Enabling SILC support in Pidgin under Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
I have very little doubt that my biggest disappointment and frustration with Ubuntu 7.10 is that pidgin (which was gaim in prior releases) still does not have SILC support built in. I think the frustration is just that th fix is so trivial and has been reported for so long. Still I suppose it’s not considered a big enough priority to warrant anyone’s time though, as noted below, it seems like the Ubuntu folks deliberately pulled functional SILC support from the Debian pidgin package. However, since this release will not ship with functional SILC support in pidgin here is the procedure I used to get SILC working in pidgin under Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).
- First make sure that your sources list includes source packages (deb-src entries in sources.list are not commented out).
sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts fakerootsudo apt-get build-dep pidginsudo apt-get install libsilc-1.1-2 libsilc-1.1-2-dev- (please note that this step will uninstall silky due to a dependency conflict and yes this is a bug)
apt-get source pidgincd pidgin-2.2.1/dch -ndpkg-buildpackage -rfakerootcd ..- Update: On November 28, 2007 the pidgin packages were updated to address a security vulnerability (USN-548-1) which changed the version of the resultant file produced from the preceding steps.
- before patch:
sudo dpkg -i libpurple0_2.2.1-1ubuntu4.1_*.deb - after patch:
sudo dpkg -i libpurple0_2.2.1-1ubuntu4.2_*.deb
- before patch:
Because the SILC support is in libpurple0 this should also enable the text client finch to use SILC as well.
Here are places I’ve found people asking for SILC support in Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon):
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3536871
- https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pidgin/+question/13560
- http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/121892/
Relevant Launchpad bug reports:
Some interesting tidbits:
- https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/pidgin/ - According to this SILC support which is in the Debian package was deliberately pulled from Ubuntu for some reason.
Here are folks asking for SILC support in [gaim] since April 2005:
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1613197
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=947429
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=164397
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=118895
- http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=24444
- How to install Gaim 2.0.0beta6 Instant Messanger in Ubuntu Edgy
Here are a couple of answers:
hey its good to know someone
hey its good to know someone cares about this as much as I do.. I have been putting along.. making sure to mention this every release since I have been using ubuntu.. I have been using silc a bit longer than ubuntu. btw.. what network are you on?
Same here...
I've been bringing this up as well whenever I can. It's sad that this bug has gone on for so many releases now.
As for network I actually have set up SILC for various companies including my own. I've jumped onto some "public" SILC servers once and a while but never stayed around long. If there are any networks you'd recommend please feel free to share.
yeahh! u made my day! thank
yeahh!
u made my day! thank you!!!
just correct the html code at point 8!
cheers
stefan
And thank you
For pointing out that error. I fixed that line and tried to make the steps a little easier to read. Not sure if I completely succeeded. But at least the steps are suitable for copying and pasting into a console now.
Wow, thanks
Worked like a charm. And it's cool that finch and pidgin work by doing this.
Yes, it is cool
By pushing the im code into a library (libpurple) it allows for such things. I think it's a smart design that would only be improved by making SILC work out of the box.
Great !
Many thanks, this workaround works very well.
For those who are not using an AMD 64 kernel, just use the following command line for the step 10 :
sudo dpkg -i libpurple0_2.2.1-1ubuntu4.1_i386.deb
That's right
The command originally read:
sudo dpkg -i libpurple0_2.2.1-1ubuntu4.1_amd64.debHowever, I have updated it so that it will work on any architecture. Thanks for pointing this out.
taming the update
is easily done by
echo libpurple0 hold | sudo dpkg --set-selections
if needed
That is a good suggestion
It is a pain to have to rebuild the package for every update (which is why silc support really should be included by default). However, while this is a good short term fix I think it would be wise to update to the newer version when possible. I've updated the instructions to account for the new version number and have updated myself to the latest version.
Thanks for info! Works fine!
Thanks for info! Works fine! Hope this gets in tree.