What could be missing?

[Jeremy]

NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.
I also have a trimmed down install of the same Slackware version,
which I use on an old laptop. The problem is, NEdit is malfunctioning
on the latter, obviously because of something missing there, showing a
text size so ridiculously small that is illegible, and also the menus'
text is disruptured/misplaced with buttons that are not reachable at
the location where they seem to be on the screen.
It is not a font selection problem, as the fonts NEdit is using on the
main installation are also available on the minimalist one and those
fonts are listed the same way in both under Preferences -> Default
Settings -> Text Fonts.
My question is, what missing component could be possibly causing this?
Once I know, the fix will be simply copying that component from the
main PC to the laptop.

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.

Are you running the same version of Motif on both installations? As far as
I am aware, Motif is the only real dependency. I usually remove lesstif
and install OpenMotif, and patch X Windows to workaround a known bug in
the X server version with which Slackware ships (for mwm(1) to work, I do
not know if it affects NEdit).

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Actually, I don't have Motif on either. The main Slackware install, on
second thought, is not technically a full installation, as some of the
original stuff was removed.
I have nothing Motif-related on either installation.
But could it have something to do with gtk-2.0 themes? I just noticed
that directory is found on the desktop PC but not on the laptop. I'll
go ahead and try that and report back.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.

Are you running the same version of Motif on both installations? As far as
I am aware, Motif is the only real dependency. I usually remove lesstif
and install OpenMotif, and patch X Windows to workaround a known bug in
the X server version with which Slackware ships (for mwm(1) to work, I do
not know if it affects NEdit).
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Anthony Nemmer]

Correct me if I am wrong, but nedit won't run without motif, will it?
]

Post by Jeremy
Actually, I don't have Motif on either. The main Slackware install, on
second thought, is not technically a full installation, as some of the
original stuff was removed.
I have nothing Motif-related on either installation.
But could it have something to do with gtk-2.0 themes? I just noticed
that directory is found on the desktop PC but not on the laptop. I'll
go ahead and try that and report back.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.

Are you running the same version of Motif on both installations? As far as
I am aware, Motif is the only real dependency. I usually remove lesstif
and install OpenMotif, and patch X Windows to workaround a known bug in
the X server version with which Slackware ships (for mwm(1) to work, I do
not know if it affects NEdit).
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Nope, it didn't work. I shouldn't have thought it would, either.
I don't have Motif on either install, yet NEdit works perfectly fine
on one, but not on the other.

Post by Anthony Nemmer
Correct me if I am wrong, but nedit won't run without motif, will it?
]

Post by Jeremy
Actually, I don't have Motif on either. The main Slackware install, on
second thought, is not technically a full installation, as some of the
original stuff was removed.
I have nothing Motif-related on either installation.
But could it have something to do with gtk-2.0 themes? I just noticed
that directory is found on the desktop PC but not on the laptop. I'll
go ahead and try that and report back.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.

Are you running the same version of Motif on both installations? As far as
I am aware, Motif is the only real dependency. I usually remove lesstif
and install OpenMotif, and patch X Windows to workaround a known bug in
the X server version with which Slackware ships (for mwm(1) to work, I do
not know if it affects NEdit).
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
I don't have Motif on either install, yet NEdit works perfectly fine
on one, but not on the other.

It is possible that you are using a statically linked version of NEdit.
Most of the time that works fine, but there appear to be problems with
that on some systems.

NEdit must have Motif though, whether compiled in statically or available
in the system dynamically.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
It is possible that you are using a statically linked version of NEdit.
Most of the time that works fine, but there appear to be problems with
that on some systems.
NEdit must have Motif though, whether compiled in statically or available
in the system dynamically.

I think mine is a statically linked version.

[Edward A. Berry]

This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
NEdit works perfectly well within my full installation of Slackware,
on my main PC.

Are you running the same version of Motif on both installations? As far as
I am aware, Motif is the only real dependency. I usually remove lesstif
and install OpenMotif, and patch X Windows to workaround a known bug in
the X server version with which Slackware ships (for mwm(1) to work, I do
not know if it affects NEdit).
Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....

[Anthony Nemmer]

You could always use vim. =)

Post by Jeremy

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....

