Starting Gnus from sctach and no zombies

[Desmond Rivet]

Hi all,

As the title says, I'm starting Gnus from nothing. That means no News
directory and no newsrc file. I'm using the most recent gnus on Debian
Lenny.

Here's my configuration:

(setq user-mail-address "desmond_news@videotron.ca")
(setq user-full-name "Desmond Rivet")
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.motzarella.org"))
(setq gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method 'gnus-subscribe-zombies)
(setq gnus-save-killed-list t)
(setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups 'always)


Here is what I *thought* would happen:

- given that I have no newsrc file, Gnus would treat all the groups on
  the server as new.

- given that I have the gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method variable set
  to gnus-subscribe-zombies, these new groups would be treated as
  zombies (I know this is supposed to be the default, but I wanted to
  leave to no doubt).

- given that gnus-save-killed-list is set t, we should save the killed
  groups (and I assume zombies too? Tell me if that's wrong), in (I
  assume?) the newsrc.eld file.

- given that gnus-check-new-newsgroups is set to always, the this
  process would happen whenever I start Gnus.

So, I started Gnus and...nothing. Typing A z gives me nothing except a
"No zombie groups" message. Typing A A does the trick - I can see all
the groups on the server - but this is not what I was expecting.

Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks in advance!

Desmond