content/kb/connect/chat.md

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