[Jeremy]

I use vi.... but would also like the possibility to use NEdit. Love Nedit.
Any way I could be helped find out what is missing? It seems to be
related to theme stuff. What does NEdit depend on for that other than
Motif? If NEdit could not be run without Motif, perhaps there are some
left overs of it somewhere on the main PC that make its use possible.
Tried to look for them with "find | grep motif" to no avail.

Post by Anthony Nemmer
You could always use vim. =)

Post by Jeremy

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....

--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Tried that just now, I have libXmu.so.6.2.0 and libXmuu.so.1.00 on both....
The fact that perl is missing from the laptop would not be the crux, right?
I'll be back in a couple of hours...

Post by Jeremy
I use vi.... but would also like the possibility to use NEdit. Love Nedit.
Any way I could be helped find out what is missing? It seems to be
related to theme stuff. What does NEdit depend on for that other than
Motif? If NEdit could not be run without Motif, perhaps there are some
left overs of it somewhere on the main PC that make its use possible.
Tried to look for them with "find | grep motif" to no avail.

Post by Anthony Nemmer
You could always use vim. =)

Post by Jeremy

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....

--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Anthony Nemmer]

How could you leave out Perl!? That is terrible!!!!!

Post by Jeremy
Tried that just now, I have libXmu.so.6.2.0 and libXmuu.so.1.00 on both....
The fact that perl is missing from the laptop would not be the crux, right?
I'll be back in a couple of hours...

Post by Jeremy
I use vi.... but would also like the possibility to use NEdit. Love Nedit.
Any way I could be helped find out what is missing? It seems to be
related to theme stuff. What does NEdit depend on for that other than
Motif? If NEdit could not be run without Motif, perhaps there are some
left overs of it somewhere on the main PC that make its use possible.
Tried to look for them with "find | grep motif" to no avail.

Post by Anthony Nemmer
You could always use vim. =)

Post by Jeremy

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....

--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Post by Anthony Nemmer
How could you leave out Perl!? That is terrible!!!!!

I know... :( Had to leave Python out too. I'm running a 100 MB installation of
Slackware 12.2 on this very old PII laptop. It does what I need it to do.
Now, if I could only get NEdit to work on it...

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
Any way I could be helped find out what is missing? It seems to be
related to theme stuff. What does NEdit depend on for that other than
Motif? If NEdit could not be run without Motif, perhaps there are some
left overs of it somewhere on the main PC that make its use possible.
Tried to look for them with "find | grep motif" to no avail.

What exactly is your X Windows stack on the two machines? Is it the same
for both? Where did you get NEdit? What does the version information from
the help menu say? Do you have an .Xresources file or a .nedit directory?
Are they the same on both machines? What does `ldd nedit` give you?

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
What exactly is your X Windows stack on the two machines? Is it the same
for both? Where did you get NEdit? What does the version information from
the help menu say? Do you have an .Xresources file or a .nedit directory?
Are they the same on both machines? What does `ldd nedit` give you?

I'm not sure I know how to answer your first question (Xwindows stack).
I downloaded NEdit a few days ago from this website. See version in one
of my previous replies. I have both an .Xresources file and a .nedit
directory in both instances. They are exactly the same.

# ldd /usr/bin/nedit

linux-gate.so.1 => (0xb78b1000)
libXp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXp.so.6 (0xb7896000)
libXpm.so.4 => /usr/lib/libXpm.so.4 (0xb7886000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7878000)
libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0xb7829000)
libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0xb7821000)
libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0xb780a000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7722000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0xb76fc000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0xb75b0000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb75ad000)
libxcb-xlib.so.0 => /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 (0xb75ab000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0xb7593000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0xb758f000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb78b2000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb758a000)

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
I'm not sure I know how to answer your first question (Xwindows stack).

What is your X Windows Version, what Window Manager/Desktop Environment
are you using, what X related packages are installed or not installed on
your system. It might be nice to have a diff of your /var/log/packages
directory from each of the two installations.

