Ubuntuland & The Dream Planet: Finch is a console-based IM program that lets you sign on to AIM, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!, and other IM networks.

Finch is a text/console-based, modular instant messaging client capable of using multiple networks at once.

If you've used Pidgin, you'll find Finch hauntingly familiar. Finch is a CLI instant-messaging program that is part of the Pidgin codebase and uses the libpurple instant-messaging libraries. Finch's user interface is modeled as closely to Pidgin as ncurses will allow.

Currently supported are:

AIM/ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, IRC, Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk, Napster, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, Bonjour, Groupwise, Sametime, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and MXit.

Install Howto.

Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal”:

Install the repository GPG key:

# wget -q -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

    Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

    deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu/ natty-getdeb apps

Update the package index:

sudo apt-get update

Install finch-dev deb package:

sudo apt-get install finch-dev

Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” & Ubuntu 12.04 “Precise Pangolin”.

sudo apt-get install finch

Software Packages for Pidgin.

Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal”:

Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot”.

Ubuntu 12.04 “Precise Pangolin”.

Screenshots.