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2. Programs we'll need

2.1 FidoGate

This is the gatewaysoftware, which will convert the Fido-messages into usenet-news/mail and vice versa. The latest release is version 3.9.7.

FidoGate is developed by Martin Junius (mj@fido.de, 2:2452/110).

You can find the latest version at ftp://ftp.comnets.rwth-aachen.de/pub/mail+news/ and usually some time later at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Fido/.

2.2 ifcico

This is a mailer similiar to BinkleyTerm, but it is more unix-like as it doesn't wait actively (which doesn't bother with Dos) and is very similiar to uucico from UUCP. ifcico comes with the package ifmail. The latest version is 2.8f. The older 2.8d keeps an ugly bug so don't use this version.

Ifcico was developed by Eugene Crosser (crosser@average.org, 2:5020/230).

The package ifmail comes with its own gatewaysoftware, but I prefer FidoGate and this HOWTO will only describe the configuration with FidoGate.

The latest version is uploaded by Eugene to ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/sources/usr.bin/ and ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Fido/

2.3 News-Transport-Agent (NTA)

As News-Transport-Agent one can use cnews as well as INN. To help you to choose one of them, here some of the pros and cons of both programs:

I myself used cnews in former times, but now I'm using INN as INN seems to be more handy. Besides that the configuration of INN was a lot easier than the one of cnews.

cnews

As older slackware-distributions came with a cnews that was extremly crippled (e.g. all man-pages were missing), one should use at least the cnews package from Slackware 2.1. As an alternative one can get hand on the complete source-distribution and compile it oneself. I used the performance-release from 93/02/20 from ftp://ftp.uu.net/news/. By now there's a newer one, but I haven't tried it yet. I will refer in this HOWTO to the older version and won't update this certain part in future.

INN

The latest Slackware-Distribution contains cnews as well as INN, so that one has the free choice. This INN should work, but I prefer to compile and configure my software myself, that's why I used the sources of INN-1.4sec, which can be found at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/News/inn1.4sec-linux-src.tgz.

2.4 Mail-Transport-Agent (MTA)

Here one has the choice between smail and Sendmail V8. smail is the smaller and simpler package, which has some small bugs, while Sendmail V8 seems to be not very easy to be configured. However there is a configuration with the macro-processor M4, which simplifies the configuration enormously so that it will be as simple as the configuration of smail. So, I myself changed from smail to Sendmail.

smail

As the old version 3.1.28.1 of smail had a bug in the uuname-driver (which is only important when using UUCP) I used version 3.1.29.1 from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Mail/delivery/smail-linuxbin-3.1.29.1.tar.gz. I don't use the configuration of smail in this HOWTO anymore as I upgraded to Sendmail. As Slackware contains now Sendmail instead of smail it shouldn't be too difficult to get rid off smail.

Sendmail V8

The contemporary version of Sendmail V8 is 8.7.4, but there shouldn't be any problems with version >8.6.9. Version 8.6.9 has a big security-gap, but this is only important if the computer is connected to the Internet via TCP/IP. One can find the latest version of Sendmail at ftp://FTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/ucb/src/sendmail/, but as I already mentioned it's also a part of the Slackware-Distribution. It is very important to install the complete configurationfiles, which are hidden in a package with the confusing name smailcfg.tgz.

2.5 newspack

If you install cnews, INN or smail as sources, you should get the latest version of newspak. This package contains the adjustments of various mail- and newsprograms (cnews, INN, smail, sendmail-IDA, tin, trn, nn, elm, uucp,...) to Linux. Till now I haven't found a newspak, which contains also adjustments to Sendmail V8. However you find them in the Slackwaresources in the directory n/sendmail.

2.6 Newsreader

One can use any newsreader, e.g. tin, nn, trn, xvnews, xrn, slrn, knews,.. if one uses cnews, it should have a UUCP-mode, i.e. not only NNTP, as then one has to install the nntpd, which is quite difficult without any documentation. I suggest to use tin, as tin is easy to use and doesn't make much trouble when configuring it.

2.7 Mailreader

Here you can use what you want: elm, pine, mail, xmail, xmailtool, xfmail,...

2.8 Packers

Some packers come with the distributions. If special packers are missing one can get them from various servers like ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/compress/ which have a packer-directory:

ZIP

unzip51 can unpack the new ZIP-format, too. There is now a zip, which can pack the new format.

ARJ

unarj241 unpacks ARJ-archives, but there's no packer for Linux.

LZH

lha existst as a Linux-port, too.

ARC

Old, but very important packer, as nodelists are packed with arc. There is at least one Linux-port.

RAR

unrar101 unpacks RAR-archives, I haven't found a RAR-packer, yet. One can find the sources to unrar at: ftp://ftp.kiae.su/.2/unix/arcers/unrar101.tgz.

2.9 TIC-processor

There are some small TIC-processors, which were written in PERL. Especially tic010b.tgz (also known as lt010b.tgz) by Cees de Groot (cg@bofh.lake.de, 241:10000/1512) can be mentioned. This program is part of the ifmail-package since version 2.8a and can be found in the directory ifmail/misc/contrib/tic.

There is also a TIC-processor included in FidoGate called ftntick. Last I have to mention the packet FidoTools-0.9 which can be found at ftp://ns.aanet.ru/vol1/nick/Linux/system/Fido/FidoTools-0.9.tar.gz and which mainly contains a tic processor.


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