openSUSE:IRC for newbies

New to IRC

If you're totally new to IRC and want to start chatting right away, there's an easy way to do this.

Go to webchat.freenode.net and enter a username and the channel you want to enter. For instance, to join in one of the openSUSE Project meetings, just enter #opensuse-project in the Channels field. Or just follow this link and enter a username.

This will open a session

General help on IRC

General help on irc can be found here http://irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html There are many IRC client programs. For this tutorial we use XChat. Launch XChat. Enter a nickname for yourself. Then, under Networks, scroll down to FreeNode and click connect. Wait a bit and when the connection is complete, enter SUSE in the "Join this channel" box, and click OK.

Watch and learn a bit, then just blurt out your question. Not all questions get answered. Don't take it personal. It depends a bit on the time of the day, who is around, and what mood they're in. Smart questions are more likely to be answered. See http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

You can also type '/msg SUSEhelp !help'. This will move you to a second window where you are having a private chat with the server software help bot. In this window you can just type !wireless to get the distilled knowledge of the help chat folks on wireless. Following are the other keywords. This list is sort of a FAQ of the questions that are being asked over and over. You will see these being invoked from time to time in the live chat window for people's questions.

Register your nickname

You have the possibility to register your personal nick in order to be the only person who can use it. The general description how to register your nick is here and also available on freenode IRC via "/msg nickserv help register".

You also need to configure your IRC client a bit to identify automatically when connecting. This might be different from client to client. Registering your nick is compulsory if you intend to use an opensuse cloak after becoming an official openSUSE Member.

Register

Register your IRC nick

 /msg nickserv register <your-password> <your-email>
 Select a password and fill in your email address (withouth the <>)

To keep your email address private, rather than displaying it publicly, mark it as hidden

 /msg nickserv set hidemail on

You'll receive a confirmation mail by freenode. Just follow the instruction in there.

Configure Konversation

Select File, go to Server list and edit Freenode
Go to edit "default identity" and under Auto Identify fill in "Service" = nickserv, Password "the one you set above", then OK and close

External links

User Registration on Freenode's FAQ.