First of all, thank you for showing some interest in the RBO irc, im just making this tutorial of some sort because i've always told people about this irc, but people didnt understand too well how to setup a client, so this tutorial is here to help with that
IRC (or Internet Relay Chat) is a chat protocol made in the 80's by one Jarkko Oikarinen, and in all honesty the best way to describe this is that its discord but in the 80's. You got channels and you can chat in them like discord, you can message users too but that varies from client to client but unlike discord the protocol is fully open and the way you connect to servers is by ip addresses.
There are several reasons for why one would use IRC instead of Discord, or even Matrix. It could be because of nostalgias sake of course, knowing how many people grew up with the standard. Its also pretty accessible with how you can run a client on the weakest of hardware out there and still have no issues. But on my end its due to the simplicity. Its just nice to have a way to talk to my friends without needing to worry about passwords, if the company that has my data is selling it to anyone or about any of the annoying verification methods (looking at you Matrix). Just being able to have the raw chatting experience, is nice from time to time.
The way to join servers on IRC is through clients. Its the thing that lets you chat with your friends and send files, which can range from modest web apps to clients you can run on your terminal. And its one of the best parts of irc in my opinion, having several options for what you want to use. But with too many options comes confusion, so what should you choose?
When it comes to IRC and clients its hard to pinpoint what client is the "Best" because it depends on what the user needs, the features of the client can vary. Some have easy to set up file transfers, other voice chat, and others might have some really good customization. It really does depend on what featureset you need and what platform do you need it on. My personal recommendation has always been hexchat since its super simple and lightweight, while also having a lot of good features like dcc. But apparently its no longer being worked on, so my second best recommendation would be quassel. But you should take a look at the guide for using clients that libera chat has https://libera.chat/guides/clients as thats a good way of finding new clients to use
After choosing a client, you should go ahead and set up your usernames, realname and automatic channels to join to if thats how you roll. But the most important part is connecting.
For the RBO irc atleast, there are two ip's, the ssl one and the none ssl one. Here are the differences between each one
| Address | Description |
|---|---|
| ssntails.isageek.net:6686 | Fully secure connection, as it says on UnrealIRCd the connection is fully encrypted so no one can see your data. If you plan on sharing sensitive information between eachother (and if you just want security) then this route is recommended for modern machines |
| ssntails.isageek.net:6683 | Less secure than the ssl one, as this doesnt have encryption, however if your machine is older then this is a safe bet (i've tried it on DOSbox running win95 and it worked no issues) |
Generally speaking, most clients use ssl by default, but some might not so you might need to set that up too
With that i'd say youre pretty much done, you can now join the main channels on the irc (#srb2 and #offtopic) or even make your own channel if you want to! However if you want to make your irc experience better i'd recommend reading these things if you want to
IRC Formatting: Page on wikichip showing you how to use formatting on irc, and also color on irc!
DCC behind a router: Although this can vary between the clients you use, its not bad to give it a read if you want to use dcc on hexchat
Registering your nick on irc: If for whatever reason you dont want people taking up your username, you can always register it, as the rbo irc uses nickserv
I hope you enjoy your stay at the rbo irc, and i hope this guide could help you a bit. Cya on the irc!