Karen, Anne, and all, Others have had more experience with text mode conferencing in Linux than I, but for what it's worth, here is my experience: There are numerous IRC clients that work well enough in Linux. I have used BitchX to participate in text mode conferences with little or not difficulty, after tweaking the default configuration a bit. I have been told that there are better clients than BitchX for the purpose, but never moved on up to another. Currently I am using jabber very successfully for instant messaging, relying on the client called "imcom" for the purpose. There are conferences available on the jabber network, and I have also successfully participated in one of them using imcom. In addition to providing instant messaging and conferencing, jabber supports gateways to the major proprietary conferencing and messaging services such as ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and the rest, but I have not attempted to use those gateways (or transports in jabberese). I know of at least one serious speakup user who uses them happily, and at least one other who has had enormous difficulty doing so. I also understand that the new Google Talk service relies on the jabber protocol, or a jabber-like protocol, but again I have not attempted to interact with it, and do not know if they do conferences anyway. Jabber uses the terms "MUC" (multi user chat) and "conference" interchangeably. The various IRC services and the jabber network are all GPL, and there are client programs to access them for all the major platforms, Windows, Mac, and Linux. While it is possible to do text mode conferencing in Linux, my experience has been that it is usually a very rapid fire experience that challenges my reaction time to participate effectively. In short, it is no fun! But it is do-able. That's it, you have just picked my brain clear to the bone. Chuck -- The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (72% of Full) But you can still get downloads from http://www.mhcable.com/~chuckh or you could Jabber me, using JID chuckh at hhs48.com
