Getting Started with IRC

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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing.It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfers.

The 2010 HFOSS Summer Institute will have a dedicated IRC for all participating chapters. And individual chapters (@Wesleyan, @Trinity, @ConnCollege, etc.) and/or individual projects will have their own channels.

channels
IRC is organized into discussion groups called channels (some clients refer to channels as "rooms"). The "/list" command displays a list of those channels.

You may join a channel by typing "/join #channel". With clients written for a graphical environment, you may have a button that will call a popup window where you can type the channel's name; such a client should also have a way of listing all the available channels.

To leave a channel, you may issue the following command "/leave #channel". In a graphical environment where you have 1 channel per window, you may simply close the corresponding window.

Creating a channel is like joining one : just choose a name for the new channel and /join it. If it doesn't already exist, you have created it. You can then set its topic by typing : /topic #channel whatever you want. This option may be restricted by certain administrators.

GUI Clients
For windows and Linux users we recommend: XChat or the Firefox plug in Chatzilla

For Mac users IRC Clients include Colloquy, Ircle and BitchX

IRC Exercise
 Download and install an IRC client for your system. Connect to the HFOSS IRC server at irc.hfoss.org (/attach irc.hfoss.org or /connect irc.hfoss.org). Join the main #hfoss channel (/join #hfoss). Trishan will be moderator. The task is to decide the following question:

What would be a FOSS-related question for an interesting, short research exercise, one that can be completed in around 10 minutes of searching on the Internet?

We will discuss the question and when the vote is called, signal +1 for yes, -1 for no, 0 for don't care. 