I just bought the N800 as a substitute for my laptop cos i'm tired of lugging it on my biz trips. Just need it to check emails and communicate with my colleagues/kids on MSN & Yahoo Messenger and occasional web surfing.

Web surfing is fine. Its actually decently quick. Email too is fine. But i was surprised that there is no MSN/Yahoo Messenger for the N800. I know there is a 3rd party software on maemo.org called Pidgin but i cant seem to make it work. Can someone pls give me an "idiots guide" to making it work? Really appreciate any help given.

I dont have my n800 with me but you need to install pigeon and a msn "module" for it to work.

The software is Pidgin.

I installed Pidgin but couldnt get it to work. Is there anywhere that details a step-by-step guide?

Just got the n800 yesterday myself and installed pidgin myself. Go here for detailed instructions:

http://pidgin.garage.maemo.org/

You also have to tell the n800 to install the various messenger services and to install sounds.

Joe

To help we need more detail than "can't make it work", sorry. What is or isn't happening after you install the necessary files?

Hi guys,
I went to the Pidgin website and wasnt sure what to download. Obviously its not the Windows download but I'm not sure which of the other 3 choices which are
"Source", "Fedora Code" or "CentOS/RHEL".

Instead i went to the Application Manager on the N800, clicked "Browse Installable Applications" and downloaded Gaim. 4 components were downloaded onto my N800; they are - maemo gaim, maemo-gaim data, maemo-gaim-protocol-msn and maemo-gaim-protocol-yahoo.

Questions:
1) When i launch the Gaim programme a screen appears asking for my Account and Password. Do i enter my MSN/Yahoo username/pswd or do i have to create a new one?

When i click 'Sign In' i get box pops up which reads as follows:

Connection Error "Missing protocol plugin for beachbummer345

Appreciate any help you guys can give me to get this thing working.

You have to install needed plug-ins as well.Actually you have to install GAIM(or Pidgin) first and then install its protocols you want to use (separate entries in app manager). However let's admit that Pidgin is just new version of software previously known as GAIM.I see no clue in using Gaim when there is Pidgin.Pidgin IMHO looks better than GAIM, has more features and bugfixed.

> I went to the Pidgin website
And no, you have to go to http://pidgin.garage.maemo.org/ if you want Pidgin on n800.

Beach, see the Gaim thread in this section for all the info you should need (especially more recent posts)