2. Xnews2.1. Setting up Xnews2.1.1. Configuring Wine for Xnews
Wine is capable of "emulating" many different versions of Windows.
Wine is not perfect, however; it runs slower than a normal Windows installation
and it is not a stable product. Certain problems occur when running Xnews;
these are discussed in the
"Problems and Issues" section of
the document.
Before Xnews can run under Linux, certain files from a Windows installation
need to be copied to the Xnews root directory. Depending on which version of
Windows you have access to, there will be different files to copy and different
instructions for configuring Wine. This document currently covers a Windows
98SE/Windows ME and a Windows XP configuration. A Windows 98SE/Windows ME
configuration is preferred, since there are some more problems with a Windows
XP configuration. Below are the instructions describing how to configure Wine
for Xnews.
2.1.1.1. Windows 98SE / Windows ME
If you have access to a Windows 98SE or Windows ME machine, you must set up
the Wine configuration file (found at $HOME/.wine/config)
according to these instructions.
First, find the section "[Version]" in the
.wine/config file, and make sure that
"win98" is the version Wine will imitate:
[Version]
; Windows version to imitate (win95,win98,winme,nt351,nt40,win2k,winxp,win20,win30,win31)
"Windows" = "win98"
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Second, update the "DllOverrides" section
which will tell Wine to use certain files from Windows rather than Wine.
[DllOverrides]
; some dlls you may want to change
"shell" = "native, builtin"
"shell32" = "native, builtin"
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Third, add an entry to the "AppDefaults"
section which will also tell Wine to use certain files from Windows rather
than Wine.
;; sample AppDefaults entries
[AppDefaults\\Xnews.exe\\DllOverrides]
"commctrl.dll" = "native"
"comctl32.dll" = "native"
"riched32.dll" = "native"
"shell.dll" = "native"
"shell32.dll" = "native"
"comdlg32.dll" = "native"
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2.1.1.2. Windows XP
If you have access to a Windows XP machine, you must set up the Wine
configuration file (found at $HOME/.wine/config) according
to these instructions.
First, find the section "[Version]" in the
.wine/config file, and make sure that
"win98" is the version Wine will imitate:
[Version]
; Windows version to imitate (win95,win98,winme,nt351,nt40,win2k,winxp,win20,win30,win31)
"Windows" = "win98"
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Second, add an entry to the "AppDefaults"
section which will tell Wine to use certain files from Windows rather
than Wine.
;; sample AppDefaults entries
[AppDefaults\\Xnews.exe\\DllOverrides]
"comctl32.dll" = "native"
"riched32.dll" = "native"
"riched20.dll" = "native"
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2.1.2. Copying and/or Extracting Required Files
Several DLL files must first be copied to the root Xnews directory from
an existing Windows installation.
If Xnews lies on a Windows partition on the same machine, you must copy the DLL
files to the Xnews root directory. Xnews will be run from this directory
on the Windows partition.
If Xnews is being run on a Linux-only machine, you must download Xnews to
your fake C drive (usually $HOME/c) and extract it
into a directory there. Open up a terminal window, navigate to your fake C
drive, and type the following commands:
mkdir Xnews
mv xnews.zip Xnews
cd Xnews
unzip xnews.zip
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Alternatively, you may copy an existing Xnews folder to your fake C drive. The
root Xnews directory must include the DLL files mentioned in the following
subsections.
2.1.2.1. Windows 98SE
If you have access to a Windows 98SE machine, copy the files
commctrl.dll, comctl32.dll,
riched32.dll, comdlg32.dll,
shell.dll, and shell32.dll
(usually in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM) to the root Xnews directory.
2.1.2.2. Windows XP
If you have access to a Windows XP machine, copy the files
comctl32.dll, riched20.dll,
and riched32.dll (usually in
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32) to the root Xnews directory.
2.2. Running Xnews
Using a terminal window, navigate to the root Xnews directory and type:
Use Xnews normally, noting the exceptions in the next section, entitled
"Problems and Issues"
Note that these are problems with Wine's "emulation," not
Xnews.
