Linux, online confrences, and IRC portals?

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Karen, Anne, and all, 

Others have had more experience with text mode conferencing in Linux 
than I, but for what it's worth, here is my experience:

There are numerous IRC clients that work well enough in Linux. I have 
used BitchX to participate in text mode conferences with little or not 
difficulty, after tweaking the default configuration a bit. I have been 
told that there are better clients than BitchX for the purpose, but 
never moved on up to another.

Currently I am using jabber very successfully for instant messaging, 
relying on the client called "imcom" for the purpose. There are 
conferences available on the jabber network, and I have also 
successfully participated in one of them using imcom.

In addition to providing instant messaging and conferencing, jabber 
supports gateways to the major proprietary conferencing and messaging 
services such as ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and the 
rest, but I have not attempted to use those gateways (or transports in 
jabberese). I know of at least one serious speakup user who uses them 
happily, and at least one other who has had enormous difficulty doing 
so. I also understand that the new Google Talk service relies on the 
jabber protocol, or a jabber-like protocol, but again I have not 
attempted to interact with it, and do not know if they do conferences 
anyway. Jabber uses the terms "MUC" (multi user chat) and "conference" 
interchangeably. 

The various IRC services and the jabber network are all GPL, and there 
are client programs to access them for all the major platforms, Windows, 
Mac, and Linux.

While it is possible to do text mode conferencing in Linux, my 
experience has been that it is usually a very rapid fire experience that 
challenges my reaction time to participate effectively. In short, it is 
no fun! But it is do-able.

That's it, you have just picked my brain clear to the bone.

Chuck

-- 
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