Internet Relay Chat

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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, such as CIRC (for Chrome). Current versions of Firefox are no longer compatible with add-ons, so ChatZilla will only work if you are using a sufficiently older version of Firefox.
  • 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 channel discussion archives

  • Archives of many Sugar-related IRC channels are generated automatically by an IRC bot and are indexed here.

irc.freenode.net channels

General:
#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

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.