IRC
You've probably been sent here for making a booboo on Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
IRC:1 Search first, ask last.
IRC:2 U.S. Politics
IRC:3 Asking to ask
IRC:4 Wrong channel
IRC:5 LART
IRC:6 Search that question/term
IRC:7 Don't private message a stranger
IRC:8 Long URL
IRC:9 Clarify your question
IRC:10 Cut to the chase
IRC
Many of the editors of this [Wiki] hang out, or at least lurk, in the #unixhelp IRC channel on EFNet. Anyone is welcome to join the channel and ask questions (but please have a look at the several items in the list above first!).
If you have not used IRC before, you will need to obtain a client (see the list below), and connect to an IRC server. Using irc.efnet.net should connect you to one of several available servers.
Clients
For UBOs: xchat is the most popular GUI client.
Some ncurses based clients are: irssi, epic, and BitchX
For Windows: Mirc is by far the most popular.
Commands
There are many IRC servers and networks of servers. In this example, we'll connect to a network of servers called EFnet. So if you do
/server irc.efnet.org
in your IRC client, it will connect you to one of the EFNet servers. Once you're connected, you'll see the MOTD (Message of the day) scroll by. You're now connected to a server. Now you join whatever channel you want.
/join #irchelp
will put you in a popular IRC help channel. You can be on many channels at once, so you might also want to:
/join #help
for more generalized help. If you want to see what channels are on a given server:
/list
and to find more information about a person (Their DNS, what server they are on, if they are /away)
/whois NickName
and when you've had enough
/quit Time for bed
will log you off the server with the message "Time for bed" which will show up in all the channels you were on.
