I'm running pidgin-2.4.3 with only dbus ncurses silc and spell USE flags enabled (a.k.a. finch). I recently emerged dbus-1.2.1 (with no X), started it and restarted finch inside a new screen session. I tried to use purple-remote but got the following: $ purple-remote "setstatus?status=away&message=AFK" No existing libpurple instance detected. Here is an edited ps output: $ ps aux USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND 112 15738 0.0 0.2 2252 580 ? Ss 13:13 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --system chris 19733 0.0 4.9 21568 13096 pts/1 S+ 13:17 0:00 finch This box is a Linux Vserver guest. $ emerge --info Portage 2.2_rc5 (default-linux/x86/2007.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r0, 2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.028stab053.10ent i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.18-53.1.13.el5.028stab053.10ent-i686-Intel-R-_Xeon-R-_CPU_E5420_@_2.50GHz-with-glibc2.0 Timestamp of tree: Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:00:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.6 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r9, 2.5.2-r5 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.0 sys-apps/openrc: 0.2.5 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r3 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.62-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.10.1-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.4 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.25-r4 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=prescott -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--nospinner" FEATURES="distlocks parallel-fetch preserve-libs sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LANG="en_US.utf8" LC_ALL="en_US.utf8" LDFLAGS="" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage/layman/sunrise /usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="acl berkdb bzip2 cgi cli cracklib crypt cups curl dbus dri exif fam fastcgi flatfile ftp gdbm gpm iconv ipv6 isdnlog jpeg memlimit midi ming mmx mudflap ncurses nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre php png pppd psyco python readline recode reflection rrdtool session silc skey smp socks5 speex spell spl sse sse2 ssh ssl tcpd threads tidy truetype unicode vhosts x86 xml xorg xsl zaptel zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="none" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, INSTALL_MASK, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
pidgin uses the session bus, not the system bus. Normally, the session bus is started with your X session.
You might look at bug #223925 as well.
Thanks for the info guys. Running "dbus-launch screen" and running finch and purple-remote inside the screen session works great for my setup.