About IRC

Internet Relay Chat is a lot like instant messaging, except that participants join a chat channel on an IRC server. Participants can then talk with anyone else in the channel.

How To Connect To IRC

To connect to IRC, participants need to use a IRC client. IRC clients are available for all operating systems, including Linux. Some popular IRC clients are XChat, KSIrc (which is part of KDE) and irssi (a console based client).

To connect to the #setxlug channel, start up the IRC client of your choice and issue the following commands:

The first command connects you the the irc.freenode.net server. In xchat, it's not necessary, since you can select freenode from the available servers list. Clicking "Connect To Server" will then connect you to freenode.

The second command joins the participant to the #setxlug channel. From there, you can simply type your messages and talk with other participants in the channel. If you need help with IRC commands, you can use the /HELP command to display available IRC commands. You can also ask someone in IRC for help.