Author Topic: are there any newsreaders? (Read 12613 times)

RichS · « **on:** January 13, 2004, 01:18:09 pm »

I\'m looking for an on-line/off-line usenet newsreader for my SL-5600 and any help would be greatly appreciated!
I have searched the net, here, and everywhere I can think of with no reasonable results.
Did I miss something obvious?
On my CLIE, I use Yanoff to get newsgroup postings. Read & reply off-line, then connect and transfer. It\'s only got a modem connection, no wireless.
I would like to do the same thing with my SL-5600, especially now that it\'s wireless...

Thanks for any help...

zbones · « **Reply #1 on:** January 13, 2004, 03:08:18 pm »

I have a copy of ztin that I keep meaning to try out.
I did get it connecting to my news server and it downloaded all the news groups and filled my /home partition.

The trouble is that I have never used tin so I am not too sure how to use it.

I will get round to tying it on my 760 at some point.

Quotes from the tnn.sys.zaurus newsgroup:-

Quote

Subject: Re: Any PDA news sources for zaurus
Lines: 6
From: \"Pierre MÃ©tras\" <genepi@sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2003 17:23:21 -0500
Newsgroups: tnn.sys.zaurus

> I just got Zepo offline browser and its GREAT!!!

And next version will read news aloud, and add support for emails and NNTP
news, if I find time to finish it...

Quote

Subject: Re: News group reader
Lines: 14
From: Olaf Kaluza <olaf@criseis.ruhr.de>
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 16:45:22 GMT
Newsgroups: tnn.sys.zaurus

Hactar <ebenONE@tampabay.ARE-ARE.com.unmunge> wrote:

>pine is primarily a mailreader. Last time I checked, its bolt-on
>newsreader was pretty bad. Things may have changed...

The best newsreader is tin! <BG> I use it on the Z and compiled it
myself. Someone said in this newsgroup a few weeks ago that it is also
available from debian for the Z.

Olaf

and a few from killefiz :-

slrn:
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=1054

pine:
http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=1053

I think that I got my copy of ztin from debian, but as it is a character based app, it should compile and work for the zarus from source without much fiddling.

Let me know if they are any good, and I might find the time to try them myself.

Peter.

doseas · « **Reply #2 on:** January 13, 2004, 07:52:52 pm »

Also check out this thread here:
http://www.zaurus.com/dev/board/index.php?...?showtopic=2906

RichS · « **Reply #3 on:** January 14, 2004, 12:30:20 am »

Thanks for the replies & suggestions. I grabbed all the files and will see how things work soon... I knew I should have gotten my linux box working ;-)

treke · « **Reply #4 on:** January 14, 2004, 12:36:47 am »

opie-mail does nntp

RichS · « **Reply #5 on:** January 15, 2004, 02:47:45 pm »

So far I\'m dong about 50/50. The 5600 is fine, but still no samba connections and newsreaders aren\'t doing well either.

I tried installing both slrn and pine. They don\'t show up in the install software list... And I don\'t know enough yet to know why, or how to try an aternative install. Tin doesn\'t even come in an ipk so that\'s out...
The search (and learning) continue...

zbones · « **Reply #6 on:** January 15, 2004, 03:25:30 pm »

They are all (pine,slrn and tin) character based (no gui) and will run from the terminal app. But you are only reading text anyway so you don\'t really need a gui.

Character based programs will also be many times quicker, as they don\'t have the gui overhead.

Peter.

*edit
I have just re read this, I thought you meant they didn\'t show up in the application tab :?

zbones · « **Reply #7 on:** January 15, 2004, 03:48:59 pm »

Ok,

I was going to try slrn anyway so.

You will need this version of ipkg to install it :-

http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/showdetail.php?app=874

Once that is installed then enter ipkg-new install slrn_0.9.7.4_arm.ipk

You wil need to set the NNTPSERVER variable eg
export NNTPSERVER=text.news.ntlworld.com

Try and find a text only news server if possible, the above can only be accessed from NTL accounts I believe.

Then just type slrn, it will get the current list of newsgroups and display them on the screen.

You are kind of on your own from here, as it is the first time I\'ve used this too

Peter.

zbones · « **Reply #8 on:** January 15, 2004, 04:05:55 pm »

Thanks for giving me the incentive to try out slrn, I really like it

It reminds me of the news reader I used to use on my 386, a loooong time ago.

It works great on the c760, but you may struggle a little with a 5500/5600 as the resolution is not really up to the job.

Peter.

