Dolphin as the NNTP handler

yecril71pl · April 28, 2010, 8:44pm

Dolphin is the default NNTP handler that opens whenever you navigate to a NNTP URL. It is very slow, it downloads all titles each time it visits a news server, it takes over 200_MB RAM. And, in the end, it is unable to read any message because the default action fails with The requested document does not exist. You can send such a message to Kwrite but what you get is a raw message that you cannot productively use. In short, a big failure.

user · April 29, 2010, 6:18am

i can’t imagine that Dolphin (a file manager, right?) should be set up
as the default for anything other than file management…much less as
an NNTP client…

[but, maybe so…i have heard of more stupid things being done by KDE
devs…]

but, let me suggest you try a real NNTP client…

i use Thunderbird just now…have in the past used several different
others including Pan and KNode…

i would guess that installing either would be a step in the right
direction…

there is a section of the forum’s FAQ you should probably have a look
at: http://tinyurl.com/lbjo44

many many other nntp clients are mentioned here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Usenet_newsreaders

you might notice that neither cite includes Dolphin as a nntp
client…so, it is no wonder it is “a big failure”…

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 9:32am

Sure I can use KNode, but how do I make it open when I navigate to a NNTP URL?

user · April 29, 2010, 11:07am

yecril71pl wrote:
> Sure I can use KNode, but how do I make it open when I navigate to a
> NNTP URL?

why, are you ‘navigating’ to an NNTP URL? that is not the way to use
an NNTP client…

see, the URL for the openSUSE forums is forums.opensuse.org at port
119…you don’t ‘navigate’ to it instead you connect to it just like
your email client connects to your POP, probably at the default port
of 110…

so, just install KNode, and insert the correct address to connect to,
then select which forums you want to join…just like with email, no
‘navigating’ required…

and, i again point you to the forum’s FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/lbjo44

and, if you need more info on the how and why of NNTP, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nntp

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 12:48pm

The URL concept is invented so as to allow Internet users to navigate without reading the FAQ for different protocols. I am trying to navigate to a NNTP URL because this is what the hosting page advises me to do, and rightfully so. The system should read the FAQ itself and do the right thing instead of redirecting me to Dolphin.

user · April 29, 2010, 1:42pm

yecril71pl wrote:
> The URL concept is invented so as to allow Internet users to navigate
> without reading the FAQ for different protocols. I am trying to
> navigate to a NNTP URL because this is what the hosting page advises me
> to do, and rightfully so. The system should read the FAQ itself and do
> the right thing instead of redirecting me to Dolphin.

is today April First?

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 2:05pm

Today is Apr_29th.
Quoting RFC 3986:

A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) provides a simple and extensible means for identifying a resource.

  Uniformity provides several benefits.  It allows different types      of resource identifiers to be used in the same context, even when      the mechanisms used to access those resources may differ.  It      allows uniform semantic interpretation of common syntactic      conventions across different types of resource identifiers.  It      allows introduction of new types of resource identifiers without      interfering with the way that existing identifiers are used.  It      allows the identifiers to be reused in many different contexts,      thus permitting new applications or protocols to leverage a preexisting, large, and widely used set of resource identifiers.

knurpht · April 29, 2010, 2:33pm

It says nothing about the protocol used. Believe us, start using knode.

user · April 29, 2010, 2:27pm

yecril71pl wrote:

> Quoting ‘RFC 3986’ (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3986.txt):
>> A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)

earlier you said you were navigating to a URL…are you now saying you
are navigating to a URI?

now, i ask again how are you “navigating” to that URL or URI with
openSUSE which then causes your computer to connect with Dolphin??

and to what URL/URI are you ‘navigating’?

well, let me ask this:

lets say you have a computer with Dolphin, Internet Explorer, KNode,
Pan, Thunderbird, Firefox, Opera and Lynx…how do you begin your
navigation to the nntp server for forums.opensuse.org??

and when you arrive at that destination how is the computer supposed
to know which of all of those applications it is supposed to use to
let you read/reply to the nntp articles on store at your destination?
like this one?

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 3:27pm

Steps to reproduce:

Go to the Boost Users mailing list
Follow the hyperlink to read the discussion group.

What happens:
Dolphin appears and tries to read the discussion group, which it only partly succeeds to do, and with a large performance cost (the machine becomes unresponsive).

What should happen:
Knode should start and read the discussion group.

I do not know how the operating system knows that it should launch Dolphin and not Knode; however, the fact is that it knows, and it had better not.

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 3:33pm

An URL is an URI that can be retrieved; for example, http versus mailto. In particular, nntp describes an URL.

