This doesn't directly answer your question, but I'd suggest trying Kopete which is in KDE 3.2 (unless you need a particular protocol that Kopete does not have).

Should be in the menu, otherwise from a shell (normal user) type "kopete &".

I prefer Gaim, but the gf insisted on being able to use the Yahoo network (which Gaim currently cannot do without a patch from somewher) so I tried out Kopete. Not bad; actually pretty good.

So I'm using Kopete, at least until a newer and better working version (= connect to Yahoo) comes out.

HTH

p.s. I thought that to use an RPM, you first had to ocnvert it to .deb using 'Alien' or something???