How do I get started on IRC?

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How do I get started on IRC?

08 February 2018, 00:00:58

Hey guys, I've never used IRC before... how do I get started??? Its not very user-friendly... where do I make an account??? I don't quite understand it :/

I have to get on IRC in order to get help with Parabola - an OpenRC Arch i686 distro, but I don't know how to get on IRC to even begin with.... I know I can log into it with pidgin... when I search "create an IRC account" I don't get any useful links...

I really just don't understand how I am supposed to use this thing.... How am I supposed to log into it with pidgin?

I'm so confused just looking at it... why can't I just make an account & just login like normal messengers??? this is really confusing for me...

Re: How do I get started on IRC?

Reply #1 – 08 February 2018, 00:25:23

I haven't used in ages, if not generations. But somethings remain the same, as I did take a quick look at a freeserver where bunch of distro-rooms exist for live support.

There are tons of irc servers, you open a connection to one and you provide a nickname for yourelf. If it doesn't exist or is being reserved and locked with a password it is your nick.
/nick fungalnet
will create a nick. You are free to change.
/join #chatroomname
takes you into a chat room named .... whatever /join #artixlinux
All commands start with a /
Everything else you type without a / is broadcasted

Read some things in terms of security and firewalling etc. before you go swimming in unknown waters. Your real live ip is available to anyone on the server and that can be used as a base to hack you. So beware. I have forgotten most of the old trickery and probably there is more but also more secure servers that protect users.
Anyone old enough to remember $ talk
I think that was the first live chat tool. You used talk on a terminal/console and the other party responded with talk and the screen would split half up and half down, and you type on one half the other party wrote in the other half. It was magic back then, even though telephones pre-existed

Re: How do I get started on IRC?

Reply #2 – 08 February 2018, 15:01:03

What fungalnet said but you'll probably have an easier time with hexchat over pidgin. hexchat is available in the community repo so you just have to:

Code: [Select]

sudo pacman -S hexchat

The interface will have IRC specific related fields and settings so you don't have to figure out what the equivalent is on pidgin.

Parabola uses freenode servers for their channels which I believe hexchat already has an entry for in it's server list. You can find the list of relevant channels on Parabola's Wiki

Parabola Wiki

Re: How do I get started on IRC?

Reply #3 – 08 February 2018, 15:43:20

Yeah I would second the hexchat recommendation. It's pretty user-friendly and self-explanatory which is great if you're new to IRC. Later on you can use other IRC clients if you want to switch for whatever reason. I find weechat + the vimode script to be extremely nice, but you probably don't want to start off doing all that.

Re: How do I get started on IRC?

Reply #4 – 08 February 2018, 16:42:29

As far as IRC clients are concerned, I recommend Konversation; Its a QT IRC client with a pretty user friendly interface.

Re: How do I get started on IRC?

Reply #5 – 08 February 2018, 18:24:40

I recommend irssi.
It runs in terminal and does not require X which means you can easily connect even when you have some issues.
It takes some time and effort to learn how to use it, but works very well...