content/faq/connect/chat.md

   1 Title: Connect
   2 Slug: chat
   3 ---
   4 <p>To access the <span class="freenode">freenode</span> IRC servers,
   5 you'll first need an IRC client.  Text clients include
   6 irssi, WeeChat, and ERC.  Graphical clients include XChat, Smuxi, and Quassel
   7 for Unix and GNU/Linux, and mIRC for Windows. There is also the
   8 <a href="http://webchat.freenode.net/">freenode webchat</a>.
   9 Packages for various IRC clients may be included on your operating
  10 system install CDs and links to web sites for the client software can be
  11 found
  12
  13 <a href="http://www.irc.org/links.html">here</a>.</p>
  14
  15
  16
  17
  18 <p>Once you have a client, you'll need a server.
  19 You can simply use <b>chat.freenode.net</b> to reach our main rotation of
  20 servers; or, you can find a more geographically-local server
  21
  22 <a href="irc_servers.shtml">here</a>.</p>
  23
  24
  25
  26
  27 <p>After you've obtained your client and the name of
  28 a server, you may still need a bit of help in getting connected.  Take a
  29 look at this
  30
  31 <a href="http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html">tutorial</a>
  32
  33 or this
  34
  35 <a href="http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/ircprimer.html">IRC primer</a>
  36
  37 on
  38
  39 <a href="http://www.irchelp.org/">irchelp.org</a>,
  40
  41 which contains a variety of other useful information as well.</p>
  42