2.3. Problems and Issues2.3.1. Fixed-width fonts and alt.ascii-art
ASCII art requires fixed-width fonts to view. Clicking the fixed font button
above the message headers will simply lock the message so that the vertical
scrollbar will not work.
The easiest way to deal with this is to go into
"Special -> Setup Xnews -> Fonts and Colors"
and select a fixed font for all types
of text. The default "Fixed" will not work;
use "Misc Fixed", size 12.
2.3.2. Erasing sections of text
Selecting sections of text with the mouse and pressing Backspace or Delete
will delete the text from the screen, but for some reason it might still look
like it's there when the message is sent or posted.
To solve this problem, press the "Rewrap" button below the message headers.
2.3.3. Window sizing problems
There are several problems relating to the sizing of the windows. When the
CatchUp button is clicked, the main groups list window shrinks and must be
maximized. These are mostly minor annoyances, except...
2.3.3.1. Closing Xnews
Depending on the window manager (Sawfish has problems with this), it may be
impossible to close the Xnews window, and there is no "Exit" option
in the main menu. To get around this, make sure that the window is sized so
that the terminal used to launch Xnews is accessible, and close that
terminal. Do not press
Ctrl-C,
etc as this will cause problems. Be
sure to click the Save button to save the newsrc first.
2.3.4. Binary newsgroups
The posting of binaries to newsgroups does not currently work. An attempted
post will lock at 1% completion and give an error message when the post is
aborted, posting only the text portion of the message. However, the combining
and decoding of binaries works with no problems at all.
2.3.5. Text on some tabs are indented
If Windows XP is "emulated," certain tabs will have text indented,
leaving some of it out of visibility. The solution is to use Windows 98SE files
instead of XP files. It isn't that important. UPDATED: Version 2.0 of this
document includes new instructions which solve this problem when Windows XP
files are used.
2.3.6. No sample text in font selection dialog
If Windows XP is "emulated," the font selection dialog will not show
sample text. According to a
Wine
mailing list message, there are certain un-"emulated"
functions in Windows XP "emulation." Version 1.1 of this document was
updated with new files to copy and configure when using Windows 98SE
"emulation" in order to solve this problem. Until the Wine developers
implement these Windows XP functions, use a Windows 98SE configuration to get
around this issue. If a Windows 98SE computer is not available, just apply
changes and look at the main window.
2.3.7. Web links can not be executed
Web links can not be executed from within the Xnews message window. This is
pretty obvious as there is no integrated Web browser in Wine. However, Wine's
clipboard works with no problem. Select the link and copy and paste into an open
web browser window.
2.3.7.1. Web link doesn't always copy
When you try and copy a Web link to the clipboard, it may not copy. This
occurs when the link as a whole is copied rather than selected text. The
solution to this is to make sure that as you are selecting the text, the rest
of the link is not automatically selected. If this continues, select the blank
space before the link and copy with the preceding blank space.
2.3.8. Sound does not work
Event sounds in Xnews do not currently work. Updated instructions for this may
be included in future versions of this document.
UPDATED (version 2.11): Event sounds work properly. If you run KDE, you first
need to turn off the aRts soundserver by going into Settings -> Control
Center -> Sounds & Multimedia -> Sound System and unchecking
"Start aRts soundserver on KDE Startup" (instructions were tested on
version 3.1.3; may be different for other versions). Note that this will
disable event sounds for KDE applications which depend on the aRts soundserver.
Xnews sounds work properly under the Gnome sound server.
2.3.9. "Compose" message body does not automatically wrap
In some cases, the message body of a Compose window does not automatically
wrap. Simply clicking "Rewrap Text" as this happens will fix the
problem.
2.3.10. XFaces are not visible
When a Wine version greater than 20030813 is being used, the XFace is not
visible when a message is being composed or read, and the box where the XFace
would be is colored black. Ignore this, since the correct XFace is being posted
anyway. Try to use Wine version 20030813 if you can.
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