Here is another alternative Jabber / XMPP console based client.

http://blog.amolbhave.in/computers/jabber-xmpp-console-based-client/

The fact that the original developers didn’t see fit to write as much as a paragraph to help someone use the program does say something about their interest in the project. However, at this point I don’t think we can blame the developers since I think they stopped 8 years ago. My beef would be that Freetalk is still in the Debian and Ubuntu repositories.

I just came back to this blog while searching for additional information on the net but there is still more here than anywhere else. I wish someone would either put a bit of effort into this program, or develop another one like it.

Freetalk is a misunderstanding. At first I thought ‘Ah, nice, something like bitchX, want one!’, but then:
– there is no way to stop chatting with anybody – if I chat with someone, only way to change buddy with who I’m chatting is… closing the program. But this is really nothing, as….
– there is no exception handling! Any error in any internal command (!) equals leaving program! If I make any mistake, I need to turn program on one more time.

I really respect amount of work program’s author put into developing Freetalk, but seriously, the program should be distributed with ‘AMATEUR DEVELOPMENT!’ label on it.

I’d like to know how one gets a message. Is that what “iq received: (unhandled yet)” is trying to tell me? The reason I ask is that in an hour of searching the net I have yet to find the answer. The man page makes no mention of how to use the program, but it is still the best looking client I have come across so I really want to use it.

BTW: Your post is the only place on the internet which mentions how to send a message with this program. :)

[…] Chatting without X is pretty easy. It depends on what you are into though. For example, if you are a GTalk user I can recommend the excellent Freetalk which I covered before: […]

I just tested it, and I can chat to other GTalk users normally from freetalk. So I guess it is Twitter’s fault.

I had Twitter as a “buddy” in GAIM and noticed it goes up and down during the day. I removed it yesterday because of all the sound events it kept triggering.

Odd… Twitter no longer seems to accept my IM’s from freetalk. They go through, and get stored in my Gmail account, but Twitter doesn’t update.

GTalk seems to be working fine. Anyone had a similar problem?

Thanks for the tip John. I will give it a try. I picked freetalk because of it’s simplicity. Mccabber looks like a really good alternative though.

If you like freetalk, check out mcabber: http://www.lilotux.net/~mikael/mcabber/

Its a very complete ncurses jabber client, I just love it!

Freetalk seems useful aswell though.