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Initial setup

The best way to understand the ideas above is to start playing with the system. They should become clear after a little practice. Here is a step-by-step explanation of how to use Discuss.

First, run the Discuss run. To run it, type discuss to your prompt (assuming you have put /mit/sipb/${hosttype}bin into your path). The first thing it will do is look for a /.meetings file. If you do not have one Discuss will assume this is your first time running it. It will then ask you if you want it to create a .meetings file. This will create a prototype .meetings file in your home directory for you to start with.

Running Discuss without a .meetings file looks like this:

% discuss
discuss: No such file or directory

If you are using discuss for the first time, or if you have only used the
experimental version of discuss, you need to run the 'dsc_setup'
command from the shell.

Run dsc_setup now? (y or n)  y

Running setup...
  Creating .meetings file:
  done.
discuss:

The version of this program distributed on Athena will give you a .meetings file that lists two meetings, called ``New_Meetings'' and ``Everybody''. The former is for announcements of new meetings, and the latter is for random announcements, questions, and anything else that may be of general interest.