N00b begging quick input.

[DiagonalArg]

Well, I must say that the Gnus manual is utterly overwhelming!  I can at least 
connect to usenet, but setting it up for mail is a bit harder as I can't screw
thing up in the process.  I wonder if someone can give me a quick pointer of
where I need to get started for the following situation:

I am using RMAIL with <<many>> files in Babyl format.  Each individual that I
correspond with has their own file.  Once read, I sort the emails to their 
proper
file by hand.  Mail comes from the local spool.  I now need to shift over to 
gnus.  I would like the same functionality until I can figure out how to use 
gnus
to change everything over to MailDir.  I don't want to get blindsided by 
incorrect expiration that might delete mails that I keep until I can act on 
them.

How in god's (pick a convenient one) name do I do this??  I am so lost in 
details
that I am having trouble figuring how to start.  Reading the manual linearly is 
not working, which is what I tried after jumping around failed. Any chance
someone could give me a couple of pointers so I could begin to step into this?

Thanks all in advance -
/DA.

(By the way, this needs to be quick.  emacs 23 is long out, and I don't want to 
shift over to the destructive mbox format that RMAIL is now using.)