The app linuxmessenger is a Linux clone of the Facebook Messenger for Windows. It allows you to login to your Facebook account and chat with your friends with a Facebook look-alike interface.

Installation

The installation of limuxmessenger is pretty straightforward, even though it doesn’t come with a PPA. First download the zip file from its github page. Extract it to your Home folder. You should see a folder like “linuxmessenger-master”. Next, open a terminal and type the following: This will install the dependencies required by the application. To test if the application is working, “cd” to the folder that you extracted and run the “fbmessenger” file. If everything goes well, the main window will open and you can start to login and chat with your friends.

From here on, you can choose to run the installation and install it as a system app, or just execute the fbmessenger file everything you want to start the desktop client. To install to the system, just run the command from the linuxmessenger folder: There is also a build file for debian and rpm based system, so you can install it on most distro. This FBMessenger app comes with support for notifications, popup alert, friends request and chat sound and you can choose to turn them off if you want. The functionalities are pretty basic, but are good enough for a true facebook chat experience. Personally, I am using Empathy to connect all my different accounts at a single place, but if you are mainly a Facebook messenger user, then this FBmessenger app will be a useful tool for you. The thing that it is lacking now is an app indicator or a system tray applet. With that implemented, this will be perfect.