How to connect to the QQ Messenger network?

There is a recently developed plugin for Pidgin that works quite well. Basic things such as chatting, buddyicons and sending files are all supported. You can use it by adding ppa:lainme/pidgin-lwqq to your repositories and then install pidgin-lwqq. After that WebQQ shows up in the list of protocols to choose from when adding a new account in Pidgin.

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:lainme/pidgin-lwqq
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pidgin-lwqq

You can find the download page at http://im.qq.com/qq/linux/download.shtml or if you just want the direct link to the .deb package:

http://dl_dir.qq.com/linuxqq/linuxqq_v1.0.2-beta1_i386.deb

Forget all about the linux version of QQ. It's so old that it doesn't work properly. In fact, it never worked properly. As far as I am aware (I've been teaching in China for 10 years) QQ for linux was never properly developed in the first place and there certainly hasn't been any further development.

Yes, you can use longene/wine but to be perfectly honest, it's 'iffy' and buggy. Bear in mind that whilst the front page of QQ will be in English -or the language of your choice - the remainder will be in Chinese .. the 'search for friends .. add contact..' and the inbuilt translator is absent.

The best advice I can offer is to make your system dual-boot. Install Windows then download QQ (www.imqq.com) shove a Ubuntu cd into the drive and restart the computer. Install Ubuntu alongside Windows.

If you want to use QQ boot into the Windows operating system. Bear in mind that QQ International will install the front-end in your chosen language along with the inbuilt translator, but the back end - the 'QZone' for photos and blog will all be in Chinese.

I'm not the only 'foreign teacher' who has tried linux qq/longene etc .. We've all settled on the dual boot system.