Irssi

The command line IRC client. Irssi is FOSS (licensed under the GPLv2) and is available for Linux, BSD, Solaris, Apple and with Cygwin on Windows. It was developed by Timo Sirainen and was released in the beginning of 1999. It is highly customizable, for example with themes and it is possible to to use other instant messaging communication through it.

Installing

With other package managers, distros and platforms, please see the following link.

With apt: sudo apt-get install irssi

It is rather light-weight, being only 2 392 kB on disk.

Getting around

Connecting

There are several IRC servers still alive and going strong. In this example we shall be connecting to the closest freenode server, located in Finland. Physical distance is not an issue nowadays, but imagine being stuck on a 56 kB modem with top speeds through dial-up and the copper wire being about 12 kB, maxing out at 30 kB, if local.

Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type: irssi
/connect rajaniemi.freenode.net
/join itcollege joining channels usually requires a #-sign, for example #mozilla. Irssi adds it for you behind the scenes so you can omit it

Window Switching

Alt+# combination is used for window switching. For more than nine windows, the row below numbers will be used, for example key combination Alt+q etc. A window can be changed via command as well -- /window #. To close window, type /wc #

Name

Your default nickname (under Ubuntu) will be your computer username. You can change it by entering /nick your-new-username

You should register your nickname if you plan staying for longer and don't want anyone to abuse it, by messaging NickServ /msg nickserv REGISTER <password> <email>

Channels (chat rooms)

To list all chat rooms type /list Might not be a good idea to do, considering there are about 12 000 channels. To search for a specific channel might be more useful to search via browser or know beforehand where you want to connect to.