Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[N. Jackson]

The news server (textnews.news.cambrium.nl) that is set as my primary
select method (i.e. in gnus-select-method) seems to have disappeared.

[It's not a terrible loss. I have other news servers in my secondary
select methods that I've been using more and more. One day I would like
to find a good comprehensive reliable news server that I can use for
both reading and writing, but after years of looking I despair of ever
finding such a beast.]

With the server not available, Gnus takes a _very_ long time to start.
(The manual describes some of the convolutions it goes through to find
an alternative news source.)

I tried starting Gnus with `gnus-no-server' but this also disables the
servers for my secondary select methods.

I'm wondering if I can safely set gnus-select-method to null or nil or
something to have Gnus just use my secondary select methods? If so what
would be the syntax?

Something like this:

  (setq gnus-select-method nil)

Thanks for any advice anyone can provide.

Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Frank Haun]

On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 15:26:54 -0400, N. Jackson wrote:

>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)

Correct is:

  (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil ""))

Frank

Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Adam Sjøgren]

N. writes:

> Something like this:
>
>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)

Close, try:

  (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))

(I always do that, so all my select methods are secondary, i.e. "handled
the same", prefix- and otherwise.)


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "When I'm wrong, I admit it                                  Adam Sjøgren
  When I'm right, I shut up"                             asjo@koldfront.dk


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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Dan Christensen]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> N. writes:
>
>> Something like this:
>>
>>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)
>
> Close, try:
>
>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))

I use

  (setq gnus-select-method nil)

and have done so for years.  Is there an advantage to using nnnil?

Dan


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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Adam Sjøgren]

Dan writes:

> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

>> N. writes:

>>> Something like this:
>>>
>>>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)

>> Close, try:
>>
>>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))

> I use
>
>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)
>
> and have done so for years.  Is there an advantage to using nnnil?

Except that N. said that it didn't work for him, probably not.

I must admit I've never tried.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "HENCE, I think that all UNIXs should have an EMACS,         Adam Sjøgren
  and everybody should run UNIX!"                        asjo@koldfront.dk


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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[N. Jackson]

At 16:24 -0400 on Tuesday 2015-12-01, Adam Sjøgren wrote:

> Dan writes:
>
>> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
>
>>> N. writes:
>
>>>> Something like this:
>>>>
>>>>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)
>
>>> Close, try:
>>>
>>>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))
>
>> I use
>>
>>   (setq gnus-select-method nil)
>>
>> and have done so for years.  Is there an advantage to using nnnil?
>
> Except that N. said that it didn't work for him, probably not.
>
> I must admit I've never tried.

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to suggest that I had tried (setq
gnus-select-method nil).

That was just my guess about what might work. I wanted to check that
Gnus doesn't explode or anything when it doesn't have a "primary" select
method before I tried it.

[Section 1.5 (info "(gnus) Changing Servers") of the manual makes me
very anxious about making changes to my Gnus server configuration. I
didn't want to break everything else that was working fine!]

Regards,
N.



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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Adam Sjøgren]

N. writes:

> Sorry for the confusion. I didn't mean to suggest that I had tried (setq
> gnus-select-method nil).

Oh, okay, I over-interpreted. Anyway '(nnnil) is safe, well tested, and
documented, I think.

... and slightly easier than installing and configuring INN.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Computers are there to save programmers time"               Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk


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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[N. Jackson]

At 15:47 -0400 on Tuesday 2015-12-01, Frank Haun wrote:
>
> Correct is:
>
>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil ""))

At 15:47 -0400 on Tuesday 2015-12-01, Adam Sjøgren wrote:
>
> Close, try:
>
>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))

Thanks Frank and Adam. I used Adam's version as the simpler and that
does the trick.

[Gnus hasn't started up so quickly in months!]



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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[N. Jackson]

At 15:56 -0400 on Tuesday 2015-12-01, David Hume wrote:

> If you don't find any other solution you could just install Inn and have
> a local server on your computer which does nothing other than keep gnus
> happy.

Thanks for the reply David.

Hmm... I've never considered running a Usenet server. I doubt I could do
that on my laptop though? Surely it would require very much more in the
way of storage than a laptop could provide? And I don't have servers at
home these days.

> Maybe you can change the timeout so it doesn't take so long when the
> primary server is not available?

Yes, I had considered that, but I didn't get as far as looking up what
variable to set. The impression I get is that this is not a case of a
server that is temporarily down, but rather of one that has been
permanently removed.

I don't know if anyone else here uses textnews.news.cambrium.nl and has
any news about it. I didn't find anything at all on their webpages when
I checked a few days ago.

Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Adam Sjøgren]

N. writes:

> Hmm... I've never considered running a Usenet server. I doubt I could do
> that on my laptop though? Surely it would require very much more in the
> way of storage than a laptop could provide? And I don't have servers at
> home these days.

Nah, these days I think most laptops comfortably can run INN without any
problems (you probably don't want a full official usenet feed, though).
But it takes a bit to configure.

There is a small network of privately run news servers - I retired from
participating some years ago, but it lives on: https://www.pnx.dk/


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "I do not find reading diffs in email to be a                Adam Sjøgren
  hardship, but I used to walk uphill both ways to       asjo@koldfront.dk
  school, so I dunno."


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Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Glyn Millington]

nljlistbox2@gmail.com (N. Jackson) writes:

> At 15:56 -0400 on Tuesday 2015-12-01, David Hume wrote:
>
>> If you don't find any other solution you could just install Inn and have
>> a local server on your computer which does nothing other than keep gnus
>> happy.
>
> Thanks for the reply David.
>
> Hmm... I've never considered running a Usenet server. I doubt I could do
> that on my laptop though? Surely it would require very much more in the
> way of storage than a laptop could provide? And I don't have servers at
> home these days.


Can I put in a word for Leafnode ? http://leafnode.sourceforge.net/

It's a nntp server designed for home/small office use, and essentially
downloads messages only from newsgroups you wish to read. It is easy to
set up and well documented. I've used it for at least ten years with no
problems.

Once you have set up leafnode, the incantation you need in .gnus is 

(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "localhost"))

atb



Glyn

Re: Can I run Gnus with secondary select methods only?

[Adam Sjøgren]

David writes:

> [Quoted text removed due to X-No-Archive]

Article numbers are local to each server, so switching might give
problems (if groups overlap).


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "This German waltz is not as elegant as the ones from        Adam Sjøgren
  Vienna. But it is louder."                             asjo@koldfront.dk


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