Internet Relay Chat

IRC, Internet Relay Chat

Most Sugar Labs chat takes place on IRC (see Internet Relay Chat).

• The IRC activity allows access to IRC from within the Sugar environment.
• You can use a computer-based client to log in to IRC, such as Pidgin or X-Chat. This link should work for such clients: irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar
• Or, use a browser add-on (like ChatZilla for the FireFox web browser, where the above link will also work).
• Easiest, might be this web browser-based service provided by freenode through qwebirc to chat on #sugar now.

IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion 'channels', but allows for personal chat and data transfer as well.

The Sugar Labs Community uses a series of channels in the irc.freenode.net network.

irc.freenode.net channels

General:
#olpc-help or irc://irc.freenode.net#olpc-help	Community help. If you need help using an XO or with Sugar, and you haven't asked anywhere else: try here first.
#sugar-newbies or irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-newbies	New developer help. If you're starting to develop in Sugar, you can ask here and help contribute to the new developers manual and FAQ. The channel is logged and its history searchable.
#sugar or irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar	For day-to-day Sugar development—a casual, friendly place where Sugar developers collaborate.
#sugar-meeting or irc://irc.freenode.net#sugar-meeting	A channel for scheduled Sugar Labs meetings. See the Sugar Labs event calendar.
#fedora-olpc or irc://irc.freenode.net#fedora-olpc	A channel for the Fedora development project for OLPC XOs and a Sugar distribution. See the project page.

irc.oftc.net channels

General:
#schoolserver or irc://irc.oftc.net#schoolserver	The meeting channel for the XS, the XO school Server. (Not active in September 2009.)
#treehouse or irc://irc.oftc.net#treehouse	The meeting channel for the Treehouse - Hosting

• See also OLPC:Communication channels.

How to use IRC channels

• A web-based chat for freenode.net channels is qwebirc, with nickname: (whatever you like), and channel: #sugar (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into).
• A web-based chat for other channels is Mibbit, with nickname: (whatever you like), server: irc.oftc.net, and channel: #schoolserver (or whatever other channel you're trying to get into). It also includes an in-line translation service that is helpful when other languages are used. (Connections via mibbit are no longer supported on freenode. You may wish to consider using http://webchat.freenode.net instead. Further information over at http://bit.ly/19JILF.)
• Some helpful resources are here, and this tutorial, which also includes basic commands.
• Learn about IRC etiquette. Try here, here, or here.
• For IRC under sugar, install the latest Sugar IRC activity.
• In Pidgin you can configure IRC and then Add a Chat to your Buddy list. Select the IRC channel from the drop-down menu, and enter the name of the channel. You can set Pidgin to open channels automatically whenever it starts up.
• In a traditional IRC client, you join a channel with the /join command, for example, enter /join #sugar in the input box.
• Connect to one of the above channels, and say hello. You will see a list of the handles (on-line names) of the people in the channel, and the conversation will appear in a scrolling window. Type your message in the command entry area, and press return.
• Instructions for using the meeting log robot are here.