It might also help to post screen shots showing the differences in the two
installations so that we can see exactly what you are talking about, as I
am having trouble visualizing it.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

X Windows is Xorg 1.4.2 with Fluxbox 1.0.0 on both installations.
I'm attaching two text files: one is the list of the packages that are
still on, the other of the packages that were removed. Obviously, what
is on the desktop PC (installation where NEdit works perfectly) is
what's on the two lists together.
I don't have Gnome or KDE, so I can't capture any screen shots at the
moment. That would involve downloading and installing something like
ImageMagick then filling in all missing dependencies and I'd rather
pass on that.
But I'll make it very simple and clear for you. In the working
installation, NEdit works perfectly. I can write and save lengthy
files without a glitch. The text is sharp and the expected size. The
text in the menus is perfectly legible. The program works as expected.
Not so in the other install. With the same fonts installed and
selected, the text in both the main window and menu windows is very
small and fragmented, and also multicolored (e.g. one character can be
half black, half red; the next one, green; the following one partly
red, partly blue). Menu buttons cannot be mouse clicked at the
location where they appear to be, but will respond to clicking about
half an inch away from that location. Only 3-4 characters can be
written in the main window, after which the cursor disappears along
with any further characters (but can be brought back to the initial
position by backspacing). This should give you a very clear picture of
what is going on.
Now, based on what was written before, this description and the list
of what packages were removed, can someone give me a hint of what is
likely to be causing this problem? Many thanks.
Text

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
I'm not sure I know how to answer your first question (Xwindows stack).

What is your X Windows Version, what Window Manager/Desktop Environment
are you using, what X related packages are installed or not installed on
your system. It might be nice to have a diff of your /var/log/packages
directory from each of the two installations.
It might also help to post screen shots showing the differences in the two
installations so that we can see exactly what you are talking about, as I
am having trouble visualizing it.
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

P.S. NEdit does not show in the packages_on list because its two
executables were copied manually to their proper location.
Also, everything else works perfectly in the laptop installation,
NEdit being the only program exhibiting that behavior.

Post by Jeremy
X Windows is Xorg 1.4.2 with Fluxbox 1.0.0 on both installations.
I'm attaching two text files: one is the list of the packages that are
still on, the other of the packages that were removed. Obviously, what
is on the desktop PC (installation where NEdit works perfectly) is
what's on the two lists together.
I don't have Gnome or KDE, so I can't capture any screen shots at the
moment. That would involve downloading and installing something like
ImageMagick then filling in all missing dependencies and I'd rather
pass on that.
But I'll make it very simple and clear for you. In the working
installation, NEdit works perfectly. I can write and save lengthy
files without a glitch. The text is sharp and the expected size. The
text in the menus is perfectly legible. The program works as expected.
Not so in the other install. With the same fonts installed and
selected, the text in both the main window and menu windows is very
small and fragmented, and also multicolored (e.g. one character can be
half black, half red; the next one, green; the following one partly
red, partly blue). Menu buttons cannot be mouse clicked at the
location where they appear to be, but will respond to clicking about
half an inch away from that location. Only 3-4 characters can be
written in the main window, after which the cursor disappears along
with any further characters (but can be brought back to the initial
position by backspacing). This should give you a very clear picture of
what is going on.
Now, based on what was written before, this description and the list
of what packages were removed, can someone give me a hint of what is
likely to be causing this problem? Many thanks.
Text

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
I'm not sure I know how to answer your first question (Xwindows stack).

What is your X Windows Version, what Window Manager/Desktop Environment
are you using, what X related packages are installed or not installed on
your system. It might be nice to have a diff of your /var/log/packages
directory from each of the two installations.
It might also help to post screen shots showing the differences in the two
installations so that we can see exactly what you are talking about, as I
am having trouble visualizing it.
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
I'm attaching two text files: one is the list of the packages that are
still on, the other of the packages that were removed. Obviously, what
is on the desktop PC (installation where NEdit works perfectly) is
what's on the two lists together.

Did the packages change significantly from 12.2 to 13.1? I have a ton more
font related packages than you do.

Post by Jeremy
But I'll make it very simple and clear for you. In the working
installation, NEdit works perfectly. I can write and save lengthy
files without a glitch. The text is sharp and the expected size. The
text in the menus is perfectly legible. The program works as expected.
Not so in the other install. With the same fonts installed and
selected, the text in both the main window and menu windows is very
small and fragmented, and also multicolored (e.g. one character can be
half black, half red; the next one, green; the following one partly
red, partly blue). Menu buttons cannot be mouse clicked at the
location where they appear to be, but will respond to clicking about
half an inch away from that location. Only 3-4 characters can be
written in the main window, after which the cursor disappears along
with any further characters (but can be brought back to the initial
position by backspacing). This should give you a very clear picture of
what is going on.

