Internet Relay Chat

As documented in RFC 2812 and RFC 2813, the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) protocol is used for text conferencing. Like mail and news, IRC uses a client/server model. Although it is rare for an individual to set up and run an IRC server, it can be done. Most people use public IRC servers and access them with IRC clients. IRC is also the favorite and most common form of quick communication among developers in the Ubuntu community, so if that interests you, you will certainly want to learn to use this tool.

Ubuntu provides a number of graphical IRC clients in the repositories, including XChat, Pidgin, and Quassel. You can even use Empathy, although other products are better suited for this specific task. Ubuntu also makes the console ...

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