Internet Relay Chat. A live chat area of the Internet in which real-time conversations among two or more people take place via special software. Each specific IRC channel begins with a # and is dedicated to a different area of interest. IRC is considered another part of the technology of the Internet the same way FTP, Telnet and the Web are.

Some Channels of interest, all located on freenode.net. You can access any of these using xchat, irssi, gaim, and kopete, just to name a few.

#nolug - New Orleans LUG Channel
#usalug - USALUG.org Channel
#opensuse.us - OpenSuse.US Channel
#bashscripts - Bashscripts.org Channel