This really sounds like a misconfigured X installation, specifically
relating to the font server and such. Either that or badly specified font
specs or corrupted fonts. I have seen things like this on my NEdit, but it
was directly caused by the fonts that I was using. Any fonts that came by
default as part of X.org worked fine, and most other fonts worked fine.
Luxi Mono was one of those that came by default and worked out of the box,
even though it does not have all the weights and variations.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
Did the packages change significantly from 12.2 to 13.1? I have a ton more
font related packages than you do.

As I said, these are not full, original installation of Slackware.
Stuff was removed in both instances.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
This really sounds like a misconfigured X installation, specifically
relating to the font server and such. Either that or badly specified font
specs or corrupted fonts. I have seen things like this on my NEdit, but it
was directly caused by the fonts that I was using. Any fonts that came by
default as part of X.org worked fine, and most other fonts worked fine.
Luxi Mono was one of those that came by default and worked out of the box,
even though it does not have all the weights and variations.

No corrupted fonts. Please see the logic in my previous message. The fonts
work perfectly fine in the first installation, so it could not be that.

[Anthony Nemmer]

See if you can get emacs to work.

Post by Jeremy

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
Did the packages change significantly from 12.2 to 13.1? I have a ton more
font related packages than you do.

As I said, these are not full, original installation of Slackware.
Stuff was removed in both instances.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
This really sounds like a misconfigured X installation, specifically
relating to the font server and such. Either that or badly specified font
specs or corrupted fonts. I have seen things like this on my NEdit, but it
was directly caused by the fonts that I was using. Any fonts that came by
default as part of X.org worked fine, and most other fonts worked fine.
Luxi Mono was one of those that came by default and worked out of the box,
even though it does not have all the weights and variations.

No corrupted fonts. Please see the logic in my previous message. The fonts
work perfectly fine in the first installation, so it could not be that.

[Jeremy]

Well, in order to do that (installing all the packages) I would have
to repartition the hard drive (presently, there's also a FAT32
partition on it) to create the necessary space. Another alternative
would be to place the whole filesystem on a memory stick and boot it
via the USB port. To keep installing selective combinations of
packages until things start working out is too much work. So much work
... and I feel I've invested enough of my time and energy into this
project.
In one of your previous posts you mentioned that you've seen a similar
behavior in your NEdit being caused by non-standard fonts. The Luxi
Mono fonts I was able to find are not from the Slackware distribution
- could not find any Slackware Luxi Mono fonts online and I no longer
have the old 12.2 CD, so I ended up downloading a debian package named
XFree86-Non-Free-Luxi-Mono-Fonts (or something to that extent) - they
are TTF fonts. Maybe it's a font problem, as you say, and I'd like to
give it one last try with standard Slackware mono fonts. Is there a
way you could provide a small set of the Luxi Mono fonts that work in
your NEdit, so that I could download them, or perhaps could you email
them to me?
I'd need medium, medium oblique, bold, bold oblique - just one of each
in the iso8859-1 charset. That would be great, if you could do it.
Who knows, perhaps it will work....if not, I'll resign myself to keep
using ex-vi on the old machine.

Post by Anthony Nemmer
See if you can get emacs to work.

Post by Jeremy

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
Did the packages change significantly from 12.2 to 13.1? I have a ton more
font related packages than you do.

As I said, these are not full, original installation of Slackware.
Stuff was removed in both instances.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
This really sounds like a misconfigured X installation, specifically
relating to the font server and such. Either that or badly specified font
specs or corrupted fonts. I have seen things like this on my NEdit, but it
was directly caused by the fonts that I was using. Any fonts that came by
default as part of X.org worked fine, and most other fonts worked fine.
Luxi Mono was one of those that came by default and worked out of the box,
even though it does not have all the weights and variations.

No corrupted fonts. Please see the logic in my previous message. The fonts
work perfectly fine in the first installation, so it could not be that.

--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
In one of your previous posts you mentioned that you've seen a similar
behavior in your NEdit being caused by non-standard fonts. The Luxi
Mono fonts I was able to find are not from the Slackware distribution
- could not find any Slackware Luxi Mono fonts online and I no longer
have the old 12.2 CD, so I ended up downloading a debian package named
XFree86-Non-Free-Luxi-Mono-Fonts (or something to that extent) - they
are TTF fonts. Maybe it's a font problem, as you say, and I'd like to
give it one last try with standard Slackware mono fonts. Is there a
way you could provide a small set of the Luxi Mono fonts that work in
your NEdit, so that I could download them, or perhaps could you email
them to me?

