Mozilla Newsreader problem

[Joe]

I have Mozilla 1.6 (and past versions 1.3, 1.4, 1.5) on Linux and 1.3 on 
Windoze (too lazy to do the other long download).  My ISP is Buffnet 
(and I'm trying to get help from them.)
When I access my news account in 1.3 on Windoze, it works.
When I try anything with news on 1.6 (or 1.3) on Linux, I get:

Could not connect to server news.buffnet.net, the connection was refused.

My email and browsing in Mozilla 1.6 on Linux work fine.
As far as I know the news settings are the same for Windows and Linux.  
I even have the IP address of news.buffnet.net in the setup and get the 
same error message.

Any idea what I should look for?

Thanks.

Joe

-- 
If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these; for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it. -Epictetus