Upgrade to etch kills nntp server authentication

[brownh@hartford-hwp.com (Haines Brown)]

As either root or user I start gnus and it seems to hang for a while,
but eventually I get the message:

  nnetp (news.snet.sbcglobal.net) 
  open error: ''.
  continuue?

If I continue, my subscribed newsgroups are listed, but without any
readable messages. For example:

   * linux.debian.user

Once when I tried to download messages in that group, the group name
was replaced with:

  *: e100: 3th0: e100_watchdog: link up, 100Mbps, full duplex

Could it be that I'm no longer being authenticated to the news server?

I'm forced to work from console because my X server won't start
either because it insists on creating a new authority file
(~/.serverauth.3044) that neither shows up nor works. 

Haines Brown