this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Same. I used mIRC back in the 90's, but ever since I started dabbling with servers I preferred to have an irssi client running inside a screen session somewhere. Allowed me to catch up on things that happened while I was AFK, as well as provide some continuity while I was on the move and/or on a dodgy connection.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Unfortunately it's practically unusable for my use case, which is talking in CJK channels on non-UTF8 servers (when the channel name also has such characters), because recode support has been broken for 20 years.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You know, I wish I could enjoy IRC - or chatrooms in general. But I just struggle with them. Forums and their ilk, I get. I check in on them and see what's been posted since I last visited, and reply to anything that motivates me to do so. Perhaps I'll even throw a post up myself once in a while.

But with IRC, Matrix, Discord, etc, I just feel like I only ever enter in the middle of an existing conversation. It's fine on very small rooms where it's almost analagous to a forum because there's little enough conversation going on that it remains mostly asynchronous. But larger chatrooms are just a wall of flowing conversation that I struggle to keep up with, or find an entry point.

Anyway - to answer the actual question, I use something called "The Lounge" which I host on my VPS. I like it because it remains online even when I am not, so I can atleast view some of the history of any conversation I do stumble across when I go on IRC. I typically just use the web client that comes with it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I feel the same way. I don't feel like hanging around for someone else's conversation to end so I can actually get what the fuck is happening.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago

Because it's healthy.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Is mIRC still a thing? Do people still use it? Gosh I feel old.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's the first one I thought of as well. And your second point, too... Haha

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I remember back in day, my friends would learn how to script only to modify their mIRC and have some sick startup animations and music.

Then MSN Messenger showed up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I downloaded it not that long ago and worked great!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I was gonna say this is my favorite, with IRCn on top. It's been a while since I connected. Is EFNet still around?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Weechat. Terminal based, flexible scripting system using a handful of languages, still actively developed, and I can make it work the way I want it to work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Seconded. Weechat and Gomuks for matrix chat.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

irssi. No explanation necessary

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I use Hexchat. It’s a fine GUI a client, simple and reliable. I use a ZNC bouncer so no need to keep a CLI client running 24/7.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Just to let you know, Hexchat is no longer maintained, unless someone has forked it. Might be worth looking into alternatives.

https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Has IRC been getting many new features recently? It kind of feels like the sort of thing where software can become "finished".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I mean yeah, Hexchat does work pretty well and is kind of finished. But it's possible there are existing security vulnerabilities or new ones to be discovered in the future.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Aw drat. That sucks. Thanks for pointing that out

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Same. Hexchat + znc = peak of software development

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Lounge. Very convenient to use.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Already coming up close to 10 years of The Lounge! Really gets the job done nicely as long as you don't hate webapps. By far the least broken option for mobile unless you go IRCCloud.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

I use Quassel hosted on my server.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I run irssi on a Raspberry Pi. It has everything I need.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do I have to self host it to make it work or can I just install it on my machine

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

You can install it on any machine. It's just a terminal IRC client. I run it on a small home server with screen so that it's always on.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

The one I wrote myself. Not because its any better ha ha. Its pretty fun to work on it though.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Is IRC still that popular? I mean it’s all Discord and Matrix etc these days (not saying that’s a good thing, I f’in hate Discord)

What kind of channels are you in if I may ask?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

IRC's not as popular as in its heyday, and while once it was the main choice for multi-playing gaming chat (Quakenet et al), that's largely gone elsewhere, but it's still very good for certain technical channels.

IRC has also proved to be remarkably resistent to commercialisation, mostly due to the users. Even when one of the biggest networks, Freenode, got taken over by a drug addled mentalist Reference who started insisting all all kinds of strange things, the users just upped sticks and created a new network. A bit of fuss, but the important stuff stayed the same and it's continued much as before as a new network, Librenet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Discord is closed source and has no way to easily archive/record conversations. This makes it unsuitable for a lot of open source projects who need a chat client. I've not used much Discord but potentially the "gamer" culture might put people off.

Matrix seems good but it's not quite there yet from what I can tell. It's got way more features than IRC but none of them seem to work that well. Like a swiss army knife full of blunt tools.

For IRC I'm on the libera.chat server. Usually hanging out in the gentoo channels since I use that distro. There are a lot of different channels for the various devs, user tech support, niche uses like gaming* and also offtopic chat channels.

*More gamers tend to use other linux distros for some reason

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

It is. It's obscure enough for the normies to stay away. Which is its main feature

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Irssi. It's extensible and stable, been using it for years.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

hexchat, also Konversation

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Self hosted ‘The Lounge’ is great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yes TheLounge is fantastic but I switched to Convos these days because it's lighter weight and I somehow manage to overrun my disk much less often :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

ircCloud because my self hosted push notifications were failing and it worked right away.

Irssi before I started depending on push notifications though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Polaris.

Yes i am old

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I use the web client of libera.chat and I love it because convenience!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

srain, becuase of being modern gtk, because of being light on dependencies, because of being available on aur, and because I'd like it more (yes there are several things that are also a matter of taste) than the alternatives, :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Quassel, self-hosted.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

WeeChat! I've been using WeeChat for like 13 years now and I love it. I used to use irssi back in the days and mIRC before irssi existed.. Some bitchX experiments may have happened at some point during the shell boom too.

This remote interface is the biggest selling point to me even today, it's amazing: WeeChat-Android.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Convos - self hosted web based client written in Perl of all things, because it's small, simple, does exactly what I want and no more, and avoids my having to faff with client + bouncer which was getting old 10 years ago and feels positively withering now.

https://convos.chat/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Quassel nowadays, because I'm on my phone more often than my laptop. Back when I say at a keyboard more, it was irssi, no contest

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