Reading and Writing the News

Although all the news items are text files and could in theory could be read with vi or emacs, there are so many of them in so many separate files that it’s not really feasible to read each file. A full Usenet newsfeed, that is, all the incoming message files from all the worldwide newsgroups, adds more than 50 megabytes of files to your disk each day. (Remember when we said earlier that UNIX files seem to propagate proportionally? Well, there’s your example.) This is how a type of software, called newsreaders, evolved. Newsreaders help you sort out, with varying degrees of usefulness, what to read from the hundreds of new files that appear daily. The basic idea is to read those messages you’re interested in and skip the rest. There’s simply no way to read every incoming message, even if you spend all day in front of your computer.

We are not going to cover the many newsreaders in depth; Linux features several, and you’re encouraged to check them all out. What you use will partially depend on how you get your news delivered. If you’re on a corporate network, you’ll access the news from a local server. If you’re connected to the Internet via ISP, then you’ll use the NNTP protocol to grab your news from the ISP news server. When you ran setup back in Chapter 2, you were asked about this; if you installed the wrong kind of newsreader, you can always go back to setup and install one more to your liking. Linux newsreaders include:

•  trn, a reader with expanded search capabilities (shown in Figure 9.7)

Figure 9.7  The trn newsreader.

•  inn, a basic reader

•  tin, a threaded reader that arranges messages by topic (as shown in Figure 9.8)

Figure 9.8  The tin newsreader.

Slurping the News

As the Internet grows in popularity, more and more of the Usenet news gets transmitted over the Internet rather than the older uucp phone-line method.

Over the Internet, the Usenet news jumps from one machine to another through the NNTP. If you use NNTP to get your news, you can view the news with a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator.

In addition, a freeware program called Slurp can acquire news for you via NNTP. This is very useful for downloading select Usenet newsgroups to your Linux system. You can then read the messages offline with a newsreading program such as xrn, nn, or trn. We’ve included Slurp on the second CD-ROM.

How do I Find a File for Download?

If you’re on the Usenet, you’ll be surrounded by information regarding free software and how to get it. The trick is knowing where to look for it.

Some universities and corporations maintain archive sites that support anonymous FTP. These locations are referred to regularly in the newsgroup comp.answers.

In addition, many computer-related newsgroups will contain news items labeled FAQ, or Frequently Asked Questions. One of the frequently asked questions will (undoubtedly) concern the existence of archival sites.

And, finally, you can post a plaintive plea in a newsgroup, asking for information about a particular program. You may receive some rude comments from people who tire of answering questions from innocent beginners, but undoubtedly some kind person will answer your request with useful information.

Summary

This chapter covered Linux’s many tools for connecting to other computer systems and to the Internet using TCP/IP features. These include TCP/IP connections to an existing network and dialup access using Linux’s SLIP and PPP tools.

Once connected, Linux offers many commands for networking Internet access and usage, including ftp (which lets you transfer software from remote sites), rlogin, and telnet. You can also peruse Usenet newsgroups thanks to several newsreaders. In addition, Linux offers several mail options, including the mail command and the xmh, pine, and elm newsreaders. We’ve included several freeware Web browsers on the second CD-ROM.

The Usenet is a series of newsgroups. Linux features several newsreading programs.

In the next (and final) chapter, we cover programming and Linux.