The Usenet and Newsgroups

The Internet’s roots can be traced to the Usenet, a worldwide messaging system. The Usenet, while technically comprising a portion of the Internet, is best known for electronic-mail and newsgroup distribution.

Thousands of computers are linked—worldwide—in the loose network we call the Usenet, a public network of linked UNIX and non-UNIX machines, dedicated to sending information to companies, schools, universities, the government, research laboratories, and individuals. Some of these links occur over phone lines and use the uucp command to send messages back and forth, but most links nowadays go over the Internet, using the NNTP, or Network News Transfer Protocol, to send messages between machines. No matter how the messages get passed around, you can read them the same way.

The Usenet performs a variety of services, but perhaps the most popular service involves newsgroups. A newsgroup is a discussion of various topics, ranging from computing to sociology to boomerangs to Barney the Dinosaur. In fact, there are thousands of Usenet newsgroups. Some are trivial and a waste of bandwidth, others are of interest to only a small set of users, and others would interest a host of users. (Take a gander at alt.sex.bestiality.barney, and you’ll see the validity of this point.)

These newsgroups are divided into classes, to better allow users to figure out what to read in the plethora of information arriving daily. Table 9.4 covers the major newsgroup classifications.

Not only is this computer-dweeb heaven, but the Usenet provides valuable information on everything from vegetarian recipes to buying a house. There are Usenet newsgroups for just about every topic you can imagine—and then some, from rec.sport.football.college to soc.culture.bulgaria. (Alt.buddha.short.fat.guy was definitely a surprise the first time we saw it.) In addition, there are regional newsgroups; those of us in Minnesota have access to a wide range of newsgroups that begin with mn, such as mn.forsale.

While the Usenet can be a powerful information source, you’ll also find a lot of inaccurate information, as nearly anyone can get on the Usenet. So take what you read with a grain of salt. Generally, the more technical the group, the more accurate the information you’ll get. The group comp.compilers (information on writing compilers for computer languages) certainly contains more unbiased information than comp.sys.next.advocacy (advocates—an unbiased group if there ever was one—of NeXT workstations).

However, there are many Usenet newsgroups that you’ll find useful. Being technical types ourselves, we regularly peruse the newsgroups relating to UNIX, the X Window System, and related topics (electronic-mail packages like Elm and Pine, software like emacs). Appendix A lists Linux-related newsgroups.

These classifications are broken down into specific newsgroups. The syntax of a newsgroup name is simple: the name of the classification followed by a descriptive suffix. For example, the name of the newsgroup devoted to questions concerning the UNIX operating system is comp.unix.questions. Note the use of periods to separate the elements. A list of some popular newsgroups is listed in Table 9.5.

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NOTE:  A list of Linux-specific newsgroups is contained in Appendix A.

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Newsgroups can be open or moderated. Open newsgroups mean that anyone can post to them, while moderated newsgroups have someone to review the postings before they’re passed out to the general public. As you might surmise, moderated newsgroups tend to be more reliable and useful.

The Usenet newsgroups are aggressively egalitarian. News can be posted by just about anyone. Using it as a source of information requires some skepticism on your part. On the one hand, it’s a great place to find very technical, specialized information—the more technical and specialized the better. Many leading figures in the computing industry regularly post information in the newsgroups. And because there’s nothing new under the sun, chances are that the problem that plagues you has already been solved by someone else in the Linux world.

On the other hand, every opinion is not created equally, and a lot of ill-founded opinions can be found in most newsgroups. Veterans refer to the signal-to-noise ratio; newsgroups with a lot of ill-founded opinions and bickering are said to be filled with noise. As with any other source of information, treat what you see on the Usenet newsgroups with a healthy dose of skepticism.