metaruss

Last night/this morning I finally fixed a few pressing issues.  One was the boot on the driver’s inner CV joint had chewed through itself a while ago and I’ve been meaning to put a new one one there for some time.  I discovered that the Driveshaft Shop Level 3 axles have the tripods welded to the shafts, so they have to be taken apart from the outer CV end.  Also, the inner joints have some kind of fiber reinforced plastic cap that seems to be there to keep the tripod in the tulip housing.  The problem is the boot seals to the cap and the cap seals to the tulip with a rubber seal.  On the other axle, grease is coming out between the cap and the tulip, so I am going to have to deal with that at some point..

The big project was replacing the shift fork pads on the 1-2 and 3-4 forks.  I’ve been limping 3rd gear along for over a year now, as I cheezed it pretty bad on a hard shift one day but it was still usable.  A week or so ago I did the same to 2nd gear, rendering it useless.  I hoped it was just the pads and so I bought some new ones.  Thankfully, that’s all it was.  The trans looked clean inside, though the sprags for 3rd and especially for 2nd gear are pretty chewed up.  It shifts great now, so I am not going to worry about it.

Finally, both of the outer tie rod ends are so sloppy that they have about 1/2″ of play now.  They are only a few years old, so no more Moog suspension parts for me.  I got the more expensive ones from NAPA (Spicer I think).  Same brand as the new ball joints that replaced the failed Moog joints and are holding up well.

“NEdit is a multi-purpose text editor for the X Window System, which combines a standard, easy to use, graphical user interface with the thorough functionality and stability required by users who edit text eight hours a day.  It provides intensive support for development in a wide variety of languages, text processors, and other tools, but at the same time can be used productively by just about anyone who needs to edit text.”  Features include:

• Very complete functionality. NEdit is the primary editor for thousands of Unix and VMS programmers.
• Thorough consistency with Motif, MS Windows, and Macintosh conventions.
• Designed for intensive use: keystroke efficiency, fast response time, streamlined interaction.
• Unlimited undo.
• True multi-window, fully graphical design.
• Mouse-based editing.
• Secondary/quick action selections.
• Fully integrated rectangular selection.
• Interactive WYSIWYG dragable selections.
• Maximum compatibility with X, Motif, and inter-client protocols, for interaction with the widest possible range of X programs and systems.
• Easy to learn: just point and type.
• Capabilities are clearly organized and presented in top-level menus.
• Comprehensive on-line help.
• No special knowledge of X Windows required, all important options are GUI-settable within the program.
• State of the art syntax highlighting with built-in patterns for C, C++, Java, Ada, FORTRAN, Pascal, Yacc, Perl, Python, Tcl, Csh, Awk, HTML, LaTeX, VHDL, Verilog, and more.
• Auto-indent, programmable language-sensitive smart-indent.
• Block indentation adjustment.
• Parenthesis flashing and matching.
• Find lines directly from compiler error output.
• Tab emulation.
• Unix ctags support.
• Client/Server mode for integration with software development tools.
• Programmable: Learn / Replay.
• Easy to use C-like macro language, safe and fully interruptable.
• Includes a library of over 150 built-in editing functions.

See the online documentation and the Wiki for more information.

NEdit is the most powerful and induitive editor that I have found that is available for all of the different types of systems that I use (Linux, Solaris, Windows, etc).  The interface is somewhat dated due to its Motif-based GUI, but there are ways to improve its looks and customize the interface.

In Linux, NEdit can have difficulties when trying to make use of the resident Motif libraries.  In particular, the GNU lesstif implementation causes a number of problems that lead to frustration.  This version is linked against OpenMotif which tends to fair much better.  The current stable 5.5 version is quite old and running into problems the more recent XOrg servers, glibc locales, etc.  Many of these issues seem to be fixed in CVS, so I am offering a CVS snapshot of the upcoming 5.6 release here.

Packages

Here is the latest CVS snapshot:

• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1_i386.deb
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1_amd64.deb
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1_i386.changes
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1_amd64.changes
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1.dsc
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114-rknize1.diff.gz
• nedit_5.6~cvs20100114.orig.tar.gz

If you are using Debian Etch, you will find that the OpenMotif libraries are missing from the release.  You will need to install these backports:

• libmotif3_2.2.3-3_i386.deb
• libmotif3_2.2.3-3_amd64.deb
• libmotif-dev_2.2.3-3_i386.deb
• libmotif-dev_2.2.3-3_amd64.deb
• motif-clients_2.2.3-3_i386.deb
• motif-clients_2.2.3-3_amd64.deb
• openmotif_2.2.3-3_i386.changes
• openmotif_2.2.3-3_amd64.changes
• openmotif_2.2.3-3.dsc
• openmotif_2.2.3-3.diff.gz
• openmotif_2.2.3.orig.tar.gz

Changes in these packages from original Source

• Added proper GNOME/KDE/OpenDesktop desktop and MIME integration.
• Created wrapper scripts to launching NEdit safely and also to the background.
• Added some shell prompt shortcuts.