You only downloaded the TTF fonts? This strikes a very familiar cord with
me. The Luxi Mono fonts are installed by the font-bh packages of
Slackware. Download those from your favorite mirror (get all of the
font-bh stuff, not just some of them) and then install them. That will
give you the Luxi mono fonts that come with X.org.

On my system, the files in the Type1 directory have the l0470 prefix.

I hope that solves your problem. If it were me, I would try to install all
of the font packages or font related packages, but you should be able to
get by with just font-bh, but I would not promise it.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Andrew Hood]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
I'm attaching two text files: one is the list of the packages that are
still on, the other of the packages that were removed. Obviously, what
is on the desktop PC (installation where NEdit works perfectly) is
what's on the two lists together.

I would start with reinstalling (upgradepkg --reinstall) the packages
Slackware thinks are there. Removing packages can break ones that are left.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
Did the packages change significantly from 12.2 to 13.1? I have a ton more
font related packages than you do.

I build my own NEdit with a static OpenMotif lib. This avoids using
LessTif and makes me immune to upgrades breaking things.

$ nedit -version
NEdit Version 5.6 (2008/08/20:14:57:36UTC)

Built on: Linux, 486, GNU C
Built at: May 7 2009, 23:50:41
With Motif: 2.3.1 [@(#)Motif Version 2.3.2]
Running Motif: 2.3 [@(#)Motif Version 2.3.2]
Server: The X.Org Foundation 10402000
Visual: 24-bit TrueColor (ID 0x23, Default)
Locale: en_US

My Slackware 12.2 (with Dropline Gnome) has the following and rendering
is flawless with the Adobe fonts:

dejavu-fonts-ttf-2.27-noarch-1
font-adobe-100dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-adobe-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-adobe-utopia-100dpi-1.0.1-noarch-2
font-adobe-utopia-75dpi-1.0.1-noarch-2
font-adobe-utopia-type1-1.0.1-noarch-2
font-alias-1.0.1-noarch-1
font-arabic-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-100dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-lucidatypewriter-100dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-lucidatypewriter-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-ttf-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bh-type1-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bitstream-100dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bitstream-75dpi-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bitstream-speedo-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-bitstream-type1-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-cronyx-cyrillic-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-cursor-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-daewoo-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-dec-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-ibm-type1-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-isas-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-jis-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-micro-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-misc-cyrillic-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-misc-ethiopic-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-misc-meltho-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-misc-misc-1.0.0-noarch-3
font-mutt-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-schumacher-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-screen-cyrillic-1.0.1-noarch-2
font-sony-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-sun-misc-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-winitzki-cyrillic-1.0.0-noarch-2
font-xfree86-type1-1.0.1-noarch-1
fontcacheproto-0.1.2-noarch-1
fontsproto-2.0.2-noarch-1
ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11-noarch-1
liberation-fonts-ttf-1.04-noarch-1
mkfontdir-1.0.4-noarch-1
sazanami-fonts-ttf-20040629-noarch-1
sinhala_lklug-font-ttf-20060929-noarch-1
tibmachuni-font-ttf-1.901-noarch-1
ttf-indic-fonts-0.4.7.4-noarch-1
webfonts-1.3-noarch-1dl
wqy-zenhei-font-ttf-0.6.26_0-noarch-1
xf86bigfontproto-1.1.2-noarch-1

[Jeremy]

Post by Andrew Hood
I would start with reinstalling (upgradepkg --reinstall) the packages
Slackware thinks are there. Removing packages can break ones that are left.

Not as option, as it would create total havoc on my system (simply,
not enough room on the HD to do it). You need to realize that in order
to fit everything in less space I had to remove the "superfluous:" all
doc and manual directories, all internationalization files, all
include files, all .a libraries, etc. This was done from the very
beginning with the main system (where NEdit works just fine), so for
sure none of it affected NEdit's functionality in any way.

Post by Andrew Hood
I build my own NEdit with a static OpenMotif lib. This avoids using
LessTif and makes me immune to upgrades breaking things.

