How to Install Spectrum 2 on Arch Linux

Spectrum 2 is a universal instant messaging (IM) gateway that allows communication with a wide variety of protocols such as IRC, XMPP, and Telegram, among others. In this tutorial, we will guide you through the installation of Spectrum 2 on Arch Linux.

Follow the steps below:

Prerequisites

Before you begin with the installation process, ensure that your system is up-to-date:

sudo pacman -Syu

Install Required Dependencies

We need to install the dependencies required to compile and run Spectrum 2:

sudo pacman -S cmake make gcc boost boost-libs swig python3 python3-pip openssl

Install Spectrum 2 from AUR

Spectrum 2 is not available in the official Arch Linux repositories. However, we can install it from the AUR (Arch User Repository) using an AUR helper like yay:

yay -S spectrum2-git

If you don't have yay installed, you can install it following the instructions in this guide.

Configure Spectrum 2

Before you start using Spectrum 2, you need to configure it. The main configuration file is located at /etc/spectrum2/spectrum.cfg.

You can use the following command to generate a default configuration file:

sudo spectrum2_manager new

Now edit the spectrum.cfg file using your preferred text editor:

sudo nano /etc/spectrum2/spectrum.cfg

Here, you will find various sections for configuring different services such as XMPP, Telegram, IRC, etc.

Configure the services you want to use by editing the corresponding sections. You will need to provide the necessary details such as API keys, passwords, and access tokens, depending on the service.

Save and close the file when you are done.

Start Spectrum 2

Once you have configured Spectrum 2, you can start it using the following command:

sudo systemctl start spectrum2

You can check the status of Spectrum 2 using:

sudo systemctl status spectrum2

If everything is working fine, you should see a message like this:

● spectrum2.service - Spectrum 2 daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/spectrum2.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2021-11-29 17:52:15 IST; 9s ago
   Main PID: 23978 (spectrum2_manager)
      Tasks: 7 (limit: 4591)
     Memory: 3.3M
        CPU: 67ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/spectrum2.service
             └─23978 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/spectrum2_manager daemon --pidfile=/var/run/spectrum2/spectrum2.pid

Nov 29 17:52:15 hostname systemd[1]: Started Spectrum 2 daemon.

Enable Spectrum 2 at Boot

If you want Spectrum 2 to start automatically at boot time, you need to enable the service using the following command:

sudo systemctl enable spectrum2

Conclusion

That's it! You have successfully installed and configured Spectrum 2 on Arch Linux. You can now use it to communicate with other users on various messaging platforms.

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