irc channel list

[Scott]

Dimitri Mallis spake thusly on 11/01/2006 02:49 PM:
> hi all
> 
> is there a web site with a list of irc servers &/or there channels, to
> get help on any topic/ random topics.
> kind of like a irc only search engine?
> doesn't have to be ubuntu or Linux related or even related to computers.
> 
> I'm looking for a web site with such a list & i have been googling but
> most search strings i try fill the search result with mIRC web links
> 

There are scads of IRC networks and each has scads of channels related
to different topics.  On most networks anybody can start their own
channel, call it anything they like and use it for anything they like
(as long as the network allows/tolerates it).

Therefore it's pretty hard to pin down topic across IRC in general.
Your best bet is to make use of the "/list" command on a given network.
 It will give you a list of all the channels in use (unless they're
invisible).  Some channels are invite only.  And if there's a topic,
you'll find a channel for it. Be warned....

However, some networks are dedicated to certain topics (and sub-topics)
as a whole. Freenode (irc://irc.freenode.net) being one of them.  That's
the network that irc.ubuntu.com is part of.  Freenode is dedicated to
Open Source.  You'll find a large number of Linux distributions with
channels there. There's also a large number of individual (non-Linux)
channels (e.g. KDE).

Again the "/list" command (without the quotes) will show you what's up.

If you're new to IRC, I'd recommend checking out http://irchelp.org.
Some of the information there is a bit dated and is also EFNet-centric
(EFNet is one of the oldest IRC networks) but there's still a lot of
good information there.



-- 
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