Mine is also statically built, consisting of the ver. 5.5 binaries I
recently downloaded from this website.

[Anthony Nemmer]

You can get a used Pentium IV tower for $50 nowadays.

Post by Jeremy

Post by Andrew Hood
I would start with reinstalling (upgradepkg --reinstall) the packages
Slackware thinks are there. Removing packages can break ones that are

left.
Not as option, as it would create total havoc on my system (simply,
not enough room on the HD to do it). You need to realize that in order
to fit everything in less space I had to remove the "superfluous:" all
doc and manual directories, all internationalization files, all
include files, all .a libraries, etc. This was done from the very
beginning with the main system (where NEdit works just fine), so for
sure none of it affected NEdit's functionality in any way.

Post by Andrew Hood
I build my own NEdit with a static OpenMotif lib. This avoids using
LessTif and makes me immune to upgrades breaking things.

Mine is also statically built, consisting of the ver. 5.5 binaries I
recently downloaded from this website.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Post by Anthony Nemmer
You can get a used Pentium IV tower for $50 nowadays.

Then I would miss the pleasure I derive from running Slackware 12.2
(with one of the latest kernels) on a top-of-the-line, 13-year-old
Toshiba laptop ;) (you won't find such build quality in any of the new
stuff available today).

[Jeremy]

OK, so this is what I just did - because I really want to get to the
end of it and understand what the heck is going on....since this whole
thing doesn't seem to make much sense to me.
I cloned the larger system (where NEdit works fine) on its own
partition on the larger machine and started removing the packages,
hoping to recreate the faulty functionality in NEdit so as to pinpoint
the missing items.
Well, I got to the point where I have an almost exact copy of the
system within which NEdit doesn't work (but in this instance, located
on the main desktop machine) and here - lo and behold! - NEdit works
without a flaw! So, what gives? Is it a hardware-related type of
problem??
What I'm going to do next, later tonight, is transfer this (newly
created) filesystem from the desktop to the laptop and boot it there.
Now, if the same filesystem works on the desktop but not the laptop,
it will tell me it's definitely hardware-related.
But how could this possibly be? I don't seem to understand it. Any thoughts?

[Jeremy]

Post by Jeremy
I cloned the larger system (where NEdit works fine) on its own
partition on the larger machine and started removing the packages,
hoping to recreate the faulty functionality in NEdit so as to pinpoint
the missing items.
Well, I got to the point where I have an almost exact copy of the
system within which NEdit doesn't work (but in this instance, located
on the main desktop machine) and here - lo and behold! - NEdit works
without a flaw! So, what gives? Is it a hardware-related type of
problem??

It does seem to be hardware-related! I did a couple more tests that
seem to point to this conclusion. To sum it up, I have NEdit 5.5
working perfectly fine on a desktop computer with a small installation
of Slackware 12.2. It works perfectly fine there. On the other hand,
NEdit did not work on my laptop's earlier installation, which was
exactly that same Slackware installation that works well on the
desktop minus several packages. I thought it was a matter of missing
software. I was wrong.

The tests I did: First of all, in order to pinpoint which missing
package was causing this, I started uninstalling packages in sets of
3-4 at a time from the working installation on the desktop machine
while testing NEdit each time until I got an almost exact copy of the
installation on the laptop. This was described in my last message.
Nevertheless, NEdit worked just fine there.

Next, today I transferred the installation, AS IS, from the laptop's
hard drive to the desktop's hard drive. The same EXACT filesystem, and
now NEdit worked on the desktop PERFECTLY. This tells me it is
definitely hardware-related.

As a last and probably unnecessary test, but just to make extra sure,
I transferred the much larger original filesystem (the one with BOTH
SETS of packages installed) from the desktop to a USB key and booted
this filesystem on the laptop via the USB port. NEdit, in this last
test, exhibited the same malfunctioning as it did with the smaller
installation (originally on the laptop) even though all the files that
made it work on the desktop were there.

So you see, Aaron, it cannot be font-related. Within exactly the same
filesystem (same fonts!) NEdit works just fine on one machine and
malfunctions on the other.

The only thing I can think of is that the drivers Xorg loads in the
context of the laptop's hardware are somehow incompatible with NEdit.
What else could it be? This is the strangest thing....I've never seen
anything like it and did not think it a possibility.

