How to Install The Lounge Chat on OpenSUSE Latest

The Lounge is a self-hosted web IRC client, which allows you to connect to multiple IRC networks simultaneously. In this tutorial, I will explain step-by-step how to install The Lounge Chat on your OpenSUSE Latest server.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have the following prerequisites installed on your machine.

  • OpenSUSE Latest
  • Root access to the server
  • Basic knowledge of the Linux command-line interface

Step 1: Install Node.js and npm

The Lounge requires Node.js and npm to run. Let’s install them using the official OpenSUSE package manager zypper.

  1. Open the Terminal application on your OpenSUSE server, and login as root user with this command
sudo su
  1. Install the Node.js and npm packages by running the following command.
zypper install nodejs npm
  1. After installation is completed, verify that Node.js and npm are installed correctly by typing these commands.
node -v
npm -v

The command should output the installed version number of Node.js and npm.

Step 2: Install The Lounge

Now that Node.js and npm are installed on your server, you can proceed to install The Lounge chat client.

  1. First, create a new user to run the The Lounge with less privileges than root. To create a new user named lounge, run this command:
useradd -r -m -U -d /opt/lounge lounge
  1. Next, switch to the lounge user by typing this command:
su - lounge
  1. Create a new directory for The Lounge chat client and navigate to it.
mkdir ~/lounge
cd ~/lounge
  1. Now, install The Lounge using npm.
npm install -g thelounge

This may take a few minutes to complete. After installation is done, you can start The Lounge chat client with this command.

thelounge start

Step 3: Configure The Lounge

By default, The Lounge chat client runs on port 9000. To change the port, navigate to the ~/.lounge directory and open the config.js file.

cd ~/.lounge
nano config.js

Change the port number like this:

module.exports = {
  /*
   * The port The Lounge should listen on.
   */
  port: 8080,
};

You can also modify other configuration options, such as the default IRC server, logging settings and user authentication among other options. Once you’ve made your changes, save the file and restart The Lounge.

To restart The Lounge, use the following commands.

thelounge stop
thelounge start

Step 4: Access The Lounge

Now that you’ve installed and configured The Lounge chat client, you can access it from a web browser. Open your web browser and enter the server’s IP address followed by the port number you configured in Step 3.

http://your_server_ip:8080

You should be redirected to The Lounge login page. Enter your desired username and password, then click “Log in”. After you’ve logged in, you can start using The Lounge to connect to your IRC servers.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed The Lounge chat client on your OpenSUSE latest server. You can now start using it to join several IRC channels simultaneously.