IRC and Matrix announcements

The openSUSE Project has used IRC for real-time chat within the community since it began. And the IRC network used was Freenode, until now.

Due to a variety of recent changes to that network, the openSUSE Project is moving our IRC communications to Libera.Chat.

If you are a current IRC user, register your nick(s) on Libera.Chat and rejoin the #opensuse related channels you previously joined on Freenode. Please take this opportunity to choose a new secure password and make sure you are connecting via SSL. Libera.Chat offers documentation on choosing an IRC client.

Many openSUSE channels have moved over and are already on Libera.Chat. However, less-used channels have not been automatically setup. If you need a specific #opensuse-* IRC channel setup, please file a ticket requesting the channel.

New channels should have the same name as they did on Freenode. For example: #opensuse-factory, #opensuse, and #kubic.

If you would like an openSUSE IRC ‘cloak’ (which obfuscates your client host address and shows ‘opensuse’ instead) and you are an openSUSE Member, please file a ticket requesting the cloak. Please note that cloaks are not foolproof, there are ways for people to still get your IP, but they do make it more difficult for people to obtain your IP.

If you are a Matrix user, then you’ll also see improvements as IRC channels are being bridged in to connect the openSUSE communities on IRC and Matrix together. Additionally, Discord and Telegram are connected to Matrix, making it the unifying point for all real-time chat.

Finally, the openSUSE Project hosted Matrix instance is open for the community to use. You can go to chat.opensuse.org to log into the service using your openSUSE account. From there, you’ll be able to interact with any and all Matrix rooms, especially the openSUSE ones hosted on our server that have IRC bridged into them.