scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) (11/24/90)
Since the only responses I got from my question: "Why use NN when there is TRN?" were people asking me where I could get TRN, I decided to advertise this FINE product a bit... TRN IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO USENET SINCE NNTP & CNEWS !!! Wayne Davison wrote it in 1990. It's a superset to rn (the most popular news reader in the world). It can be toggled from enhanced TRN mode to good old unefficient rn (Useful if not all your co-worker appreciate innovation...) Here is part of the documentation file we wrote when installing TRN on our net: ########################################################################## # TRN version 1.0 # # Ftp Sources: caesar.cs.montana.edu After 5 pm... # uunet.uu.net (under /news) # ########################################################################### TRN is an enhanced version of the world popular RN by Larry Wall. It can be used as rn with no difference from the original or we can switch on the TRN options. These options bring us two main features: A menu to select (tag) the articles that we want to read or mark as read. A tree displaying the conversation threads between the articles (plus the commands to move in that tree). Overall, it speeds up the news reading and clarifies the links between articles. Read news.software.b for articles concerning trn. (Maybe a newsgroup news.software.trn will eventually be created.) To maintain data about the threads between articles, TRN has it's own little database (about 2Meg for 45Meg of news). Trn can be installed straihgt or NNTP option (like rrn). We've been using this baby for a couple of months now without a single bug (EVER). News reading is now REALLY EFFICIENT thanks to TRN !!! Good luck !!! Scoob
larry@nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) (11/24/90)
scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) writes: > We've been using this baby for a couple of months now without a > single bug (EVER). > News reading is now REALLY EFFICIENT thanks to TRN !!! what does trn offer over nn? We've been running nn now for almost a year - without any problems -- -- Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN USA {larry@nstar, {uunet|backbone}!nstar!larry, larry%nstar@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu} backbone usenet newsfeeds available Public Access Unix Site (219) 289-0282 (5 high speed lines)
pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (11/24/90)
larry@nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) writes: |scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) writes: |> News reading is now REALLY EFFICIENT thanks to TRN !!! |what does trn offer over nn? We've been running nn now for almost |a year - without any problems -- i've posted my perspective over in news.software.nn i'd prefer nn with threads but at the moment it's an 80/20 split trn/nn. i imagine that to some folks threaded reading is no big deal, for some of us though news is infinitely more manageable with threads. -- pjg@acsu.buffalo.edu / rutgers!ub!pjg / pjg@ubvms (Bitnet) opinions found above are mine unless marked otherwise.
jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) (11/24/90)
In article <1990Nov23.160854.13868@vlsi.polymtl.ca> scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) writes: > > Since the only responses I got from my question: "Why use NN when there > is TRN?" were people asking me where I could get TRN, I decided to > advertise this FINE product a bit... Yep... Trn sounds fine. But it isn't available to "the rest of us". > > TRN IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO USENET SINCE NNTP & CNEWS !!! > Uh, to Usenet or to the portion of Usenet on the Internet. > Here is part of the documentation file we wrote when installing > TRN on our net: > >########################################################################## ># TRN version 1.0 ># ># Ftp Sources: caesar.cs.montana.edu After 5 pm... ># uunet.uu.net (under /news) ># >########################################################################### Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites. jim -- __ __ / o / Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com | Proud / / /\/\ /__ Silvar-Lisco, Inc. +1.408.991.6115 | MacIIsi /__/ / / / /__/ 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086 | owner
karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu (11/25/90)
jimb@silvlis.com writes:
Yep... Trn sounds fine. But it isn't available to "the rest of us".
Uh, to Usenet or to the portion of Usenet on the Internet.
Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites.
You can anon uucp to uunet.
