Hi, Time to get news going on my machine. I want an offline mail reading system that can dial in via my isp to collect news from local server (news.saix.net i think).
I have been looking thru dselect for in packages opt-news and see quite a variety. It seems that I should install packages to get, send, and read mail. The system runs in console mode. On my W98 m/c I am used to FreeAgent which allows me to easily select and change newsgroups of interest. Generally I have specific ones that I always read, some that I occasionally read, and some that I have a quick look at and then discard. I am used to downloading the headers at one go and then reconnecting to download selected messages and sending my own posts. Local calls cost here so the aim is to operate offline as much as possible and I do not want to download unecessary messages that may never be read. If I am offline then I need to spool the news, and slrn with slrnpull looks like a likely choice. Should I go ahead and install these packages or is there a better choice? Gnus looks like it needs XEmacs so that is out. newsx looks like it will download articles to a local mail spool, but what does that 'x' mean? inn seems to be the preferred Debian choice, so perhaps I should go for that, but it mentions trn which is not on my distribution, and looks like it is perhaps intended for providing for the needs of more than a single user. .... and then I see leafnode, which is also probably also for a multi-user network. Can someone please cut through the fog and talk me into a sensible selection please. Regards Ian -- Ian Balchin http://www.imaginet.co.za/fables This machine is running Debian GNU/Linux ... http://www.debian.org