DenverD · April 29, 2010, 4:21pm

yecril71pl wrote:
> Steps to reproduce:
>
>
> - Go to the ‘Boost Users mailing list’
> (http://www.boost.org/community/groups.html#users)
> - Follow the hyperlink to ‘read the discussion group’
> (news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.user).

ok, so you are ‘navigating’ using a browser (which?)

when i click on that “news://” URL in my firefox nothing happens…

i do not know what browser you are using (though i asked how you
‘navigate’) and i can only suppose your browser was born being setup
to open Dolphin when it sees “news://” (instead of the “http://” of a
world wide web address) has been clicked on…

now, who might set it up that way i can’t imagine…certainly no
developer who knows anything about nntp would do so…

i wonder if you are dual booting and using a common firefox
configuration file for both Linux and Redmond??

you might try to setup of your browser…maybe follow Edit >
Preferences > Applications then search on nntp or news or dolphin
something and see if you can’t associate nntp:// with KNode intead
of Dolphin…

i mean, navigating to nntp:// with a browser and then trying to use
Dolphin as if it were a nntp client is kinda like sitting down in
front of, and turning on your radio to watch MTV!!

last hint: install KNode or some other nntp client to read/post to the
boost mail list via nntp, OR subscribe to the mail list itself (using
your mail client)…apparently boost does not support browsing via http…

and, if you have more problems with this (which is NOT either an
openSUSE nor Linux problem…but, rather a boost web site design
problem, please get the boost folks to help you learn how to navigate
to their mail lists…

> What should happen:
> Knode should start and read the discussion group.

that might happen if you set your browser to do so…

> I do not know how the operating system knows that it should launch
> Dolphin and not Knode; however, the fact is that it knows, and it
> had better not.

good luck.

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 8:28pm

Oops, that is right, that URL is invalid, and it opens in Knode. I did not check that before posting because I was not in the mood for hanging my computer :X

Now try these steps:

Navigate to Information about gmane.comp.lib.boost.asio.user.
Follow the hyperlink Using an NNTP newsreader.

If you do it in Firefox, you get Dolphin. If you do it in Akgregator, you get the same within Akgregator. If you open the URL using [Alt [F2]], you get Dolphin.

All three cases should open Knode instead.

DenverD · April 29, 2010, 8:54pm

yecril71pl wrote:
> All three cases should open Knode instead.

not always! i would want it to be Thunderbird…someone else might
prefer Pan, slrn or Sylpheed…

the question you should be asking is if you can, and how do you set
KNode (if that is what you want) as the default newsreader on your
system and or in KDE)…

have you installed it yet? (i ask because i guess when you do, it
will automatically establish itself as the default nntp thingy…)

on the other hand, if you can’t figure out how to do it without all
these posts (where you continue to resist installing a simple nntp
client) i can’t image you will long want to read the Boost mail
list…in any format…

hendersj · April 29, 2010, 9:18pm

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:42:22 +0000, DenverD wrote:

> yecril71pl wrote:
>> The URL concept is invented so as to allow Internet users to navigate
>> without reading the FAQ for different protocols. I am trying to
>> navigate to a NNTP URL because this is what the hosting page advises me
>> to do, and rightfully so. The system should read the FAQ itself and do
>> the right thing instead of redirecting me to Dolphin.
>
> is today April First?

Nope, actually, I’ve seen news:// URLs to messages posted on websites -
it’s a perfectly legitimate handler and question.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 9:33pm

For the record: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/4168

The system installer sets some default NNTP handler for the primary user; the default is apparently Dolphin which is a bad choice. It is repelling.

How do I set Knode as the default NNTP handler? (It is installed by default, out of the box.)

I want to read that particular mailing list because I need the information that is exchanged there. That discussion group is not restricted to people willing to fight their broken operating system.

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 9:34pm

Actually, news goes to Knode as it should but the nntp handler is broken.

hendersj · April 29, 2010, 9:41pm

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:36:01 +0000, yecril71pl wrote:

> Actually, news goes to Knode as it should but the nntp handler is
> broken.

Interesting, I’ve never actually seen it written as nntp:// before, just
news:// - but that said, the browser configuration should be able to
handle any name scheme.

Not a KDE user myself so don’t know how Dolphin handles this sort of
thing (sorry, I know that’s not much help), but if you’re using Dolphin
as a web browser and it can’t be configured to handle the scheme, then it
sounds like a bug to me that needs to be reported to the KDE devs.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator

yecril71pl · April 29, 2010, 10:31pm

I am using Firefox for the Web browser.
news and nntp are are not equivalent: news reads the default server, nntp requires an explicit authority.

hendersj · April 30, 2010, 2:54am

On Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:36:01 +0000, yecril71pl wrote:

> I am using Firefox for the Web browser.

Then it should be a matter of changing the configuration in Firefox.
I’ll confess I didn’t read the entire thread as I was just passing
through during a slow point of my day in the office.

When I clicked on the NNTP URI that you’d provided, FF prompted me to
select an application.

http://www.last.fm/forum/21714/_/42837 doesn’t talk specifically about
nntp, but it does have some tips related to KDE and registering protocols
in Firefox - that might prove useful for you.

Jim

–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator