Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!basser!nswitgould!nick
From: nick@nswitgould.cs.uts.oz (Nick Andrew)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: News for Minix (part 0 of 12)
Keywords: news
Message-ID: <16741@nswitgould.cs.uts.oz>
Date: 7 Dec 89 11:46:21 GMT
Organization: Comp Sci, NSWIT, Australia
Lines: 70


WARNING: Posting not for the faint of heart.

	This is a very messy implementation of News 2.11 for MINIX. I will
undoubtedly get flamed for posting such mess; such is life. I've been
using this software successfully with a news feed from ACSnet for over 6
months now, and it is high time Minix had some N_E_W_S software.

Some installation notes (read & follow before typing make!) ...

-	I have been primarily using News to read, not post. The links into
ACSnet were set up in an unusual way, and since I don't run UUPC on my Minix,
I don't know what needs to be changed for UUCP.

-	You will have to make some directories: /usr/spool, /usr/spool/batch,
/usr/spool/news, /usr/lib/news, /usr/local/bin. Make sure /usr/spool is on
a filesystem with plenty of space free (depending on how many newsgroups
you want to get).

-	Several programs use the "r+", "w+" type modes in fopen(). You'll
need to have one of the recently posted Stdio packages for things to work.
I just coded a quick one, and it is known in the Makefile as libcio.a (check
for the -lcio parameter).

-	Some programs won't compile, for some reason or other. caesar.c for
example. I guess you can safely ignore those; I did!  The ones to worry
about are inews, rnews, postnews, expire, and unbatch.

-	getdate.y required yacc. I used a real unix yacc to make getdate.c
but have only included getdate.s (shar'ed as getdate.s.uu).

-	The original makefile did a lot of customisation work (running
customize shell scripts before recompiling etc..). These have all been
removed as they stood in the way of the port. What you see is what you
get.

-	I haven't tried vnews at all; preferring to use vn.

-	You will have to set up various config files; active, newsgroups,
sys, distributions, etc... The install manual should tell a lot about this.

-	unbatch has been heavily modified to do its work on a compressed
news batch by decompressing to a temporary file, and then running inews on
that file. Minix's memory limitations don't allow any other method.

-	This posting comes as 12 source postings (src directory), followed
in a day or two by postings of the (essentially unmodified) manuals and
user guides etc.




My aim in making this posting is to allow the dedicated Minix hackers to
create a real News for Minix. I have not the time nor the resources to
spend further on News, and I feel that since the software is running
fairly stable on my own system, it would benefit the rest of the net,
despite the obvious work people will have to go through to get it running
locally.

Finally, good luck, and happy newsreading. Nick.

			"Zeta Microcomputer Software"
ACSnet:    nick@ultima.cs.uts.oz
UUCP:      ...!uunet!munnari!ultima.cs.uts.oz!nick
Fidonet:   Nick Andrew on 3:713/602 (Zeta)
-- 
		"Zeta Microcomputer Software"
ACSnet:    nick@ultima.cs.uts.oz
UUCP:      ...!uunet!munnari!ultima.cs.uts.oz!nick
Fidonet:   Nick Andrew on 3:713/602 (Zeta)