hey MisterD
I got the same problem and it is not Slitaz-related!
Just start Pidgin, click "Accounts", then "Manage Accounts", then "Modify" your account -> click on "Advanced" and uncheck "Use clientLogin"
That should help.
You will note that special letters (like the german ä,ü and ö for example) will give an error message (There was an error receiving this message. Either you and *** have different encodings selected, or *** has a buggy client.).
The only other option is to use webpages like meebo.com.
greetz
-Nik

Do you have "gnutls", a suggested dependency, installed?

Thanks for the replies.

Realised i didn't provide enough information.

I'm trying to use my Yahoo account. The "use client login" option isn't there. Thanks though.

I've tried changing the port settings but had no joy.

Had another thought. Need to check the firewall settings. I can connect to the net with Firefox on this machine, and i can use pidgin on other machines on the same network, so it doesn't seem to be a router issue, or the router's firewall.

What sort of firewalling does Slitaz have by default? Tried searching these forums, but couldn't find the answer...