IRC is where People Talk about GNOME

IRC is one of the main communication channels of the GNOME community. You can freely join a channel that suits your interests if you are a user looking for help, a developer wanting to contribute, or anybody who wants to help with the GNOME project. This page is just a sample list of the channels that are out there. If you are interested in a particular project, find its wiki page and it most likely will have the information about its IRC channel.

Lurking is perfectly fine on IRC. Don't hesitate to join an IRC channel. The etiquette of IRC is such that you don't even need to say "hi" when you join and you can lurk in the channel for as long as you'd like unless you have a specific question or want to share your view in a discussion. So just joining a channel is pretty non-committal.

It's not you, it's the IRC channel. Don't be put off if no one answers your question. It probably means no one knows the answer and no one feels responsible to say that they don't. It's possible that the one person who would know the answer is not online or is busy. Stick around for a while. Get a sense of the channel's activity. Try asking your question when the channel seems livelier. In the meantime, search Bugzilla and the web an extra time.

IRC Applications

To use IRC you need an IRC client. The following GNOME applications provide IRC functionality:

XChat IRC client
xchat-gnome IRC client
Smuxi GNOME IRC client
Pidgin IM and IRC client
Empathy
Thunderbird (since version 15.0)

Alternatively, you can connect to IRC from a browser by using one of the following options:

Mibbit web IRC chat
Chatzilla Firefox Add-on
Or, click on a link to a channel of interest listed below, then select Mibbit. Once you are on the webpage, choose a nick name (you may wish to leave the default nick), and click 'go'. This will immediately connect you to your channel.

GNOME IRC Server

IRC Server: irc.gnome.org - also known as GIMPNet, which is the name under which you'll find it in IRC applications' network lists (standard port: 6667)

List of IRC Channels

If not stated otherwise all channels mentioned here are on irc.gnome.org server. This server is also knows as GIMPNet, which is the name under which you'll find it in IRC applications' network lists.

GNOME Community & Core Experience

#gnome - General GNOME talk
#bugs - THE place to learn how to triage and manage bug reports in Bugzilla - not for general help on fixing specific bugs.
#docs - GNOME Documentation project
#i18n - GNOME Translation and Localization project
#marketing - GNOME Marketing
#gnome-games - GNOME Games development talk
#gnome-hackers - General GNOME Development talk
#gnome-os - Discussion about GNOME as an Operating System
#gnome-shell - Development of the GNOME 3 desktop
#gnome-design - Design of the core GNOME user experience
#gnome-art - GNOME art work studio
#gnome-love - Getting started with GNOME development
#gnome-women - GNOME women community for encouraging and supporting new women contributors

GNOME Servers & GNOME Web

#webhackers - Some GNOME webhackers in there...
#sysadmin - The channel for the official GNOME servers (most users wont need to go here)

GNOME Internet Applications

#epiphany - Channel for the Epiphany web browser
#evolution - Evolution help channel
#xchat-gnome - Help/development for the xchat-gnome IRC client (chat.freenode.net)
#galeon - Help channel for the Galeon browser project
#ekiga- Help channel for Ekiga formerly the GnomeMeeting H.323 videoconferencing/VOIP application
#tinymail- Help channel for Tinymail
#empathy - Help channel for Empathy

GNOME File Browser, Office & Graphics

#gedit - Gedit
#nautilus - The default file browser for GNOME
#abiword - Everything AbiWord
#gimp- GIMP help/developers channel
#planner - Help on Planner
#gnome-db - Everything about GNOME-DB
#gnucash - Exchanging GNUs for Cash right now!
#gnome-office - Talk about GNOME office
#shotwell - Shotwell photo manager

Build Scripts

#garnome - GARNOME build script channel

GNOME Software Development

#gtk+ - Development of, and with, GTK+
#c++ - Development of, and with, the gtkmm and gnomemm C++ bindings
#devel-apps - Development of the Anjuta IDE, devhelp, glade and other devel apps
#anjuta - Talk about Anjuta
#glade3- Talk about Glade user interface designer
#python - Development of, and with python bindings, you can also ask general python questions here
#ruby-gnome2 - Development of, and with Ruby GNOME bindings, you can also ask general Ruby questions here
#gtk-perl - Development of, and with, the gtk2-perl (http://gtk2-perl.sf.net/) group of Perl modules
#vala - Development of, and with, Vala
#win32 - Development of the gnome platform for Windows
#introspection - Development of the GObjectIntrospection framework
#kiwi - Development of the python kiwi framework
#gtkdoc - Development of gtk-doc API documentation tool
#clutter - Development of, and with, Clutter
#gnome-university - GnomeUniversity is an effort to build a set of course materials and an encouraging environment for new and existing GNOME members to develop new skills.

Local Groups for Help in Other Languages

#gnome-de - German users and hackers
#gnome-eo - Esperanto speaking users and contributors
#gnome.se - Swedish Gnome.se (http://www.gnome.se/)
#gnome-india - Users, Contributors and GNOME lovers from India
#gnome-it - Italian users and hackers it.gnome.org (http://www.it.gnome.org/)
#gnome or #gnome - Korean folks, as www.gnome.or.kr as alway concentration gnome (ic.ozinger.org or irc.hanirc.org)
#gnomefr - French - GnomeFR (http://www.gnomefr.org)
#gnome-hispano- Canal de GNOME en lengua castellana / GNOME channel in Spanish language - GNOME Hispano (http://www.es.gnome.org/)
#gnome-nl - GNOME Nederlands / GNOME channel in Dutch language - GNOME Nederlands (http://nl.gnome.org/)
#gnome-ru - Russian folks.
#gnome-cz - Czech channel (http://live.gnome.org/Czech)
#gnome-br - GNOME Brasil - Brazilian channel

Other Help (with GNOME aware people)

#penguins - Lots of friendly expert help (used to be #linuxxchange) (irc.freenode.net)
#debian-gnome - Official Debian GNOME channel (used to be #gnome-debian) (irc.oftc.net)
#gnome - Unofficial GNOME help channel on freenode. (irc.freenode.net)