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Eric

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Oct 25, 2009, 9:42:53 PM10/25/09
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I need a decent newsreader for kde4
I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.
I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
- i mean who wants that?
Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?
Thanks
Eric
--
Msg to ET:
If you get here and there's no planet -
dont ever build a Large Hadron Collider

Bit Twister

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Oct 25, 2009, 10:46:54 PM10/25/09
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On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:42:53 -0700, Eric wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4

I run slrn. :-D


> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?

Maybe that screen shot was someone running the app in a transparent
terminal.

andrew

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Oct 26, 2009, 2:26:27 AM10/26/09
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On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:

> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?

Hmmm.... I don't suppose you mean these screenshots do you:

http://slrn.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

Not quite sure what the whole Neo thing is about.....

Andrew
--
Do you think that's air you're breathing?

Bit Twister

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Oct 26, 2009, 2:47:52 AM10/26/09
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That is slrn in a transparent terminal.

andrew

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Oct 26, 2009, 3:31:27 AM10/26/09
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Well, I was having a little joke at my own expense there as I wrote the
slrn site and created the screenshots :).

Whiskers

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Oct 26, 2009, 6:04:42 AM10/26/09
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On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups).

It might be instructive to investigate the problems you're having with
Knode; it's quirky, but usually reliable.

Are you trying to access binary groups?

> I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.

There are two versions of Pan at present; the 'stable' 0.14.2 which has
many excellent features (but no documentation) and the 'beta' 0.133 which
is a complete re-write from the start and has some way to go before it is
as complete as the stable version (it too lacks documentation). Pan users
are the best resource for help - see the newsgroup news.software.readers.

> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,

This one <http://www.newsreaders.com/>?

> but most were out of date

There are certainly some that have been around for a long time, and some
of them don't get new releases very often - but 'mature' is a better
description for those ;))

> and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?

You probably saw a screenshot of someone using a console program running
in a console that has a 'background image' or 'transparancy' to the
desktop. Most people, I think, prefer a plain background.

> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?
> Thanks
> Eric

Oh, so many ... or just go straight to slrn :))

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

Jasen Betts

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Oct 26, 2009, 6:25:43 AM10/26/09
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On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?

slrn is decent. regex killfiles scoring on anything at all (not just
selected headers).

run slrnface if you play the X-Face: "game".
runs in a terminal so all that character based art comes out looking
good. ncurses based UI so you can run it over SSH from work during
quiet times!

> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.

I run "inn" and a home-brew "suck" replacement (which still very much alpha
quality) to solve help with network connectivity issues.

philo

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Oct 26, 2009, 7:55:06 AM10/26/09
to
Eric wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.
> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?
> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?
> Thanks
> Eric


I tried a few out , then said, the heck with it

Thunderbird works...so I use it

Eric

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Oct 27, 2009, 2:15:05 AM10/27/09
to
Whiskers wrote:

> On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
>> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups).
>
> It might be instructive to investigate the problems you're having with
> Knode; it's quirky, but usually reliable.
>
> Are you trying to access binary groups?

Nope, just regular groups, my one server is eternal-september.org

Whiskers

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Oct 27, 2009, 8:09:36 AM10/27/09
to
On 2009-10-27, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
> Whiskers wrote:
>
>> On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
>>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>>> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
>>> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups).
>>
>> It might be instructive to investigate the problems you're having with
>> Knode; it's quirky, but usually reliable.
>>
>> Are you trying to access binary groups?
>
> Nope, just regular groups, my one server is eternal-september.org

[...]

I think that NSP recently undertook a complete re-build of their systems,
so it's possible that some groups have damaged files still - or that your
own newsreader is still using a newsrc file that refers to the previous
set-up.

Have you tried un-subscribing from all the groups and then subscribing to
them again one at a time?

Rikishi42

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Oct 27, 2009, 11:46:59 AM10/27/09
to
On 2009-10-26, Eric <apo...@ruler.of.the.night.org> wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.
> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?
> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?

Use Knode in combination with leafnode. Your choice of interface with max
speed and best response. And if your upstream server is down, you can still
read what your sever had DL'd until the failure, post what you want, and
know the send/receive will resume as soon as the upstream server is active
again.


