coapp-developers team mailing list archive

[Elizabeth M Smith <emsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/9/2010 3:24 AM, Karthik Rathinavelu wrote:
> Hi,
>    I haven't used IRC before and I'm new to OpenSource projects... Can 
> you explain on how to start with IRC ? Thanks for the help
>
> -- Karthik R

No problem in fact I'll CC the list for anyone else who is interested.

If you've used any kind of instant messaging (AIM, MSN, Yahoo messenger) 
then you have kind of an idea of how it works.

The first thing you need is an IRC client.  There are a LOT of them out 
there.  Personally, since I also have to be on a lot of instant 
messaging networks, I use pidgin (http://pidgin.im) with the IRC plugins 
from http://plugins.guifications.org/trac/wiki/PluginPack - note you 
have to look a bit but they do have windows binaries compiled.

For some help choosing clients -
http://www.ircreviews.org/clients/

Just pick your operating system and choose from a list.

Notice there are 60 (60!) clients listed for windows.  Really the most 
popular ones for windows are either X-Chat or mIRC.

So pick a client, download it, install it - so you have an IRC client 
installed on your machine.  Start it up.

Each client will be a little bit different on how to create a new 
connection.  You'll need to check out the client's instructions, but the 
channel for #coapp is located on Freenode http://freenode.net/ which is 
basically the place that open source projects use for their project 
related channels ;)

You'll need to choose an irc server to connect to - freenode has a list 
of servers http://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml but the easiest way to 
use freenode is to connect to *chat.freenode.net - this is their 
rotation ip - they'll push you to the closest server with the least 
number of users (keeps the load nice and balanced)

Side note - they're always looking for more servers so if you have the 
resources....

So - you connect to chat.freenode.net with your client.  On freenode 
they have the concept of "registered" nicknames.  This means the 
username you choose can be registered to you by being associated with a 
password, and if other people use it on the network and you log on, you 
can "get it back".

This is useful for keeping track of who is who on IRC.

Registration is done via the command
**/msg nickserv register <your-password> <your-email>*

You may run into the issue where your nick is already registered by 
someone else - then you'll have to change it (use the command /nick <new 
name> or if it has not been used in 60 days ask a freenode staffer and 
they can free it.  This means that you probably need to log into 
freenode at least once every 60 days an identify to keep your name) - 
more on the subject
*
http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup

After you've registered your name you need to do /msg nickserv identify 
**<your-password> every time you log on
Some clients support this - but notice this is not the same as the 
"server password" on many clients.

Then you just need to join the channel

/join #coapp
**
I'll leave you with a few additional places to get more information:

http://irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html - a great tutorial with the 
basics of IRC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC/Tutorial - wikipedia 
specific, but just join #coapp as your channel and you don't need to do 
a host cloak
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/IRCHowTo - although project 
specific, very helpful if you frequent linux or use xchat
*
If you have any more questions feel free to ask, but I'm not sure if 
I'll be able to answer any client specific ones (well unless they're 
pidgin or colloquy ones)

Thanks,
Elizabeth M Smith