Fedora 33 : Using the finch chat program.

Finch is a TUI (text user interface) IM client for Linux which uses libpurple.

This is very useful when you want to chat and don't have an environment to install Fedora on.

Finch is built using the ncurses toolkit, which is a library designed especially to built text user interfaces.

This program lets you sign on to Jabber, GoogleTalk, IRC, and other IM networks. 

After this was built the Pidgin application.

Let's install it with the DNF tool:

[root@desk mythcat]# dnf install finch.x86_64
...
Installed:
  finch-2.14.1-2.fc33.x86_64                             libgnt-2.14.0-3.fc33.x86_64                            

Complete!

You can find all information using the man command:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ man finch 

You can run it easy with this command:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ finch

After that, you can see the windows form for your account.

You can see one example with my IRC account:

If not you can select it by pressing the keys: Alt+A and select Accounts.

Use the Tab key and select Modify.

The new window form lets you set your account.

In the next image, you can see some settings for my IRC account.

Another important element is that this interface can be customized using the file named .gntrc.

Open it with your editor, I used vi editor:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ vi ~/.gntrc

I make these changes to use the mouse:

[general]
mouse = 1

Although the manual page says the mouse support is still experimental.

I install the GPM - a cut and paste utility and mouse server for virtual consoles.

[root@desk mythcat]# dnf install gpm.x86_64 
...
[root@desk mythcat]# systemctl status gpm
● gpm.service - Console Mouse manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gpm.service; enabled; vendor prese>
     Active: inactive (dead)
...
[root@desk mythcat]# systemctl enable gpm 
[root@desk mythcat]# systemctl status gpm 
● gpm.service - Console Mouse manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/gpm.service; enabled; vendor prese>
     Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2021-01-15 15:35:56 EET; 6min ago
   Main PID: 15241 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 2ms

Jan 15 15:35:32 desk systemd[1]: Starting Console Mouse manager...
Jan 15 15:35:32 desk /usr/sbin/gpm[15314]: O0o.oops(): [daemon/check_uniqueness>
Jan 15 15:35:32 desk systemd[1]: Started Console Mouse manager.
Jan 15 15:35:32 desk /usr/sbin/gpm[15314]: gpm is already running as pid 15241

The GPM can be configureted to set your mouse settings.

I restart my Fedora 33 Linux distro and works very well with the mouse.