How to start chatting with irssi

How to start chatting with irssi:

screen -S chat # will open a screened terminal that you can detach and attach (called "chat")
irssi # open irssi, an awesome chat tool
/set nick <nick> # set your nickname
/set real_name <real name> # optional
/server add -auto -network Freenode irc.freenode.net 6667 # "Freenode" is just a name for the 
network that includes the given IRC server attached to some local port (here 6667)
/network add -nick <nick> Freenode # add your nickname # add your nick to the network
/channel add -auto #remeis Freenode # automatically add the channel #remeis to known chat channels within the "Freenode" network
/j #remeis # join the chat
Cntr -a -d

Ok, how to use it best? Now you told irssi everything about the network, the server, your name and the chat channel you want to join. When logging in to your computer, you just need to open a terminal and type

screen -r chat # resume the screen called "chat" you detached from your terminal the last time

when logging out:

Cntr -a -d # detach screen

And now magic: Create a file in your startup directory of your operating system, here KDE: .kde/Autostart/IrssiRemeis.sh containing the line

term -bg 'black' -fg 'white' -T 'Remeis Chat' -e 'screen -r -d'

this will automatically open a terminal every time you log in to your computer and attach the screen. So all you got to do is to detach the screen before logging out with

Cntr -a -d

That's it. Sometimes you may encounter the problem that you opened screens from different computers and your nickname 'bla' will get '_bla', '__bla'.... Then you have to kill all screens except of one with

screen -S name_of_screen -X quit 

How to start chatting with xchat: open the terminal and start the program xchat

$ xchat

Fill out name + stuff and connect to the server called FreeNode Then join the channel #remeis:

Three possibilites to do that:

 - The first time you start xchat you should be asked which channel to join type remeis
 - type /j #remeis in the chat
 - click on the tab server and click  Join a Channel... -> Type remeis as a channel name

Link to some useful stuff when using irc: [[1]]