Instant Messaging in Unix Linux, Red Hat, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu and more

As most Unix or Unix users know, instant messaging has been around for the Unix and Linux desktops for quite some time. But as this blog is intended to help rookies out, here is a list of known working Instand Messaging software. Most of them are bundled with the big distributions as either rpm files or debian package (dpkg) files. If not, the source is almost always available in tar.gz or bunzip2 format.

Most popular IM's for Unix or Linux users

Gaim http://freshmeat.net/projects/gaim/ (copy paste url)
Supported protocols: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and more.
Encryption: Yes. Check this page for instructions
http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/

Gabber http://freshmeat.net/projects/gabber/
Supported protocols: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber and more.
Encryption: Yes

Aim http://www.aim.com/get_aim/linux/latest_linux.adp
Supported protocols: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and more.
Encryption: Yes. Check this page for instructions
http://www.aimencrypt.com/

Kopete The KDE Instant Messenger http://kopete.kde.org/
Supported protocols: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger, and more.
Encryption: Yes