In this article I’m going to look at a staple application of many user’s lives. No, not a web browser, but an IRC client. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a simple, but effective, way for multiple users to communicate with each other in an environment that most likely equates to your local bar.

In this article, I’m going to look at five IRC clients for the Unix/Linux terminal.

I’ve chosen a terminal version, rather than a GUI version because I find them more flexible if I have to use an IRC client that I can access from almost any platform, including remotely over a dial-up or telnet connection. This is, in fact, exactly the situation I found myself in just last week.

I’ll cover the ease of installation, feature set and overall impressions of each application. However, this is not a comparison article. Although I will make comparisons to show the differences between the packages, the aim is not to find the “best” package, only to demonstrate the range and quality of the packages on offer.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a simple, but effective, way for multiple users to communicate with each other in an environment that most likely equates to your local bar

Here are the five applications I have chosen to review; the descriptions are taken from those on FreshMeat :

• netwalker-ircc – A simple, fast IRC client with an ncurses UI.
• WeeChat – A portable, fast, light, and extensible IRC client.
• Rhapsody IRC – An IRC console client for Unix.
• centericq – An ncurses-based client for ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, IRC, Jabber, MSN, and LiveJournal.
• naim – An ncurses-based console for AIM, IRC, ICQ, and Lily client.

Let’s get started with netwalker.

Netwalker-ircc

In short..

You can download netwalker-ircc through FreshMeat or through the netwalker-ircc homepage. Technically the product is still in beta, although my initial impressions of the software don’t suggest that there are any significant bugs in the application. I think the beta label applies more to the features the author would like to include in the product.

Compilation is very straightforward—the application relies only on the most basic of requirements and so it can get away with a simple Makefile. Once compiled there is a step required by the application to set up a suitable configuration file. You do this by supplying the - c command line option. You’ll then need to edit the file and set the various options, such as your name, nickname and the server you want to connect to.

Here lies a limitation of the application; it supports only a single server connection at any one time, and there’s no built in functionality to support multiple configuration files. This does mean that for the many people who use multiple servers this application is not going to be particularly useful.

Figure 1: Netwalker-ircc in use

However, if you use just one server, then the application does support multiple channels. Once started up—you can see a sample here in figure 1—the application allows you to switch between different “screens”. Each screen relates to a different aspect of your IRC session, so screen 0 relates to your console, screen 1 the server channel and screen 2 your first user channel. You change between either by using a command, or using the function key; escape returns you to the server console.

Once connected, the basic functionality you would expect from an IRC client is there; you can connect, join channels—strictly the basics. More complex functionality, for example direct chat and file transmission are not supported.

Despite these limitations, I really like netwalker. It’s simple, the screen is unfussy (too much information can often make text-based IRC clients a nightmare) and the quick-key access to channels make it easy to flip around my main haunts. The size also means it would be ideal in those situations where space was comparatively limited; say when carrying applications round on a USB key, or if you want to cram more applications into a CD distribution. I certainly wouldn’t hesitate to use netwalker in these situations.

WeeChat

In short..