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From: h...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: C news alpha release
Message-ID: <8720@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Oct-87 18:48:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8720
Posted: Tue Oct 6 18:48:49 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Oct-87 18:48:49 EDT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 7
Early this morning a very preliminary release of C news was shipped off
to the comp.sources.unix input queue. This release still has problems,
and there will be a more definitive one later, but we decided to put out
a preliminary release for the desperate and the curious.
--
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
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From: w...@ho95e.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C news alpha release
Message-ID: <1774@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Date: Thu, 8-Oct-87 19:44:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: ho95e.1774
Posted: Thu Oct 8 19:44:06 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 06:17:06 EDT
References: <8720@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: w...@ho95e.UUCP (46133-Bill.Stewart,2G218,x0705,)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs 46133, Holmdel, NJ
Lines: 14
Summary: To B.2.11.10 or not to B
In article <8...@utzoo.UUCP> he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
:Early this morning a very preliminary release of C news was shipped off
:to the comp.sources.unix input queue. This release still has problems,
:and there will be a more definitive one later, but we decided to put out
:a preliminary release for the desperate and the curious.
Great! I've been alternating between desperate and curious, depending on my
poor 3B20's load average and general health. (Senility and disk rot have
both happened.) But two more patches for 2.11 have just appeared. Is
C news stable enough to install yet? What kind of problems should I
expect?
--
# Thanks;
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs
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From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C news alpha release
Message-ID: <8755@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Oct-87 19:27:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8755
Posted: Sun Oct 11 19:27:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 19:27:53 EDT
References: <8720@utzoo.UUCP>, <1774@ho95e.ATT.COM>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 13
> ...Is C news stable enough to install yet? What kind of problems should I
> expect?
There is more detail on this in the distribution, but roughly speaking,
the alpha release is stable enough to install if you aren't doing anything
strange with news and you are willing to spend some time understanding it,
putting the pieces together, and checking them out. It's not a polished,
turn-key distribution. Expect inadequate documentation (not everything that
should be written has been), missing features (ditto), and probably some
portability problems here and there (due to lack of formal beta testing).
--
"Mir" means "peace", as in | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won". | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
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From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C news alpha release
Message-ID: <8761@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Oct-87 16:01:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8761
Posted: Tue Oct 13 16:01:24 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Oct-87 16:01:24 EDT
References: <8720@utzoo.UUCP>, <1774@ho95e.ATT.COM>, <8755@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 14
Some people have asked for a summary of what's good about C news. Well,
basically it's smaller and much faster than B news. The real speed
demon, rnews, receives and files articles at about 15 times the speed
of its 2.11 counterpart. The code is a total rewrite, not a modification
of B news, which means it is generally simpler and cleaner. (B news has
been growing and mutating for about 6 years now and the result is a bit
messy.) Here and there are a few bits of added functionality: expire
uses a control file to tell it which newsgroups expire when, the batcher
is much more flexible, and there is provision for separating newsgroup
names from distribution names in the sys file (which makes life easier
in certain tricky situations).
--
"Mir" means "peace", as in | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won". | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
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From: he...@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: C news alpha release
Message-ID: <8774@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 13:12:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8774
Posted: Thu Oct 15 13:12:03 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Oct-87 13:12:03 EDT
References: <8720@utzoo.UUCP>, <1774@ho95e.ATT.COM>, <8755@utzoo.UUCP>, <8761@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 20
I've received several inquiries about NNTP support in C news, so I suppose
I should answer that one publicly...
1. There is no fundamental incompatibility.
2. I don't think Geoff was quite finished with putting the necessary hooks
in, so the alpha release may not support it "right out of the box".
3. C news's speed advantage will be reduced due to NNTP's one-article-at-a-
time processing; although batching was motivated by reducing phone
transmission time, it also does wonders for processing speed if
the software is prepared to exploit it, which C news is.
Oh yes, also, people have asked about news readers. C news should be 100%
compatible with existing news readers, and indeed we have neither the desire
nor the energy to write our own. Rn is known to work with it and the others
shouldn't have any serious problem.
--
"Mir" means "peace", as in | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won". | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry
|