How to connect to an IRC network

[brayden]

First thing you need for this is a client to connect with, just like you use a client for MSN or AIM or Yahoo, gtalk etc. you need one for IRC. there are plenty of free and paid programs out there. Such as Pidgin, there are even web based ones like mibbit. There is also xchat which is free on linux but paid software on windows etc. there's also mIRC which is a windows only IRC client.

The client I use is xchat and i use it in Ubuntu. I will show you step to step on how to set it up so you can connect to any network you wish.

if you are an ubuntu user you can install it by typing

sudo apt-get install xchat

It will then install the necessary files and dependences.
If you are using Windows or using any other linux distro then you can just download it at,
http://xchat.org/download/
Once it is installed, run it, and you will get a network list. Some popular networks are already there for you like freenode etc.
But if your desired network is not on the list you can just click new. when you do click new it will add a name to the list and you can name it whatever you want, like raymond.cc or something, it doesn't matter. Once you named it, you click Edit and make your preferences for it, You have to fill in the server info such as; irc.ircworld.nl and then your favourite channel could be #raymondcc
note that the hash is required
Once you fill in all the info you can click close and then connect as soon as possible. if you register yourself at that network you can auto identify yourself with an option called NickServ password or something.

Other clients are different though, this doesn't work for just any IRC client!

[safeguy]

Just to inform, xchat isn't free for Windows platform.

You may use XChat for Windows for free for 30 days. If, after this time, you would like to continue using the product, you are required to register. Registration is a one time fee of $19.99 USD (US Dollars) which can be paid using the PayPal service below.

http://xchat.org/windows/

[brayden]

I thought i said that in the tutorial that xchat is free on linux but paid on windows.

[Polkadot]

If you didn't know, SeaMonkey is the Mozilla Suite. It includes a web browser, mail client, WYSIWYG editor for HTML, and an IRC client. All of that comes free from Mozilla. The entire package is 13 MB for Windows, and 15MB in the Linux distro. The browser doesn't have all of FF's features, but since they are 'in-house', all of the security patches get trickled down to them. It is simular to FF, but much lighter. IRC works very well (I think it is ChatZilla), and the tiny HTML editor is real nice...one click to toggle back and forth between code and 'finished page'.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/