newsgroup subscription

[sycamorex]

Hi,
1. I am trying to subsribe to any of linux newsgroups, however,
thunderbird keeps failing to connect. it says
'Failed to connect to comp.os.linux.misc'

It happens with every group I tried (around 10)

Is this something related to my system or my ISP?
I've never used newsgroups, so I have no idea how to set it up.

2. I've searched this forum for the answer on the newsgroup clients and
what I understand is that there are two kinds of newsreaders: text and binary.
What is the difference between them?

thanks

Does your ISP have an NNTP server? A lot of them are dropping them these days. If not, you'll need a third-party server, one is news.individual.net and is something like 10 euro a year. There are free servers available but quality varies.

Wayne

[sycamorex]

Ok, I get it now. I googled nntp server and my isp and found it. thanks