RichS · « **Reply #9 on:** January 21, 2004, 10:50:54 am »

Finally has time to try slrn. Had to install with the above mentioned ver of ipkg, and to internal meme. Just couldn\'t get it to work from a card... But I did get it to work and read some posts last night. Unfortunately, the rec.photo group I wanted was at the bottom of a 28000 item list and I didn\'t spend the time to read the commands...
Now I have to look into getting the 900K newsrc file onto the sd card. At least that would help a bit.

As far as using it. Well, it is useable. Can\'t see the post subjects which is kind of important. And the actual message area is a bit small, but it does wrap and scroll. As soon as I figure out how to subscribe to a group and not have to scroll through 25000 listing to get there, it would be functional. And have it _not_ grab the headers to all 6000 posts... The last 500, or 100 would be just fine and a lot quicker. Not what I would call \'ideal\', but functional, and deffinitely better than nothing...
But at least I do have some form of newsreader now. Thanks for the info & help!

RichS · « **Reply #10 on:** January 21, 2004, 04:23:40 pm »

Boy it sure helps to read the docs ;-)

I now have it running, still in main memory, but with _both_ 900K newsrc file off on sd card. That helps a whole lot.

The only real complaints I have are: Have to keep hitting \'w\' to wrap message lines. But I think that can be set in the config? And not being able to read the subjects. Again, the display seems completely configurable. So I\'m hoping to get rid of the poster\'s name and just leave the subject.
It\'s not fancy gui, but it works, online anyway...

Now all I have to do is figure out how to run it from an icon and how to make it work offline. It won\'t accept the \'spool\' setting?

zbones · « **Reply #11 on:** January 23, 2004, 04:11:08 pm »

I could have sworn that I replied to this, but it\'s not there, so I will try again.

The screen problem is not an issue on the cl760 as it is landscape 640*480. I could imagine that it would cause an issue on a smaller screen.

As for offline reading, it looks like the spool settings are required for a local news feed. This local news feed looks like it has to exist.

I will try to compile slrnpull to create this local feed, if this doesn\'t work then I will look at an alternative (slurp?).

Peter.

RichS · « **Reply #12 on:** January 23, 2004, 11:11:08 pm »

Ahh, thanks. Although you\'ve lost me a bit... Sems like a \"local news feed\" would be a bit complex? And I\'m more than happy to admit my ignorance ;-) But if it\'s something that can be accomplished on the Z, it would make me very happy.

On one hand, I\'m very surprised at what seems like a lack of interest for a newsreader. On the other hand, after spending a half hour reading through a couple of groups I used to keep up on, I can see whay most people don\'t bother any more...

I still find it initeresting to read through the posts though and the worthless ones can be ignored. Or they will be as soon as I can see the subjects... I do envy you guys with clamshell/high-rez models....

Overall, I have no complaints about the Z. It\'s a great little machine and it\'s getting me back into linux. On top of that, it also replaces my old pda. What more could I ask for?

Thanks!

zbones · « **Reply #13 on:** January 24, 2004, 05:43:50 am »

The local feed bit is simple, you just use the slrnpull command to download the newsgroup you require and store it on your cf/sd card, then you point slrn to this as opposed to an online news server.

The problem is that certain options need to be set when the program is compiled, this doesn\'t seem to have been done when the version on killefiz was compiled.

using zgcc2 on the zaurus everything compiles until the linking part, and then I get error\'s like this :-

Code: [Select]

undefined reference to `dlclose`

relocation truncated to fit R_ARM_PC24 dlclose

There are several of these (with different reference errors) and then it just quits.

Cross compiling fails in the configure phase when it tries to test functions by compiling and running them. it\'s compiling for arm and trying to test run it on my intel box.

I am going to try dev_img1.3 tonight to see if I have any better luck with it.

RichS · « **Reply #14 on:** January 24, 2004, 11:22:14 pm »

Well the concept sounds simple. The problems and compiling would be a bit beyond me at the moment... I do some C++, but in windows (NOT by choice!).
And downloading an entire newsgroup, even to a card, sounds like a lot of time and space.
Which brings up another slrn question. I haven\'t seen any config to set how many messages it pulls off the server. Through my dial-up, getting over 6,000 headers takes quite a while... Is there no way to set say 500 headers as I do in Agent? I have to go through the .rc file again, but I didn\'t see anything. Maybe I missed it? Also didn\'t see how to change the header display so I could get rid of the \'from\' to see the subject. But maybe I missed that too?
I downloaded the zgcc2 and plan on installing it, but it will take me quite a while to get into linuux programming and gcc....

News:

Author Topic: are there any newsreaders? (Read 12613 times)