IM Chat or Yahoo Messenger for Fedora 7

IM Chat or Yahoo Messenger for Fedora 7

Hi Kimsharpe,

There was a time when Yahoo had a messenger version for Linux. But the problem with it was it did not have webcam support. Not to be discouraged though, as I have quite a few suggestions for you to get Yahoo Messenger running in no time on your Fedora Linux install.

• We need to do a few checks before looking at Yahoo Messenger alternatives. Your webcam has to be supported first by Linux. This site https://www.linux-drivers.org/usb_webcams.html lists USB webcam devices that you can use for video conferencing. If you are one of the lucky ones with a webcam that has plug and play functionality on your Fedora, just download Cheese https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese, an application that you can use to test the video. Once you set it up and have seen an image of yourself using the webcam on Cheese, then you are good to go.

• There’s Gyachi/GyachE Enhanced, a Yahoo Messenger compatible application https://sourceforge.net/projects/gyachi/ that has the ability to do video chats. I’ve set this up dozens of times on Ubuntu-based machines with a 100% percent success rate. Installing this on Fedora should pose no immediate problems. The interface though is something you have to learn, since it does not follow Yahoo Messenger’s default look. You’ll master the interface in no time, given its simplicity and function.

• Kopete https://userbase.kde.org/Kopete, on the other hand, although supporting video chats via webcams has one big issue: no voice chat support. It should be available on the repository via “Yum” Fedora’s package manager installer.

• Look out for Meebo http://www.meebo.com/. It supports Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, AIM, ICQ, and Jabber with webcam video and audio chatting via Tokbox. It runs off any web browser, so it should not be difficult to setup as long as the webcam can be detected by Linux.

• A personal favorite of mine is Skype for Linux https://www.skype.com/en/get-skype/ which has great support for the Linux operating system. I’ve used it for video chats on single user and video conferencing for multiple users and it’s as perfect as the version for Windows. You may want to try it out in lieu of Yahoo Messenger.

• Something to watch out for is Empathy https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Empathy?action=show&redirect=Empathy, a multi-protocol chat client that claims it has support for Gtalk, MSN, IRC, AIM, Facebook, ICQ, QQ, and Yahoo!, although when I tried it personally, video chat was only working for Gtalk and MSN. Development on the project is on-going so it means that in the near future we may see it finally working on Yahoo.