Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is easy with just a few commands. Don’t let it scare you. You wouldn’t give up using the telephone because of a bad call, would you? Talking about the right topic in the right channel gives unparalleled, direct access to some of the most involved people within an open source project.
FYI, it seems most people using freenode.net started moving to it's successor https://libera.chat in May 2021.
The URL for loading what is displayed here as an iframe is //kiwiirc.com/nextclient/irc.libera.chat/?nick=lug|?#ubuntu-us-ca
Since we do not have critical mass for #dvlug yet I recommend people start in #ubuntu-us-ca first during the second and fourth Sundays when they hold their meetings.
The Libera FAQ includes IRC commands which begin with a forward slash “/”:
/topictypes the channel topic/whoand/whoisto find out more about other people in the channel/join #[channel]to join another channel/partto depart from a channel/msgto send a private message to a person or robot (bot)- provide the help command for interactive help such as
/msg chanserv helpfor information about channels- nickserv is a bot for information about channels
The Wikipedia description of IRC gives a good overview. While the text of this document is written from a very particular point of view the advice in How to Ask Questions of a technical nature is quite good.
Downloadable IRC client for Mac, Windows & Linux: try pidgin.im
For beginners, I recommend the best place to start talking in IRC is the Ubuntu-California.org IRC channel.
If you have questions, please ask, do not ask to ask. Surprisingly for a real time communication method, some conversations on IRC can span many hours informally and even across different channels. People do work on other things while talking on IRC so have some patience. Different channels can also follow different rules. A channel with over a thousand people in it consistently over many months with many time zones represented (like #ubuntu or #libera on libera.net) will feel very different from a small team channel like #ubuntu-us-ca or even smaller like (in descending order) #berkeleylug or #dvlug. With practice you will better understand how best to use IRC.
Operators of channels and volunteer staff of libera practice their catalyst skills. If you would like to discuss libera with the operators of the network guidelines have been established.
Advanced IRC client: try irssi.org using tmux or screen. This enables attaching and detaching while allowing the client to stay connected.
While you may have used IRC previously, like a telephone, the usefulness depends on how you use it and who else is using it. IRC relates to other messaging technologies in interesting ways. Simple chat messages using older software predated IRC but have recently been taken to new levels with SMS and messaging apps. Status updates a la Facebook are a popular form of communication now. Twitter evolved as a microblog, streaming SMS messages to and from the web. Many open source, technical communities and increasingly companies use IRC or something like it on a daily basis. It’s fairly plain and “easy to use” clients have not kept up with some people’s standards. IRC also functions in public by default. There is also little context tying discussions into other systems though URLs are handy for this if you don’t mind a copy and paste.