readnews questions

[Dave Sherman]

~|	From: neal at denelcor.UUCP (Neal Weidenhofer)
~|	1.	Why does "U" (unsubscribe) take so long -- sometimes
~|		> 25 min (on a moderately loaded pdp-11/44)?

It doesn't.  I suspect what's happening is that after the U, you're moving
on to a newsgroup where, for one reason or another (e.g., new user,
faulty .newsrc), readnews is trying to start at a low numbered
article while the next valid article is high-numbered (in a busy
newsgroup). It tries to open every consecutively numbered file until
it finds one which works. Hence the delay. An easy fix (for you) is to
change your .newsrc. There has also been a fix posted to the net.

~|	2.	I am trying to split my news reading into two parts --
~|		"work" and "personal".  To do this, I created a couple
~|		shell scripts that look like:
~|			cp x .newsrc
~|			readnews
~|			cp .newsrc x
~|		The problem is that the second cp USUALLY doesn't work --
~|		after I exit readnews and get my prompt back, x is
~|		unchanged.  About one time in ten, x is updated properly.

There's a much better way. I use it so my wife can read a few
newsgroups. Create a file in your bin (call it "pnews" for
personal news if you like) which contains:

	echo Personal news coming up...
	HOME=/u4/dave/pnews
	NEWSRC=/u4/dave/pnews/.newsrc
	NEWSBOX=/u4/dave/pnews
	NAME="<if you want a different name for postings>"
	export HOME NAME NEWSBOX NEWSRC
	readnews

Then create a subdirectory pnews. Presto - you have a directory
in which you can run separate news. As an added bonus, all saved
articles will go into that directory, so you can isolate your personal
from work-related files. Now run pnews, and unsubscribe to all
work-related groups. In your regular readnews, unsubscribe to
all non-work-related groups.

Hope this helps. Let me know if it works for you.



Dave Sherman
Toronto
-- 
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