Beyond Linux® From Scratch - Version 6.3

Chapter 18. Mail/News Clients

TIN-1.8.3

Introduction to TIN

TIN is a threaded NNTP and spool based console-mode UseNet newsreader. It supports threading, scoring, different charsets, and many other useful things. It has also support for different languages.

Package Information

TIN Dependencies

Optional

PCRE-7.6, libidn-0.6.14, an MTA that provides the sendmail command or Heirloom mailx-12.2, GnuPG-1.4.7, Aspell-0.60.5, INN, UUDeview, Socks, Metamail, and Dmalloc or dbmalloc

User Notes: http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/wiki/Tin

Installation of TIN

Install TIN by running the following commands: 

./configure --prefix=/usr --with-screen=ncursesw \
    --enable-nntp-only --disable-printing &&
make build

This package does not come with a test suite.

Now, as the root user: 

make install &&
make install_sysdefs &&
rm -vf doc/*.? &&
install -v -m755 -d /usr/share/doc/tin-1.8.3 &&
install -v -m644 doc/* /usr/share/doc/tin-1.8.3

Command Explanations

--with-screen=ncursesw: This switch forces the use of wide-character functions from the ncursesw library (for UTF-8 and Asian languages support).

--enable-nntp-only: Reading news from a local spool is disabled with this switch. Don't use this if you have installed INN and want to use its spool.

--disable-printing: This switch disables printing since TIN cannot send non-ASCII text to the printer correctly. Remove this switch if you can tolerate this limitation.

--with-editor: This switch sets the default editor used by TIN. The default is vi.

Configuring TIN

Config Files

/etc/tin/tinrc, ~/.tin/tinrc, ~/.newsrc, /etc/tin/tin.defaults, /etc/tin/mime.types, /etc/tin/keymap and /etc/mailcap

Configuration Information

Set some global defaults for TIN by running the following commands as the root user: 

cat > /etc/tin/tinrc << "EOF"
use_mouse=ON
getart_limit=100
translit=ON
EOF

Now, as an unprivileged user, subscribe to some newsgroups, specify the news server, and run tin: 

cat >> ~/.newsrc << "EOF"
gmane.linux.lfs.devel:
gmane.linux.lfs.beyond.devel:
EOF
export NNTPSERVER=news.gmane.org
tin -Q

For printing, TIN executes the lpr command. This can be provided by CUPS-1.2.12 or LPRng-3.8.28.

If you do not have the metamail program, TIN will use an internal parser for multipart MIME articles. Alternatively, you can use Mutt for MIME parsing through the metamutt shell script. This requires both the Mutt-1.5.17 and Procmail-3.22 programs. To use metamutt, set metamail_prog=metamutt in tin.

Contents

Installed Programs: tin, rtin, tinews.pl, metamutt, opt-case.pl, w2r.pl, and url_handler.sh
Installed Libraries: None
Installed Directory: /etc/tin

Short Descriptions

tin

is a UseNet news reader.

rtin

is a symbolic link to tin.

tinews.pl

posts and signs an article via NNTP.

metamutt

is a replacement of metamail using Mutt.

opt-case.pl

optimizes case insensitive regexp filters for tin.

w2r.pl

converts tin wildmat filters to tin regexp filters.

url_handler.sh

calls a web browser for viewing hyperlinks.

Last updated on 2008-03-11 11:31:08 -0500