# Alternatives for centericq

## Phobos666

centericq isnt stil in development i think.

I am now looking for a new ncurses based icq messanger.

I'd used centericq on my server so i dont use X.

do you know a good alternative? micq isnt so good because you can easily miss a message there when you are away from keyboard.

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## massimo

You might wanna try net-im/ysm. I've never tried it though.

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## zerojay

Well, you don't have to stop using centericq even if it had stopped development. Everything on it still works fine for me. I know there are a few patches for it available on the centericq.de site as well.

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## JoeUser

gaim-text was Google Summer of Code project to use ncurses for Gaim 2.0

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/sean/blog/gaim-text

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## rmh3093

centericq is actually really nice to use, i've never had a problem with it, comes in handy when i want an IM client before I get Xorg running

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## swimmer

Since I *love* irssi I use the combination irssi+bitlbee because then I am able to use *one* client for IRC and ICQ ...

But I stumbled per accident over net-im/micq and I have to say that I really liked this client as well  :Wink: 

Give it a try

swimmer

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## Phobos666

gaim-text looks very impressive. I hope you don't need gtk or X or something.

Ah. and use amd64 and utf-8 and you have problems with centericq.

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## Konsti

Actually I am trying to find out which icq/jabber client sucks less.

I stumbled upon gaim-text which looks... weird/funny with its ncurses window manager, but it seems to work. I could really start to hack it or improve it with the community. 

@Phobos666:

Yes it starts without X in a console. I hate xine not playing music in console with a null video output drver like mplayer  :Smile: 

Are the arrow keys working on your gaim-text?

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## PaulBredbury

Here's an ebuild for Debian's patched centericq. Feel free to improve it - I won't be, I don't even use this package  :Smile: 

/usr/local/portage/net-im/centericq/centericq-4.21.0-r3.ebuild

```
# Copyright 1999-2007 Gentoo Foundation

# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

# $Header: $

inherit eutils

DIFF_PV="${PV}-18"

DEBIAN="mirror://debian/pool/main/c/${PN}"

DESCRIPTION="Ncurses ICQ/Yahoo!/AIM/IRC/MSN/Jabber/GaduGadu/RSS/LiveJournal client"

HOMEPAGE="http://thekonst.net/en/centericq"

SRC_URI="${DEBIAN}/${PN}_${PV}.orig.tar.gz

   ${DEBIAN}/${PN}_${DIFF_PV}.diff.gz"

LICENSE="GPL-2"

SLOT="0"

KEYWORDS="x86"

IUSE=""

# I'm too lazy - see http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/centericq

DEPEND="virtual/libc

   >=sys-libs/ncurses-5.2"

RDEPEND="${DEPEND}

   sys-devel/gettext"

S=${WORKDIR}/${PN}-${PV}

src_unpack() {

   unpack ${A}

   epatch ./${PN}_${DIFF_PV}.diff

}

src_compile() {

   unset CFLAGS

   unset CXXFLAGS

   ./configure \

      --prefix=/usr \

      --mandir=/usr/share/man \

      || die

   make || die

}

src_install() {

   emake DESTDIR="${D}" install || die

   dodoc ABOUT-NLS AUTHORS ChangeLog FAQ README THANKS TODO \

      debian/{changelog,copyright,README.Debian}

}
```

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## Dralnu

currently there isn't a good replacement for it that I have found. bitlbee was, odd. Centericq is the only client of its type that I know of.

That said, when I get to it, I'm going to see about pulling out gaim/bitlbee's protocol handlers, and make a new one.

There are a few problems with the (old) centericq that apparently no one ever fixed, or the patches never made it to the ebuild (why, I'm not sure).

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## Phobos666

I've found a very good replacement:

net-im/pidgin-2.0.0 with USE +console

After that run finch and you have the gaim/pidgin for ncurses

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## Konsti

```
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
```

This is so buggy I expect not even the developers test it.

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## Phobos666

No problems here on:

x86

amd64

amd64/hardened

I think its your setup or whatever but not finch

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## bunder

 *Konsti wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> ```
> ...

 

if that's centericq connecting to msn, that's a known bug...  fixes i've heard include: checking your email, asking your friends to stop using ascii characters in their names, i think there was a patch at one time, hoping m$ doesn't shaft clients who use older msn protocols, hoping centericq revises their protocols to talk to the msn server better.

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## Dralnu

 *bunder wrote:*   

>  *Konsti wrote:*   
> 
> ```
> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> ```
> ...

 

The problem iirc was with libmsn, not centericq itself.

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## bunder

 *Dralnu wrote:*   

>  *bunder wrote:*    *Konsti wrote:*   
> 
> ```
> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> ```
> ...

 

that sounds about right... but i don't see libmsn in portage... i'm assuming its built with centericq, correct?

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## Dralnu

 *bunder wrote:*   

>  *Dralnu wrote:*    *bunder wrote:*    *Konsti wrote:*   
> 
> ```
> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> ```
> ...

 

I dunno honestly. There IS an msn lib in portage, but I don't think its the same one centericq used. They may have removed it when they removed centericq itself.

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## Phobos666

 *Konsti wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> Segmentation fault (core dumped)
> ```
> ...

 

I think he talks about finch and not centericq.

btw centericq will be redesigned:

http://www.centerim.org/

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## dusik

Yep,  emerge net-im/centerim, the living fork of CenterICQ  :Smile: 

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## Dralnu

 *dusik wrote:*   

> Yep,  emerge net-im/centerim, the living fork of CenterICQ 

 

I have to ask:

How does it compare to bitlbee?

Its great they got it forked and apparently running again, but one must ask those kind of important questions.

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## dusik

 *Dralnu wrote:*   

>  *dusik wrote:*   Yep,  emerge net-im/centerim, the living fork of CenterICQ  
> 
> I have to ask:
> 
> How does it compare to bitlbee?
> ...

 

Well, bitlbee works through an IRC client, so it's a different animal.  CenterIM 4.x has a lot of issues, but it's currently being rewritten from scratch (version 5) using libpurple, so it'll probably have all the capabilities of Pidgin.  I'd say, if you want a replacement for CenterICQ, get CenterIM.  If you want a good console chat client, perhaps look forward to CenterIM 5.0.

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## Dralnu

 *dusik wrote:*   

>  *Dralnu wrote:*    *dusik wrote:*   Yep,  emerge net-im/centerim, the living fork of CenterICQ  
> 
> I have to ask:
> 
> How does it compare to bitlbee?
> ...

 

I went ahead and installed centerim, and all I have to say is that has to be one of the buggiest programs I've ever seen. MSN and jabber constantly reconect, I've had the thing lock up on me once or twice, and the control system is still just about as convoluted as it was with centericq. Other than that, it isn't bad. I'm using bitlbee still, and I'm going to keep up with centerim, but it has a long way to go before it will replace bitlbee.

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## dusik

Dralnu: agreed.

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