Make Hexchat the default IRC client instead of XChat in Ubuntu 14.10 and later versions

[Kamran Mackey]

Since XChat is no longer in development by it's main developer, I was thinking that maybe you guys should make HexChat the default IRC client for Ubuntu 14.10, if it isn't already the default IRC client in Ubuntu 14.04. It's a great IRC client, and it's much better than XChat. So I would really appreciate it if you guys could make HexChat the default IRC client in the next release of Ubuntu.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Aminda Suomalainen (mikaela)]

Somewhat related: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xchat/+bug/1437272

It would be nice if XChat could be dropped from repositories entirely or made meta-package bringing HexChat as talked on #ubuntu-irc now.

[Aminda Suomalainen (mikaela)]

It seems HexChat is removed from Ubuntu 16.04 repositories. http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=xchat

I marked my bug as "fix released", but I am not sure if I should do it here as I haven't done the removal or reported this bug and this seems to be reported against two packages/projects.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

hexchat currently uses gtk2 and I don't think we want any more gtk2 dependencies added to main.

hexchat is currently in main so it would need to complete the Main Inclusion Process.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MainInclusionProcess

But you'll need to talk to the Ubuntu Desktop team about whether they want hexchat in main.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Technically, there really isn't a default IRC client in Ubuntu so I'm closing the ubuntu-meta task.

My previous comment should be "hexchat is *NOT* currently in main*.

I'm keeping the bug open because there's a suggestion that hexchat should provide a transitional package to upgrade xchat users to it.

[Mattia Rizzolo (mapreri)]

xchat is back, and Gianfranco wants to keep it.

Also, I see little value in a transitional package or similar when they can't be upgraded from one to the other seamlessly. I'm therefore closing both tasks.