I have a little server (Soekris machine, consumes very little power) running
24/24. It easily runs the Leafnode NNTP server, with a clever (even if I say
so) scheme of disk spin downs and cron settings, to fetch only when I'm
active in my reader.
Of course, you can run it on your main machine, too.


For a reader, I use slrn, occasionally Knode, and Pan for extraction of
"alt.bin.." groups. All readers are configured to get their news from my
Leafnode server. Advantages: you read at max speed (local network, or same
machine) and you only download an article once.

In my case, my leafnode server fetches every 15 mins, but only if I'm active
in my readers. And it only downloads binary groups at night, when my
provider counts my downloads at half volume.
(yes, I have a monthly DL volume)


--
Any time things appear to be going better, you have overlooked
something.

Jeff Haferman

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Oct 27, 2009, 6:28:04 PM10/27/09
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slrn


TJ

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Oct 28, 2009, 8:59:29 AM10/28/09
to
Eric wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.
> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?
> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?
> Thanks
> Eric

I run Thunderbird for both text newsgroups and e-mail and I use
eternal-september for my newsgroup source, too. When setting up, don't
forget to check the "Request authentication" box. Otherwise, you only
get access to a few eternal-september-only groups.

TJ
--
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

J.R.R.Tolkien

Dan C

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Oct 28, 2009, 11:08:38 AM10/28/09
to
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:29 -0400, TJ wrote:

> Eric wrote:
>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4

> I run Thunderbird for both text newsgroups and e-mail

He said he needed a "decent" newsreader.

Thunderbird is an *excellent* email client, but it sucks (badly) as a
newsreader. Very limited in that regard.

I recommend Pan.


--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me".
"Bother!" said Pooh, as he garotted another passing Liberal.
Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

SM

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Oct 28, 2009, 12:08:37 PM10/28/09
to
2009-10-26, Eric skribis:

> I need a decent newsreader for kde4

One more vote to slrn. CLI, customizable and slick.

--
kasmra
:wq

Mike Jones

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Oct 28, 2009, 3:48:35 PM10/28/09
to
Responding to SM:

> 2009-10-26, Eric skribis:
>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>
> One more vote to slrn. CLI, customizable and slick.


And more keystrokes that you can shake a stick at just to perform the
simplest of functions. And its not much fun with arthritis either.

Which is why I use Pan. SLRN is a better tool, but it hurts too much.

Why oh why oh why did the developers of this (otherwise) excellent
software decide that a permanent subject\message panel combo was a good
idea? You need twice as many keys to operate it!

Now if somebody could tweak SLRN so it ran with one panel at a time and
navigated like Alpine...

Oh yeah! I'd buy that for a dollar!

--
*===( http://www.400monkeys.com/God/
*===( http://principiadiscordia.com/
*===( http://www.slackware.com/

Whiskers

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Oct 28, 2009, 4:49:54 PM10/28/09
to
On 2009-10-28, Mike Jones <N...@Arizona.Bay> wrote:
> Responding to SM:
>
>> 2009-10-26, Eric skribis:
>>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>>
>> One more vote to slrn. CLI, customizable and slick.
>
>
> And more keystrokes that you can shake a stick at just to perform the
> simplest of functions. And its not much fun with arthritis either.

Slrn's keystroke commands are nearly all one key at a time - and of
course, fully customisable. But if you find a mouse or trackpad or
trackball or whatever easier to use, then fair enough - that is what
choice is for :)) You may find you can use your mouse in slrn anyway
<http://www.slrn.org/docs/slrn-FAQ-2.html#ss2.7>

> Which is why I use Pan. SLRN is a better tool, but it hurts too much.

Fair enough.

> Why oh why oh why did the developers of this (otherwise) excellent
> software decide that a permanent subject\message panel combo was a good
> idea? You need twice as many keys to operate it!

Not sure what you mean by that. You can fill your terminal with the list
of messages by hitting h or fill it with the article display by hitting z
- no need to split the display all the time if you don't want to.

> Now if somebody could tweak SLRN so it ran with one panel at a time

See above - z h and q are the default key bindings used.

> and
> navigated like Alpine...
>
> Oh yeah! I'd buy that for a dollar!

I'm not familiar with Pine or Alpine, but there may be someone out there
who can help. There are certainly attempts at 'front ends' that emulate
nn and rn <http://forestfield.org/slrn/#nn>.

