UPDATED - Ubuntu HOWTO: Compile Pidgin 2.3.1 for Ubuntu 7.04 and make Debian .DEB package

[Darth Chaos]

1. In the console, sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libxml2-dev
gettext libnss-dev libnspr-dev libgtkspell checkinstall

2. While still in the console, wget
http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pidgin/pidgin-2.3.1.tar.bz2

3. tar xvfj pidgin-2.3.1.tar.bz2 (or simply use your file manager,
right-click on it, and choose "Extract Here")

4. cd pidgin-2.3.1

5. ./configure

6. make

7. sudo checkinstall -exclude=/etc/gconf,/usr/bin/strip,/usr/bin/nm,/
usr/bin/gcc,/usr/bin/ld,/usr/lib/gcc,/usr/lib/libgconf2-4