but it would still not run. I then noticed that it is an extremely small file that only contains the letters "XXX" inside it. That seems like a nearly useless file to me. What am I doing wrong here?

Should I go on and try some other Yahoo compatible IM client such as Kopete or Pexit? Any suggestions?

Download it:
Make .tgz from rpm with the rpm2tgz tool:
Install the package:
Run it:
Et voila! :D
I'm running it on gnome with no problems, but i do have some weird horizontal lines in KDE.:confused:

Also I really like Kopete although the last release doesn´t seem to work for yahoo I think yahoo changed something, anyway I just downloaded the cvs for kopete and it works fine :) I really like it because you can chat with people from more than just one network... but its prettier than gaim (IMHO) :)

Thanks angelushu, everything you suggested worked perfectly. I now have the Red Hat 9 version of the Yahoo Messanger 1.0.4 installed and working under Slackware 10. What I had done wrong was look in the wrong place for where to start ymessenger. It was actually in /opt/ymessenger/bin/ymessenger as you suggested. Thanks for everything!

Semi-rant:

The Linux version of YIM is awful compared to the Windoze version. It's ugly as hell and lacks features added otherwise over a year ago.

Yahoo, fix it. Truly.

semi-rant
 

I have to agree with you it looks so ancient and lacking features of the windows client.

I second its uglyness and lack of features (Hence not using it!)... I suppose at least they have one! Microsoft hasn´t bought out MSN messenger for linux yet :D

you might want to update the gaim package. the recent one works fine with yahoo i believe.

gaim-0.82.1-i486-1.tgz

I am using slackware 10 and i am completly new to linux.

Previously i had tried to use the gaim provided by the slackware. But faced the same problem as discussed earlier by rick485.

Then I tried the method given by anglelushu. I downloaded the .rpm file from the site.
Then running the rpm2tgz command tried to convert it to .tgz file. But it didn't work. It showed me a msg:

ERROR: rpm2cpio failed. (maybe rh9.ymessenger-1.0.4-1.i386.rpm is not an RPM?)

When the file is a .rpm file it shows it may not be. I am confused. Please help!

I have one more problem. I also downloaded the gaim's new 1.0.2 version.
It's file name is gaim-1.0.2-i486-1jim.tgz. Its an tgz file which is clear from the name itself. But when i ran the command

installpkg gaim-1.0.2-i486-1jim.tgz.

it is showing me an error msg

Cannot install gaim-1.0.2-i486-1jim.tgz: package does not end in .tgz

Pls help!!

Maby you want to get rid of the . on the end of the file, where did you download it from??

If you're using KDE, you might try the latest Kopete. I use it and connect perfectly to MSN, Yahoo and AOL servers.

I have convert the .rpm into .tgz

jo need just to install and run it:

install:
installpkg ymessenger-1.0.4-1.i386.tgz

run(no need to be root):
/opt/ymessenger/bin/ymessenger

I have been tested on Slackware 11.0 whit kde 3.5.4 and it work!

http://rapidshare.com/files/7009031/...0.4-1.i386.tgz