15.6 Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a way to chat with people from all over the world
in real time. IRC channels dedicated to Debian can be found on the freenode IRC network. To connect,
you need an IRC client. Some of the most popular clients are XChat, BitchX,
ircII, irssi, epic4, and KSirc, all of which have been packaged for Debian.
Once you have the client installed, you need to tell it to connect to the
server. In most clients, you can do that by typing:
/server irc.debian.org
Once you are connected, join channel #debian by typing
/join #debian
To leave channel #debian type
/part #debian
You can quit the irc client by typing
/quit
To send a private message "Hello Mr. Foo" to foo type
/msg foo Hello Mr. Foo
Note that anything you type without the preceding / is sent to the
channel as a message.
Note: clients like XChat often have a different graphical user interface for
joining servers/channels.
