What the linux is IRC

tompickles · 02-20-2008, 08:22 AM

IRC seems to be everywhere, so tried googling it to find out what it is, but dont really understand. I know it is a kind of group internet chat, but really confused about commands and clients and servers and all these other things that are mentioned.

So, would really appreciate a quick summary of what IRC is, and hwo to use it!

Thanks in advance (for me being ignorant)

acid_kewpie · 02-20-2008, 08:23 AM

irc = chat rooms. try a client like xchat or many many others.

the wikipedia page is really pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC. what specifically are you having trouble understanding? IRC is just another protocol like http, smtp, sip, rtsp, but for chat rooms.

tompickles · 02-20-2008, 09:14 AM

i just didnt really get it - but chat rooms has made it clear. thanks for helping my stupidity!

slakmagik · 02-20-2008, 07:11 PM

If you're interested, check out the channels on freenode - lots of open source projects have dedicated channels so you can get very specific help.

xchat, as acid_kewpie mentioned, is probably the most popular GUI client. I might be biased, but I figure irssi is the most popular text mode client.

tompickles · 02-21-2008, 05:03 AM

thanks for all your advice, ill get reading the two links you suggested. Thanks again