minimal procedure for using gnus as newsreader

minimal procedure for using gnus as newsreader

[Timur Aydin]

Hi,

I have come up with a minimal gnus setup for reading news only. I am
hoping that this will get gnus newbies (like myself) started
quickly. Any corrections and comments welcome...

Prerequisites:

GNU emacs 21.2 installed on Windows or Linux.

An account with a news service provider. I am assuming that the news
service provider requires authentication.

Setup:

1) Create a file called .gnus in the home directory and put the
   following lines in it:

;; -*- emacs-lisp -*-

(setq user-full-name "FirstName LastName")
(setq user-mail-address "user@domain")

(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.server.address"))

   Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding, don't copy these
   lines into your .gnus files verbatim. Change the placeholders so
   that they reflect your actual name, email address and news server
   address.

2) Create a file called .authinfo in the home directory and put the
   following lines in it:

machine news.server.address login newsuserid password newsuserpassword

   Again, replace the placeholders with the actual data.

3) Run emacs and type M-x gnus-no-server. Note that you will use
   gnus-no-server only the first time to avoid downloading a list of
   all newsgroups that are available on the news server. On my server,
   this equals to 70,000 newsgroups and I wouldn't want to wait for
   that much data to be received on my dialup connection !
   Subsequently, M-x gnus can be used, because gnus doesn't download
   the list of newsgroups the second time around.

4) Type U and then gnu.emacs.help and then press enter. This newsgroup
   will show up in the group buffer with an * (asterisk) to the
   left. Position point on this newsgroup and hit enter. When asked
   how many groups to download, type 100 and hit enter. Now gnus will
   download 100 headers from the news server and you can start reading
   the posts. Enjoy !!!

-- 
Timur Aydin