LINUX talk and Mesg

talk

Talk is a visual communication program which copies lines from your terminal to that of another user. It also copies lines from that other user's terminal to yours splitting your terminal in two top and bottom.

Options available:
person If you wish to talk to someone on your own machine, then person is just the person's login name. If you wish to talk to a user on another host, then person is of the form `user@host'.

ttyname If you wish to talk to a user who is logged in more than once, the ttyname argument may be used to indicate the appropriate terminal name, where ttyname is of the form `ttyXX'.

When first called, talk sends the message:

Message from talkdaemon@milk.shake.org
talk: connection requested by your_name@your_machine
talk respond with: talk your_name@your_machine

At this point, the recipient of the message should reply by typing:
talk your_name@your_machine
eg talk andrew@milk.shake.org

It doesn't matter from which machine the recipient replies, as long as his login-name is the same. Once communication is established, the two parties may type simultaneously, with their output appearing in separate windows. Typing Ctrl L will cause the screen to be reprinted, while your erase, kill, and word kill characters will behave normally. To exit, just type your interrupt character; talk then moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and restores the terminal to its previous state. Permission to talk may be denied or granted by use of the mesg command. At the outset talking is allowed.

Options available:
mesg person you wish to send a message to. You then type your message and when complete press Ctrl D to send it. Messages appear on other peoples terminals whatever they are doing and can frustrate them if they are using a text editor.

mesg n prevents people messaging you on the server.
mesg y allows people to message you on the server.