[Herts] Herts LUG IRC Channel

[James Ronan]

Hi Luggers,

Just figured I'd remind people about the Herts LUG IRC channel
this has been set up for a while now, with the exception of a
few regulars, there hasn't been many visitors.

It occurred to me earlier this may be because people aren't familiar
with IRC and simply don't know how get to the channel. Well fear not
below is a tutorial on how to get there. Once there those of us
regulars will be able to get you up to speed with the more advanced
IRC commands.

For those of you who are familiar with the workings of IRC heres where
we are:

	Network: EFNet
	Channel: #hertslug


For anyone not familiar with IRC here's the tutorial. Its a bit of a read,
but it takes you through step by step on how to get to #hertslug



Right, The first thing you'll need is a suitable IRC client. There
are hundreds to choose from, just have a google . .  WAIT, I'm not
done, save the googling for later! A couple of clients that I've used
include Gaim, Xchat and Irssi. (You'll probably have at least one of
those bundled with your distro. (Unless you use something like Gentoo,
then you'll have to compile it. [ Sorry Nicolas, thought I'd slip that
dig in :-) ] ) Gaim and Xchat are X server "windowed" programs. Irssi
is a command line client. Which one you use is up to you as they all
perform the same task, its really down to personal preference. For
reference I'll explain how to do things using both Xchat and Irssi.

Xchat (Windowed Client for KDE/Gnome) comes in source or binary and
can be downloaded from:

	http://www.xchat.org/download/

Irssi (command line client) also comes in source or binary and can be
downloaded from:

	http://www.irssi.org/download/


Ok, grab your client of choice (or one of the above if you want to a step by
step tutorial) install and start it. Now depending on your client of choice
the procedure for connecting to the IRC network will differ. If you've chosen
the windowed client you'll probably have to set up an account, and the program
will use this to get you connected. A command line client, such as Irssi on the
other hand is slightly different in that you tell it what to do and it does it
real time. Below in turn I've described how to get connected to the #hertslug
channel with both Xchat and Irssi


Account setup and connection in Xchat.
	
	When you first start xchat you'll be confronted with a "Server List"
	Dialog. Here you can enter your preferred Nicknames, your real name
	(if you choose to) and select where you want to connect to.


	Firstly, Decide on a nickname, this can be pretty much anything you like,
	I use the standard firstname-surname_initial style (ie. jamesr) but for all
	intents and purposes you could choose "superman". Enter this in the first
	nickname box. Then fill in the other nickname boxes with variants of that
	nickname. Some people add a underscore and the beginning, and then two etc.
	(This is in case your preferred nickname is in use)

	Next we need to tell Xchat what IRC network to connect to, so from the
	"Networks" list on the left choose "EFnet".

	Next in the center is a settings panel for EFnet. Here you'll see a
	text field called "Join Channels:" this is where we tell xchat what
	channels to join once a connection has been established. Enter "#hertslug"
	in the text field.

	On the right is the "Servers" list, this selects which server Xchat will
	try connecting to. Any of them will be fine, i tend to select
	"efnet.demon.co.uk" as its in the country.

	All the other text fields can be left blank and all the settings can be
	left as is. If you wish to enter your real name do that too.

	Click connect and you'll see the chat dialog display something along
	these lines (this output is actually from Irssi but the messages are
	the same from any client)

		18:52 -!- Irssi: Looking up efnet.demon.co.uk
		18:52 -!- Irssi: Connecting to efnet.demon.co.uk [194.159.164.195] port 6667
		18:52 -!- Irssi: Connection to efnet.demon.co.uk established
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Looking up your hostname...
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Checking Ident
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Found your hostname

	Then the dialog will change as Xchat joins the #hertslug channel
	(assuming everything went to plan). Hey presto, there you are, now
	just type away. and hit <enter> to send messages.



Connection Via Irssi.

	Irssi is an brilliant client for those users such as myself who swear
	by the command line.

	Grab Irssi if you don't have it and then run it by opening a terminal
	and typing irssi:

	$ irssi

	This turns your terminal into an IRC client. With your cursor at the
	bottom.

	Next we need to connect. Control in IRC is provided by means of
	"slash commands" in the form of slash immediatly followed by a keyword
	ie. /server. So to connect to a server you need to use the SERVER command
	followed by the server to connect to:

	/server efnet.demon.co.uk
	
	You'll get the connection and host look up messages displayed in the
	chat window:

		18:52 -!- Irssi: Looking up efnet.demon.co.uk
		18:52 -!- Irssi: Connecting to efnet.demon.co.uk [194.159.164.195] port 6667
		18:52 -!- Irssi: Connection to efnet.demon.co.uk established
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Looking up your hostname...
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Checking Ident
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** Found your hostname
		18:52 !efnet.demon.co.uk *** No Ident response


	once connected you get the servers message of the day.

	Finally to join the #hertslug channel use the slash command
	JOIN:

	/join #hertslug

	Thats it, if all went according to plan you'll be in #hertslug
	and we'll be able to go from there! Just type as you would in
	any other IM client.



Right thats it, any questions feel free to reply with them.

See y'all in #hertslug

Cheers
JamesR