Finch is a powerful text user interface instant messaging client based on libpurple, and it comes included in the Pidgin source, the popular GNOME IM client. Finch supports various protocols, including AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and IRC.

The version which ships in Debian Lenny is rather old (2.4.3), so in order to install the latest release of Finch in Debian Lenny (which, at the time of writing is 2.6.5), just follow the next steps:

Make sure the sources repositories are enabled, so that the needed development libraries are available. That is, a line like the following should be available in the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb-src http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

As root, update the packages list:

apt-get update

And install the development libraries:

apt-get build-dep finch

Next, download the Pidgin source code (which also includes Finch source) from the official website (direct link here), uncompress it:

tar -xjf pidgin-2.6.5.tar.bz2

Change the current working directory to pidgin-2.6.5 and compile and install it using:

./configure --disable-gtkui --disable-vv --disable-nm

The --disable-gtkui switch will not build the GTK interface, and the other two will disable voice/video support and NetworkManager support.

Now issue the usual:

make
make install

The last one as root. Alternately, you can install Finch as a local user, by specifying an install prefix:

./configure --prefix=/home/USER/usr --disable-gtkui --disable-vv --disable-nm
make
make install

In this case, make install should be run as normal user. Replace USER with your username and make sure /home/USER/usr/bin is included in your $PATH variable. Run Finch by typing finch at the command-line.

Pidgin 2.6.5 running in a terminal

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Firefox 3.6 was released yesterday, after over six months since the last major release, version 3.5. Firefox 3.6 ships with versions for over 70 languages, support for Personas, an add-on allowing you to change the appearance of the tab bar and choose from thousands of themes, improvements to the open video support (like the fullscreen mode), improved JavaScript performance and start-up time, support for the new DOM and HTML5 specs.

This is a short tutorial which will show how to install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala from the Mozilla Daily PPA.

First, open the terminal and add the necessary repository addresses to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Or, for a GUI editor:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Notice that the second line is only needed if you plan to fetch the source code for Firefox. Make sure to save the file and proceed to the next step.

Now, add the trusted key for this repository:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247510BE

Update your packages list:

sudo apt-get update

Remove the current Firefox installation:

sudo apt-get remove --purge firefox

And now install version 3.6:

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

Now you may want to create a new profile for the new 3.6 version. To do this, run Firefox with the -P parameter:

firefox -P

To run two different instances of Firefox and different profiles you can use:

firefox --no-remote -P

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