Regardless, it's now on osu-cis; request "osu-cis!~/rn/trn/trn.??.Z"
for ?? between 01 and 11.duc@grumbly.UUCP (Richard Ducoty) (11/25/90)
scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) writes: > Since the only responses I got from my question: "Why use NN when there > is TRN?" were people asking me where I could get TRN, I decided to > advertise this FINE product a bit... > TRN IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO USENET SINCE NNTP & CNEWS !!! ======================================= I just got off the phone to God, he and I agree - nn is much better than trn. We have used both - no contest. The reason rn is the 'most popular' is that it's packed along with the news much of the time. People, being the cheap, lazy creatures, don't always expend the extra effort to get a decent reader. Off the record - you're going to spend a couple extra weeks in Purgatory if you keep using trn/rn. \\\ - - Richard Ducoty ..uunet!grumbly!duc _] Capitola, California duc@grumbly.com
larry@nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) (11/25/90)
jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes: >Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites. nstar has an extensive software collection on-line that includes that latest release of trn -- all available to dialup BBS users via multiple high speed (V.32/Telebit PEP and USR HST 14.4) lines - for more information, send email to address below: -- Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN USA {larry@nstar, {uunet|backbone}!nstar!larry, larry%nstar@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu} backbone usenet newsfeeds available Public Access Unix Site (219) 289-0282 (5 high speed lines)
pim@cti-software.nl (Pim Zandbergen) (11/25/90)
karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >> Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites. >You can anon uucp to uunet. Not if you are a nasty alien. You can't dial 1-900 numbers from outside the good ol' US of A. (No 1-800 numbers either). >Regardless, it's now on osu-cis; request "osu-cis!~/rn/trn/trn.??.Z" >for ?? between 01 and 11. Now that's better. -- Pim Zandbergen domain : pim@cti-software.nl CTI Software BV uucp : uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!ctisbv!pim Laan Copes van Cattenburch 70 phone : +31 70 3542302 2585 GD The Hague, The Netherlands fax : +31 70 3512837
sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) (11/26/90)
In article <14@grumbly.UUCP> duc@grumbly.UUCP (Richard Ducoty) writes: >The reason rn is the 'most popular' is that it's packed along with the >news much of the time. People, being the cheap, lazy creatures, >don't always expend the extra effort to get a decent reader. vnews and readnews are part of BNEWS. CNEWS has its varients. rn 4.3 came with BSD 4.3, and a patch kit to make it work with nntp was packaged with nntp for awhile. However, rn was not and is not part of the news distibution, per se. Go read the document on the news software. It is posted monthly to news.announce.newusers. The biggest problem with nn and trn is the fact that they (currently) have incompatible thread databases. In fact, it would be a pretty neat idea to build some kind of standard interface for doing this kind of thing so that it could be ported to more news readers or architecture other than Unix! We might be able to move some of this proposed standard interface back into NNTP. However, Unix NNTP has enough problems trying to cope with the differences in the two BACK-end (CNEWS and BNEWS) to be mutilated into supporting two different threading architectures. -- Stan internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu Director, Networking Olan uucp: {rutgers,mailrus}!bcm!sob and Systems Support Barber Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicine
wje@siia.mv.com (Bill Ezell) (11/26/90)
In <1990Nov24.075800.23631@silvlis.com> jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes: >Yep... Trn sounds fine. But it isn't available to "the rest of us". >Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites. I don't see what the problem is. We've been running trn for a few months now, and we are a 'uucp only' site. Personally, I still prefer nn, but then again, I've only tried trn once. My philosophy about such matters is, I have enough real things to do, I don't need to waste time learning yet another package, unless the one I'm currently using doesn't meet my needs. The X command in nn matches my needs perfectly. -- Bill Ezell Software Innovations, Inc. wje@siia.mv.com (603) 883-9300
scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) (11/26/90)
I see some people are not on the Internet. I'm very sorry. When at university, you imagine that everyone has those magic connections to the on line world. On the other hand, I got my initial copy of trn ON USENET !!! I do not know of any UUCP sites (or actually, UUNET does, doesn't it?) If so, you can get TRN on uunet in dir comp.sources.unix under volume 20-21or 22 (I'm not sure) in 500K packets (the standard Usenet comp.sources.unix format). I have no clue on how to get stuff over UUCP but I'm sure you guys without Internet have learned all the tricks long ago. If someone would be kind enough to give more details on how to get TRN over uucp please stand up... (POST IT !!!) Good Luck. (I hope you get your hands on it: IT'S WORTH IT!!!) Scoob
huntting@crimson.csn.org (Brad Huntting) (11/27/90)
larry@nstar.rn.com (Larry Snyder) writes: |scoob@vlsi.polymtl.ca (Christian Marcotte) writes: |> News reading is now REALLY EFFICIENT thanks to TRN !!! |what does trn offer over nn? We've been running nn now for almost |a year - without any problems -- I have no experience with trn, but we have one machine on campus which uses nn. It consistently consumes more resources (by number of articles requested, cpu time, connect time, you name it) than any other machine on campus. The number of readers on this machine is only a fraction of the next runner up though. I assume that this is because nn reads ALL article headers off the server regardless of wheather someone want's them. Is anyone working on a better nntp-nn interface? For that matter just a better caching stratagy would be nice... Does nn use XHDR to grab groups of headers deemed importaint? Could it be set up to cache only locally read newsgroups? Perhaps only asking for the headers when someone read's them? brad
urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) (11/28/90)
In news.software.b, article <2867@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>,
sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) writes:
<
< The biggest problem with nn and trn is the fact that they (currently) have
< incompatible thread databases. In fact, it would be a pretty neat idea
< to build some kind of standard interface for doing this kind of thing
< so that it could be ported to more news readers or architecture other
< than Unix! We might be able to move some of this proposed standard
< interface back into NNTP. However, Unix NNTP has enough problems trying to
< cope with the differences in the two BACK-end (CNEWS and BNEWS) to be
< mutilated into supporting two different threading architectures.
<
It might help to have at least a somewhat-standard way to get (part of?) a
thread file/database from the server. Something like...
