Originally posted here by HTRegz
1) Cut yourself a new partition and just use that.. doesn't matter where it is.
2) ircII, BitchX, Epic, IRSSI, XChat (Gui) and others. Search Google.
3) check out http://www.computerhope.com/unix/linux.htm
4) FrameWork answered that.

Ok Im going to agree with my boy HT and also add to it. First, SuSE Linux 8.1 professional and 8.2 professional OWN. Also Mandrake 9.1 is great. Its very stable, a built in firewall like almost all new OSs seem to have now, And with Nvidia being awesome and releasing a shell script for all there cards It makes you proud.

For IRC Iv never seen any OS come close to having so many good clients. Some maybe hard to learn at first but if your willing your good. For IRC id recommend Xchat, IRSSI and BitchX, Oh and Emacs has an IRC client too.

Also, you get to play Tux games