This maybe off topic but Please a quickie

[Kiwi-Hawk]

Hi

I'm trying to join an IRC channel  with Xchat using default setting etc
The channel is part of Freenet and I'm thinking select freenet and go for it
it's in the channel list but I get:
--- Looking up irc.eu.freenode.net..
--- Connecting to sterling.freenode.net (212.204.214.114) port 6667..
--- Connected. Now logging in..
--- *** Looking up your hostname...
--- *** Found your hostname, welcome back
--- *** Checking ident
--- *** No identd (auth) response
--- USER :Not enough parameters

And I have no idea what they want none of the FAQ's for Xhat or Freenet 
have any answers or error msg list to work from

Cheers
Pete