There are various ways to read Usenet, and each program (newsreader) has on-line instructions to guide you. This memo describes xrn, Netscape, trn, and nn. Xrn has a graphical windows interface and only runs on the RCS workstations. You can use Netscape to read news on RCS workstations or from a PC. You must use nn or trn if you want to read news remotely. However, some users also use nn or trn on workstations. trn is a threaded newsreader. It keeps all articles from the same topic together instead of in the order in which they came in. This allows you to read all the articles that follow a ``thread" (subject) in order before proceeding to the next thread.
To view a list of all the existing newsgroups, read the file called .newsrc in your home directory. When you first run Usenet, you will be ``subscribed" to only six or so newsgroups out of the approximately 1600 newsgroups available. You can subscribe to more groups using a newsreader.
Using a newsreader, you can reply to an article, either to the group or to the author. However, if you are new to Usenet, you should read a group for a while before you try posting anything yourself, as Usenet has its own etiquette, and articles can be posted world-wide. A good introductory newsgroup to read is called news.announce.newusers.
If you would like to practice posting articles, you can send your items to the news group rpi.test.