aMSN 0.95 Released

An anonymous reader writes "After more than a year since their last update aMSN has published version 0.95. New features include 'webcam support, tabbed chat windows, improved skin plugin support, new file transfer protocol, many new plugins (like Ink and Nudge support), an improved bug report system, as well as LOTS of bug fixes.' In addition to many new features and fixes the aMSN site has been given a face lift to (hopefully) facilitate ease of use."

Re:slow downloads

[WTBF]

Why not try a different source forge mirror? One of them must work at a decent speed.

Here [sourceforge.net] is the sourceforge download page, following which you can select a mirror from.

Re:Gaim? MS-messenger?

[WTBF]

In different areas different systems are popular. In Britain it seems as if MSN is used almost exclusively, and I know only two people who use different networks, although I am now using Google Talk with a few converts from MSN - so that is six more people off MSN messenger. However, I know a lot of American people that use AIM, and MSN seems (as you said) to be somewhat of a rarity.

Website Design

[vectorian798]

Something messed up with their JS? On Firefox their menu renders into the middle of the page, but it looks fine on IE...

Re:More features than Gaim

[LinuxDon]

True, Gaims supports MSN file transfer, but not directly P2P (which is why they pass your NAT firewall fine).
Unfortunately, sending a file trough a Microsoft MSN server makes the tranfer go *VERY* slow.

It appears aMSN supports direct file transfers.

What's the count now?

[pair-a-noyd]

Two, three other packages that support webcams? Where's Gaim in the webcam support arena?
I like Gaim the best of all the packages but it's lack of webcam support is sad.
BTW, what would be a good choice of webcam to buy for Linux that is likely
to work well with whatever comes along? Something economical but solid.
I don't want to waste $10 on a POS cheap cam but I don't want to spend $200 either..

Come on Gaim, get with the program!!

Here's the working download links:

[StonedRat]

Here's working links to the aMSN download as the ones on the site seem dead...

Linux Installer (need llibstdc++.so.6) [sourceforge.net]
AutoPackage [sourceforge.net]
Debian [sourceforge.net]
Ubuntu [sourceforge.net]
Fedora Core 3 [sourceforge.net]
Fedora Core 4 [sourceforge.net]
Mandriva 2006 (Formerly Mandrake) [sourceforge.net]
Slackware [sourceforge.net]
Archlinux [sourceforge.net]
Gentoo [sourceforge.net]
Other [sourceforge.net]

Re:i don't get it...

[Lisandro]

IIRC, the motivation was to write a complete MSN Messenger clone that would run outside Windows - i've tried it a few times on Linux, and while i like GAIM [sourceforge.net] much better, it really feels and behaves like the official client. It might help non-techincal users that need MSN to switch easier.

Re:i don't get it...

[mqduck]

So, it's just a clone of MSN written by someone else, still for windows?

The website's messed up, but you can get the linux version on the SF page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/amsn [sourceforge.net]

Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux

[StonedRat]

My fonts look a lot better than those in the aMSN screenshot, but then the screenshot shows fonts without anti-aliasing enabled. Even windows looks shit if you disable that. Personally i think my linux fonts look better than the ones i get in windows. I use ubuntu and gnome by the way.

Re:Website? Looks bad.

[RoadkillBunny]

The mirror system is bypassed because the packages haven't been synced to all servers yet. If we were to use the mirrors, you would be getting mirror failed messages for most.

Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux

[RoadkillBunny]

This has been fixed in Tcl/Tk 8.5 as it uses anti-aliased fonts. It is still in beta, but feel free to try it out. http://www.tcl.tk/ [www.tcl.tk]

Mercury is better.

[Anonymous Coward]

The newest release also features full-speed webcam support.

Re:OK, there is NO WAY...

[johansalk]

Microsoft intimidated the virtualdub author about asf support so he had to remove it.

Re:What's the count now?

[pdbogen]

A firewire card and an Orange Micro iBot is a pretty good deal. No integrated microphone, but firewire web cams give excellent quality and the iBot is pretty reasonably priced. Unfortunately, it's still at the high end of pricing (You're looking at around $100 for the camera, plus say $20 for the firewire card), but well worth the money. An equivalently priced USB webcam usually won't be anywhere near as good.

Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux

[nneonneo]

Well, it is actually possible to achieve anti-aliased rendering on Linux (not without some effort): http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/3 093/1/ [linuxplanet.com]

Re:What's the count now?

[lbbros]

Unfortunately this (along with file transfers) has been always labeled "low priority" by gaim developers, so unless someone starts contributing patches it's unlikely we'll see that support for a while.

Re:i dont understand...

[oglueck]

The MS product
- is only available for Windows
- displays ads
- has a bad user interface (you can't even rename contacts)

Re:Typicall awful font rendering on Linux

[onlyjoking]

Well, all I can say is that successive incarnations of Firefox on Fedora are an embarrassment. I cross my fingers that none of my clients are viewing the websites I design for them with Firefox/Linux. 1px CSS borders turn into dotted borders and line spacing is almost doubled. I'm sure if I tweaked xorg somewhere I could get it right, or maybe it's how Firefox integrates with xorg. Who knows? All I know is it ain't ready for prime time and no-one at Mozilla.org seems to care.

Re:i don't get it...

[kingturkey]

Now if only Microsoft could get offline messages for MSN Messenger I wouldn't mind this situation but it seems they think "E-mail = offline message"..

Actually I'm a beta tester for Windows Live Messenger (the next version of MSN Messenger) and one of the new features is offline messages. And for everyone saying AOL is the most popular, here in Australia MSN is the main one. I don't know anyone who uses any other client exclusively. I and a few others have Google Talk but MSN is the one used most.

Re:The MSN client I want is.....

[matts-reign]

If you were to use cygwin, you could use the best (tm) console client for msn -- tmsnc. Google it.

If aMSN doesn't do it for you...

[cybernezumi]

...try Mercury Messenger [mercury.to] for MSN+webcam support on Windows, Linux & MacOSX. Its done multi-platform webcam for awhile. It also supports receiving video conferences on Mac & two way video conferencing on Win/Linux. It also has a ton of other features.

Re:i dont understand...

[sp0rk173]

aMSN works on linux. MSN messenger does not.

Good Mirrors (from amsn website)

[chemturion]

It seems mirrors and SF download pages are slow or down... try downloading from :

http://agoodm.plus.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7 [plus.com]

- or-

http://amsn.amnestysalinas.org/ [amnestysalinas.org]

Torrent links are available at :

http://amsn.recordingground.com/viewtopic.php?t=10 3 [recordingground.com]