I was one of those guys who had irssi running inside a screen on a remote Linux box somewhere. It works just fine, but I always forgot to open the SSH session so I missed a lot of IRC conversations. Private messages were a problem as well, most of the times it was a couple of days later before I noticed somebody had actually sent me a PM…
It was time to change my IRC client, with the preference to always be online.
A short search lead me to the website of Quassel IRC, a distributed IRC server/client. Exactly what I was looking for! You just install the “core” on a remote Linux box and use the Linux, Windows, Mac OSX or Android client to participate on IRC.
The core has been running on a Ubuntu 10.04 machine for about one week now and it works like a charm. My IRC conversations are secured by SSL and I never miss a PM or when somebody tags me!
Integration of the client goes well on Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity, it integrates seamlessly with Unity and notifies me whenever I’m tagged or I receive a PM.
Looking for me on IRC? Find me on OFTC @ wido where I hang out in #ceph. Or find me on Freenode @ widodh in #cloudstack