vedm@hoqam.UUCP (01/29/87)
> > A possible reason for you seeing rmgroups for net.sources is that > > you are running vanilla 2.11 News. > For those of us that are suffering with "vanilla" news, couldn't > dummy group be started so it's the first newsgroup. I don't know the "evolution" of news versions but I've only got 2.10.2. Is this something less than vanilla 2.11? What is the latest version? What are the improvements over 2.10.2? Tom. ...!{decvax | ucbvax}!ihnp4!hoqax!twb
sob@cortex.UUCP (02/06/87)
The main advantage of 2.11 over 2.10.2 is that it can
handle the newsgroup name space changes. 2.10.2 cannot
handle moderated groups that do not contain "mod" in
their name. While this is not currently a problem, it
will grow to be one as the mod groups are renamed.
Other advantages include:
o The distribution feature now works much better.
It is in no way tied to the name of the group.
This means you can use (say) news.software.b with
a distribution of (say) tx to talk to Texas
sites about news software without bothering
sites outside of Texas.
o The IHAVE and SENDME control messages work much
better. Now you can batch these messages like
you batch regular news. This can save large amounts
of transmission time between two well-connected, but
geographically-distant sites that want to exchange
news.
o Limited support for "domain" mail (mail of the form
user@site.domain) is supplied in news. So, sites
that do not or can not run a uucp router don't have
to (at least for mail generated by news).
o Moderator routing has been reduced to only involve
the backbone sites. This means that the moderators
file is no longer needed. If you want to, you can still
do something like the moderators file, but you don't
have to in order for moderators to recieve submissions
from your site.
o A better history mechanism is available for USG operating
systems that do not have DBM. Some say this is faster
than the DBM method.
o There is limited support for network-based news via
the HIDDENET method. There is also support for organization-
wide maintenance via the ORGDISTRIB distribution.
o There is much better support for restricting postings via
the FACIST method. This allows as little or as much control
as is possible without bypassing news itself.
o File locking is supported via the BSD 4.2 flock() or
SYSTEM V lockf() call. This is very useful to keep
the active file from being stomped on when expire
is attempting to update it.
o You can defer the processing of incoming batches of news
until some later time (say at night when the machine is
idle) automatically. If you don't unbatch it via a crontab
entry, expire will automatically unbatch it for you following
expiration of old articles. This is very useful if you
receive news during the day, but don't want to bog the machine
down while more useful work is being done.
o Many new and useful options are available for expire and inews.
Stan uucp:{shell,rice,cuae2}!soma!sob Opinions expressed here
Olan domain:sob@rice.edu or sob@soma.bcm.tmc.edu are ONLY mine &
Barber CIS:71565,623 BBS:(713)790-9004 noone else's.