Created in 1979 before the rise of the Internet, Usenet is one of the oldest computer networks and still in active use. The format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to e-mail, but is developed for a many-to-many communication.
Usenet is organized into seven topical categories: comp.*
for computer-related discussions,
misc.*
for miscellaneous topics,
news.*
for newsgroup-related
matters, rec.*
for recreation
and entertainment, sci.*
for
science-related discussions, soc.*
for social discussions, and
talk.*
for various controversial
topics. The top levels are split in subgroups. For instance, comp.os.linux.hardware
is a newsgroup for
Linux-specific hardware issues.
Before you can post an article, have your client connect to a news server and subscribe to a specific newsgroup. News clients include Knode or Evolution. Each news server communicates to other news servers and exchanges articles with them. Not all newsgroups may be available on your news server.
Interesting newsgroups for Linux users are comp.os.linux.apps
, comp.os.linux.questions
, and comp.os.linux.hardware
. If you cannot find a
specific newsgroup, go to http://www.linux.org/docs/usenetlinux.html. Follow the general
Usenet rules available online at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/posting-rules/part1/.