If possible, you should build copies of all necessary binaries on your own system, in order to insure that the proper header files are used, and that you are linked to the proper RTLs. The C source code in the News distribution can be compiled using VAXC, DECC, or gcc without modification. (Note to gcc users: By default, NewsBuild.Com disables the '-fbuiltin' optimization, because of a bug in gcc versions before 2.6.3 which could cause corruption of memory when memcpy() was called. If you're using gcc 2.6.3 or later, you can remove the '-fno-builtin' from the /Cc1_Options value.) If you don't have access to a C compiler, consider obtaining and installing a free compiler such as GNU's gcc. It's only available for VAX systems as of this writing, and can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.gnu.ai.mit.edu, or other GNU ftp mirror sites. It takes a little work to install, but is a very nice compiler, and the price is right, especially if you can't stretch your budget to cover VAXC or DECC.
If you cannot do this, or wish to get News running immediately, copies of binaries built with Multinet TCP support are provided in the News_Dist ZIP file, and copies of binaries built with Wollongong or UCX support are available for anonymous ftp at genetics.upenn.edu, in the directory Anon_Root:[ANU_News.Distribution].
After you have looked over NewsBuild.Com and NewsSite.H, execute NewsBuild.Com from the [.News_Src] subdirectory, in order to build a copy of News.Exe and News.Hlb, incorporating code for the NNTP transport you will use. In general, NNTP over TCP/IP is faster than NNTP over DECnet, so unless you need to take advantage of the user authentication DECnet provides, you should probably choose TCP as your transport protocol. You may wish to specify CLIENT as p4 to NewsBuild.Com, since you will only need the news reader and help library, and to define the C preprocessor symbol NNTP_CLIENT_ONLY, either via p5 of NewsBuild.Com or in NewsSite.H, in order to eliminate from News.Exe code which is unnecessary when running as a client.
Once you have executed NewsBuild.Com, create a directory to hold the binaries and configuration files used by News, and copy News.Exe and News.Hlb to it. You will later define the logical name News_Manager to point to this directory, so it is often referred to as 'the News_Manager directory', or just 'News_Manager'.
In addition, you may wish to create a NewsRC.Template file, which is used to establish the context (groups registered and profile settings) for first-time users. Two procedures for doing this are described below.
File protections should be set to allow world read access to the files in News_Manager, and to any other file specified through the logical names discussed below. Alternatively, you may install News with SysPrv, to allow it to access these files; it will disable privileges at all other times.
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