C> DBASE TRN news.software.b [section] [range] [whatever]
S> 3xy 3628 bytes follow
S> [ sends 3628 bytes of binary data ]
S> 2yz Got that?
As it is now, trn users must have a local database (unless they can use NFS
-- I dunno about NN), and each host which runs trn ends up reading every
article. Not good.
--
Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de /(o\
Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49+721+621127(0700-2330) \o)/del@thrush.mlb.semi.harris.com (Don Lewis) (11/28/90)
In article <t4zlg2.yp1@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: >It might help to have at least a somewhat-standard way to get (part of?) a >thread file/database from the server. Something like... > >C> DBASE TRN news.software.b [section] [range] [whatever] >S> 3xy 3628 bytes follow >S> [ sends 3628 bytes of binary data ] >S> 2yz Got that? I implemented something like that here. I added a command to nntpd that causes it to read the trn thread file and spit out it out in an ascii-fied format. I patched trn to ask for the thread information from the server and slurp up the response. Instead of providing a way for trn to fetch the active2 file, I hacked relaynews to update the .thread files as it is processing articles, eliminating the need for active2. This system works pretty well, but it is a nightmare to maintain (which is the main reason I haven't installed the recent CNEWS patches). I'd love it if there were a standard database and the proper extensions to the NNTP protocol so that I could run software straight out of the box again. -- Don "Truck" Lewis Harris Semiconductor Internet: del@mlb.semi.harris.com PO Box 883 MS 62A-028 Phone: (407) 729-5205 Melbourne, FL 32901
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (12/01/90)
>Yep... Trn sounds fine. But it isn't available to "the rest of us". Not true, actually - it's available to more folks than just those on the Internet.... >># Ftp Sources: caesar.cs.montana.edu After 5 pm... >># uunet.uu.net (under /news) ... >Nice, but no help to us poor UUCP-only sites. But with the added information that "uunet.uu.net" is also a UUCP site (obviously), that it offers a 900 number that non-customers can use to retrieve stuff, that its anonymous FTP directory is also its "uucppublic" directory, and that UUNET also sells tapes of its archives as well, it *is* of help to UUCP-only sites - or, at least, those in the US and possibly Canada (I don't know what the scoop is outside those countries, but on other continents you might want to retrieve it from an archive nearer to you regardless of whether you're using UUCP *or* FTP). The files in question are in the "news" subdirectory of the anonymous FTP/"uucppublic" directory, so you want to retrieve "~/news/trn.tar.Z". If you're a UUNET customer, you should be able to just do uucp uunet!~/news/trn.tar.Z <whatever directory you want it in> If you're not, the 900 number for anonymous UUCP is +1-900-GOT-SRCS; the charge is 40 cents per minute. I don't know how you set up anonymous UUCP to UUNET; presumably somebody else out there knows, or you can probably just call UUNET or mail to them using the phone number or email address in the blurb below. For getting the archives on tape, the blurb from UUNET is: UUNET Source Archives on Tape UUNET is making its collection of freely redistributable UNIX source archives available on tape to any interested parties. UUNET has over 500 megabytes of source archives on line for UUNET subscribers to access. These archives are now available to anyone. They are distributed on three 6250 bpi half inch tapes. All files are compressed (except the compress program itself) to save space. The all inclusive cost of these tapes is $225 with prepayment or $275 otherwise. The distribution is also available on seven 1/4" cartridge tapes (QIC-24, 60 megabyte tapes, Sun com- patible) for an additional $175. (i.e. $400 prepaid, $450 other- wise) All sources are the latest available versions at the time the tape is written. Included on the tape are the MIT X Window System, Version 11 Release 4 plus fixes and lots of contributed software (200 megabytes); the complete comp.sources.unix archive (80 megabytes); the TEX text processing system (46 megabytes); all available GNU software (40 megabytes); the complete comp.sources.games archive (40 megabytes); the freely redistri- butable software from the 4.3BSD-Tahoe & Networking releases of Berkeley UNIX (20 megabytes); various networking related programs (30 megabytes); all the Internet RFCs (14 megabytes); the comp.std.unix standards archives (10 megabytes); and lots more. To obtain the tape distribution or for further information contact: UUNET Communications Services 3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 570 Falls Church, VA 22042 +1 703 876 5050 (voice) +1 703 876 5059 (fax) info@uunet.uu.net
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) (12/04/90)
In article <1990Nov24.075800.23631@silvlis.com> jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) writes: >Yep... Trn sounds fine. But it isn't available to "the rest of us". It was posted to comp.sources.something-or-other a few days ago. Nuff said, -- \/ato. Ian Dickinson. GNU's feelin' horny. Send your dollars, Homeboy, vato@warwick.ac.uk Sabeq. I'm a Pink Boy for "Bob" vato@tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk gdd046@cck.cov.ac.uk I live a life of `going to' and I'll die with nuthin done