A tour of Empathy IM client
August 18, 2008
[Linux - Gnome Only] Listed on the roadmap to Gnome 2.24 is the integration with Empathy, a multi-protocol IM client. This integration could be a sign of a replacement for Pidgin and Ekiga with one single SIP and multi-protocol IM application.
For this article I tested Empathy to see how it works and if it is better or worse then Pidgin (currently my favorite IM client).
Installation:
I searched through Synaptic and was able to find Empathy and Telepathy so I installed from there. But, the version I found was really really outdated (I hate when that happens). So, after searching for some help information, I discovered this nice forum post that mentioned I had to add another Software Source to my Ubuntu:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/telepathy/ubuntu hardy main
After this, I was able to get the latest Empathy 2.23.6.
Adding Accounts:
My options are not as vast as Pidgin but I was able to find the main IM protocols like AIM, MSN, GTalk, Yahoo! The added bonus was that I could also add SIP accounts.
After all of the accounts were added, the UI looked very much similar to Pidgin’s:
I ran into some problems connecting to a couple of my accounts. Empathy kept asking to access the Keyring default password, which I had long forgotten. But, after troubleshooting that everything worked well. I’m not sure if this was something I did or some bug in the program.
Features:
Let’s start with what Empathy currently doesn’t have: file transfers, pop-up notifications (like Guifications), API or extensions structure, and a good website with help information. The program feels a bit incomplete, under development.
Now for the good news: with Empathy you can use video and voice! Personally I use IM strictly for text, for audio and/or video I use Skype. But, quite a few people (such as my wife) would really like to use A/V with her MSN contacts. Although the A/V capabilities are awesome, in Empathy it is only working now with GTalk / Jabber protocols (at least for me), and I’m sure with SIP protocols it’ll also work well.
I couldn’t use audio / video since none of my close contacts were online to test, but here is a screenshot from Empathy’s website to demonstrate how it would look:
Personally I’m really glad A/V is being integrated. Hopefully other protocols will be supported soon.
Overall, I liked what I saw and tested. I think Empathy will be a good addition integrated in Gnome, but currently it still needs a bit more work.
Based on the above (and your own experience if you`ve tried it out), would you think Empathy is ready to take over Pidgin?
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Posted in Messaging, Uncategorized
Using computers since the early 90s. Old timer with windows, more recently converted to Linux.
August 20th, 2008 at 3:09 am
I just don’t like Pidgin’s tendency to hog RAM and other resources. I’m really excited about Telepathy and its support in embedded devices.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:00 am
You don’t test the major feature difference between Pidgin and Empathy (Voice/Video over GTalk) and you call this a tour? This ‘tour’ is pretty much available from the Gnome Live 2.4 road-map.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I am looking forward to dumping pidgin, it’s good to see an IM client that seems to be moving forward, and it gives me one more thing to laugh at windows users with. (what, you use a separate IM client for each protocol, and it hogs all your RAM, even though vista uses most of it anyway? well, whose laughing now?) (I copped a fair bit when I said I was ditching windows, and I got laughed at a lot, until MS decided to stop selling XP licenses.)
August 27th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
I am looking forward to ditching Pidgin too. Something about the arrogant attitude of the developers towards features that people want (like voice and video) bugs me big time. That said, Pidgin is very solid and covers plain text IM very well.
I have Empathy installed too. It took ages to work out that I needed a pile of Telepathy libraries installed to get MSN protocol included. They certainly need to work on their online documentation. I tried voice with friends using Gtalk in Windows and the recipients reported that my voice was clearer than it was when we compared it to Meebo’s flash-based voice. It will be interesting to compare it to aMSN’s next version which hopefully will have voice (curiously, it has webcam but only voice clip messages).
If Empathy really has got the go ahead for the next Gnome then hopefully that will encourage a bit of work on implementing the basics you’d expect in a good IM client. At the moment it is pretty much bare bones.
If anything, it gives Linux users more choice and that is always a good thing.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I just installed Empathy in Fedora 9 and it seems to work okay. I am not sure if I have an older version (0.23.1), but there is one problem I have with it: I cannot get alias names to stick when I attempt to edit the user names. Also at this point, documentation needs to be a little better. I am also currently using aMSN because most of my contact use MSN in Windoze and because of its video capabilities. I’m still learning how to use video with Empathy, as there does not seem to be any direct use of video during a text chat.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I just installed Empathy in Fedora 9 and it seems to work okay. I am not sure if I have an older version (0.23.1), but there is one problem I have with it: I cannot get alias names to stick when I attempt to edit the user names. Also at this point, documentation needs to be a little better. I am also currently using aMSN because most of my contacts use MSN in Windoze and because of its video capabilities. I’m still learning how to use video with Empathy, as there does not seem to be any direct use of video during a text chat.
September 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Empathy is really nice, but I couldn’t use SIP (ekiga and sipgate doesn’t get connection).
Meta-Contacts would also be nice (I use Gajim therefore at the moment)
All IM and Voice/Video Chats in one program is really cool.
regards,
Kelvan
September 17th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Um, No Myspace IM????
September 18th, 2008 at 12:35 am
Pretty much everyone agrees that Empathy isn’t where it needs to be right now, but the Gnome devs think that it should be included to get the unified IM/Voice/Video plan kickstarted. Once Soylent (a contact manager) gets included, too, we should really start to see things start to take off (much the way GStreamer reached critical mass).
I look forward to it, but most people outside devs won’t be extremely happy running Empathy instead of Pidgin right now.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Now I found the right user name of my ekiga account
(user@ekiga.net)
shame over me
October 16th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
For me it works perfect oob, I’d just love to have webcam support for msn protocol, since most of my friends use it
October 19th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Intrepid Ibex has the latest version of empathy.
October 25th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
empahty dev guys have it work(AV support) why can’t pidgin…..