The creator/maintainer of slrn reads news.software.readers, as do some
others who have contributed code in the past.

Mike Jones

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Oct 28, 2009, 6:46:36 PM10/28/09
to
Responding to Whiskers:


The point of my comments was that one needs to hit keys to avoid hitting
keys. Alpine does the pretty standard "one panel at a time" thing, and
has it's keys arranged so you can do most things direct from the cursor
keys, making navigating even easier than using a mouse. Thats the upside
of Alpine. The downside is that behind that well designed interface is
software I wouldn't be surprised to find a Microsoft logo tucked away in
there.

If I could get SLRN with Alpine's interface, I'd be a happy camper.

Dan C

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Oct 28, 2009, 8:18:20 PM10/28/09
to

The source code for both is available. Have at it.

TJ

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Oct 28, 2009, 8:49:44 PM10/28/09
to
Dan C wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:29 -0400, TJ wrote:
>
>> Eric wrote:
>>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>
>> I run Thunderbird for both text newsgroups and e-mail
>
> He said he needed a "decent" newsreader.
>
> Thunderbird is an *excellent* email client, but it sucks (badly) as a
> newsreader. Very limited in that regard.
>
<Shrug.> I don't care. It does what I want to do, and I like it. Good
thing I don't need your approval, huh?

Dan C

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Oct 28, 2009, 9:54:54 PM10/28/09
to
On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:49:44 -0400, TJ wrote:

> Dan C wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:29 -0400, TJ wrote:
>>
>>> Eric wrote:
>>>> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
>>
>>> I run Thunderbird for both text newsgroups and e-mail
>>
>> He said he needed a "decent" newsreader.
>>
>> Thunderbird is an *excellent* email client, but it sucks (badly) as a
>> newsreader. Very limited in that regard.
>>
> <Shrug.> I don't care. It does what I want to do, and I like it. Good
> thing I don't need your approval, huh?

I don't give a shit what you use. I was simply replying to clarify that
the OP wanted recommendations for a *decent* newsreader, and that your
response did not fit that qualification.

You should learn some Netiquette, and trim your sig block to the accepted
Usenet standards for length. I suppose you don't care about that,
either, but that only confirms your n00b status, and general ignorance.
<shrug>

TJ

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Oct 29, 2009, 8:48:46 AM10/29/09
to
Dan C wrote:
> You should learn some Netiquette, and trim your sig block to the accepted
> Usenet standards for length. I suppose you don't care about that,
> either, but that only confirms your n00b status, and general ignorance.
> <shrug>
>
>
Is this short enough, Mr. Neticop? You really are one to speak of
Netiquette. Exactly where in the handbook does it say profanity is just
fine? You use it often enough.

Now crawl back into your cave and gnaw on that tired, old bone.

TJ

Dan C

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Oct 29, 2009, 9:05:15 AM10/29/09
to

Much better, n00b. Keep up the good work.

Van Chocstraw

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Oct 30, 2009, 6:03:42 AM10/30/09
to
Eric wrote:
> I need a decent newsreader for kde4
> I have knode but it loses connectivity and never times out trying to get
> new articles in all groups (try it with say 100+ subscribed groups). I tried
> pan but its crude and i was ready to scream at in 5 minutes.
> I browsed the net and found a page listing a number of linux newsreaders,
> but most were out of date and, the one that looked promising drove me away
> because every screen shot showed a watermark of some guy in the reader pane
> - i mean who wants that?
> Whats out there thats halfway decent and will run in kde 4?
> Thanks
> Eric

There is Pan, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, Gnome and many others.

I like T-bird.

Eric

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Oct 29, 2009, 9:02:02 PM10/29/09
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Good idea, its worth a shot
Eric

TJ

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Oct 30, 2009, 8:18:57 AM10/30/09
to
Van Chocstraw wrote:
>
> I like T-bird.

How *DARE* You?

Didn't you get the memo from Supreme High Commander Dan C.?

TJ

Dan C

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Oct 30, 2009, 8:51:48 AM10/30/09
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Gnome is a newsreader?

> I like T-bird.

Yeah, but he's talking about using something in *LINUX*.

> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812)

Bugger off, Win-droid.

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