Gnus

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Gnus is a Usenet newsreader which runs within Emacs.

This brief guide will show you how to set up Gnus to read the openSUSE forums.

Getting started

If you aren't familiar with Emacs please read Emacs before attempting the following, as this guide assumes a basic level of proficiency with Emacs.

.gnus.el

'.gnus.el' is similar to .emacs, it is a settings file which tells Gnus your personal settings/preferences.
.gnus.el should reside in your home directory ~/

A basic .gnus.el file should contain the following:

  • User name
  • User E-mail address
  • News server address

It should look like:

(setq user-full-name "your name") ; put your name in the quotation marks
(setq user-mail-address "you@domain.com") ; put your E-mail address in the quotation marks
(setq gnus-select-method
    '(nntp "forums.opensuse.org" ; can be any news server, but we want to keep up with the forums
          (nntp-port-number 119)))

Starting

To run Gnus from Emacs simply enter:

M-x gnus

You start in the *groups* buffer, where your subscribed groups will be listed.

When you first run Gnus you will have 1 news group (kind of), a guide newsgroup, to get you started.

You can go into these articles using:

[ENTER]

and go back to the *groups* buffer press:

q

Usage

Subscribing to Groups

Now to subscribe to your favorite forums.

To list all groups in the selected news server, the one in '~/.gnus.el', press:

A A

From here you can use the usual Emacs commands to search for the group you want.
To subscribe to your favorites, put the point on the one you want to subscribe to and press:

u

and it will list the number of unread articles.

When you have selected all that you want press:

l

to list all of the groups you are subscribed to with unread articles.
OR

L

to list subscribed groups, even if there are no unread articles.

Reading

As with the help group, press:

[ENTER]

to view the articles, then:

[ENTER]

on the one you want to read.

To get back to the *groups* buffer, as before, press:

q

To see all of the old articles in the current Thread press:

A T

To mark all articles as read (catch up) press:

c

To mark current article as unread press:

M-u

Posting

To reply to an article press

F

the message will be copied to the composition buffer.

When you have written your article, to post it press:

C-c C-c

OR to cancel, kill the buffer, as usual, with:

C-x k

To start a new thread press:

a

Un-subscribing to groups

Un-subscribing is done in exactly the same way as subscribing, in the *groups* buffer, place the point on the group and press:

u

Checking for News

To check for new articles since entering Gnus, from the *groups* buffer press:

g

To exit Gnus, from the *groups* buffer press:

q

External links