So on my Ubuntu box, I have the lite but mighty Firefox, preinstalled, I have an office suite (OpenOffice) preinstalled, I got Gimp preinstalled (which is so far the best graphic design tool the open source world has to offer), and a funky little desktop gaining rep to rival OS X. But I need my YM!!!

Linux people would say outright “screw Yahoo! Messenger! Use Gaim (which is ‘Pidgin’ now)”

Pidgin is pretty good. It’s got this feature where you can login using your accounts from different IM profiles (Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL, AIM, Jabber, etc). Cool huh? But it’s not exactly what my LAN shop customers would want. They wouldn’t want having their profiles saved, notably, we have customers who come to our shop needing Yahoo! Messenger with webcam and voice capabilities to communicate with their loved ones who are overseas. THIS, Pidgin cannot offer.

But there’s this thing called GYachi which is a Linux-based IM client that provides Yahoo webcam, voice and even chatroom feature. It’s still quite buggy but it’s going somewhere at least. It’s not very idiot-proof.  Upon login, you will be asked to select a Yahoo! server.  After you have logged in, you will notice that you are inside a chatroom! You’ll have to select the buddy tab to view your friends list.  Interface is not very friendly.  I checked the webcam capabilities though to see if it is working, and yes, it does work.

Pidgin has a better interface.  Gyachi has the features. Which one to choose?