Once the domain of 13-year-olds, instant messaging (IM) now provides
valuable business communications. Many companies, especially those with
multiple office locations, take advantage of the ability to see who is
online and to chat instantly with colleagues.
Some companies run their own chat servers, but quite a few use services
such as Yahoo! or MSN, the Microsoft network. Unfortunately, the main
MSN client, MSN Messenger, does not support Linux. Even so, your Linux
system can play with the big boys with the right client software.
Popular MSN clients include Alvaro's Messenger (amsn) and Galaxium
Messenger. Alvaro's Messenger has remained
popular for a number of years. This MSN client has been translated into
40 or so languages, including Basque, Frisian, and Slovenian. Alvaro's
Messenger is written in the Tcl/Tk scripting language, so it can run on
any system that supports Tcl/Tk, such as Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X.
Galaxium Messenger, provides a
.NET-based MSN client, using the Mono toolkit.
Mono includes a full .NET programming environment, including the .NET
Common Language Runtime, for Linux and other operating systems.
In addition to MSN-only clients, you can choose from a number of multi-protocol clients.
Gaim provides the main Linux IM client. Available at this site, gaim comes with many Linux distributions,
including Fedora >http://fedora.redhat. com