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
So you see, Aaron, it cannot be font-related. Within exactly the same
filesystem (same fonts!) NEdit works just fine on one machine and
malfunctions on the other.

Yes, with those tests it does seem very likely that you are encountering
an X.org driver issue, or some other low-level, hardware related problem.

Post by Jeremy
The only thing I can think of is that the drivers Xorg loads in the
context of the laptop's hardware are somehow incompatible with NEdit.
What else could it be? This is the strangest thing....I've never seen
anything like it and did not think it a possibility.

I have seen one strangeness related to Motif and X.org that may or may not
be related. In fact, I expect that they are not related, but I will
mention them here just for completeness' sake. On version 13.1, the X.org
version does not play well with Motif applications like Mwm. I found a
patch that fixes the issue, but I have not seen this problem on previous
versions of Slackware, which makes me believe that this is not in any way
related.

http://my.opera.com/arcfide/blog/2010/07/04/motif-and-slackware-13-1

That is all that I have. I am as stumped as you at this point. The next
thing I would try would be to replace lesstif by OpenMotif on your
installation, and build an NEdit yourself from current CVS.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
That is all that I have. I am as stumped as you at this point. The next
thing I would try would be to replace lesstif by OpenMotif on your
installation, and build an NEdit yourself from current CVS.

If you want to go this way, I can help with building, as it is really easy
for NEdit and Slackware.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
I have seen one strangeness related to Motif and X.org that may or may not
be related. In fact, I expect that they are not related, but I will
mention them here just for completeness' sake. On version 13.1, the X.org
version does not play well with Motif applications like Mwm. I found a
patch that fixes the issue, but I have not seen this problem on previous
versions of Slackware, which makes me believe that this is not in any way
related.
http://my.opera.com/arcfide/blog/2010/07/04/motif-and-slackware-13-1

Very interesting....but I don't think it's related either.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
That is all that I have. I am as stumped as you at this point. The next
thing I would try would be to replace lesstif by OpenMotif on your
installation, and build an NEdit yourself from current CVS.

If you want to go this way, I can help with building, as it is really easy
for NEdit and Slackware.

You got me thinking in a new direction and I want to attempt a couple
of things first.
Should they fail, I'll be glad to accept your offer to help me build
my own NEdit from
current CVS. It is much appreciated.

[Jeremy]

Post by Jeremy
You got me thinking in a new direction and I want to attempt a couple
of things first.

SOLVED!!!

It took me a while to get to it, but it was as simple as entering the
following command:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

before starting NEdit. I have made it part of a script I now use each
time to start NEdit on the laptop.
It seems that Motif has a problem with the ARGB visuals called upon
by X.Org when interacting with the specific hardware on my laptop
(or something similar to that extent).

'XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1' directs the X library to prevent the
interaction of these ARGB visuals with Motif, which solves the
problem perfectly. Now, NEdit performs on my old laptop as
perfectly as it does on my other larger, newer machine. :)

[Andrew Hood]

Post by Jeremy

Post by Jeremy
You got me thinking in a new direction and I want to attempt a couple
of things first.

SOLVED!!!
It took me a while to get to it, but it was as simple as entering the
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
before starting NEdit. I have made it part of a script I now use each
time to start NEdit on the laptop.
It seems that Motif has a problem with the ARGB visuals called upon
by X.Org when interacting with the specific hardware on my laptop
(or something similar to that extent).
'XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1' directs the X library to prevent the
interaction of these ARGB visuals with Motif, which solves the
problem perfectly. Now, NEdit performs on my old laptop as
perfectly as it does on my other larger, newer machine. :)

If you rebuilt NEdit from CVS, it does that by itself. Quote from
nedit.c (sorry about the linewrap):

/* X.Org 6.8 and above add support for ARGB visuals (with
alpha-channel),
typically with a 32-bit color depth. By default, NEdit uses the
visual
with the largest color depth. However, both OpenMotif and Lesstif
cannot handle ARGB visuals (crashes, weird display effects, ...), so
NEdit should avoid selecting such a visual.
Unfortunatly, there appears to be no reliable way to identify
ARGB visuals that doesn't require some of the recent X.Org
extensions. Luckily, the X.Org developers have provided a mechanism
that can hide these problematic visuals from the application.
This can
be achieved by setting the XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment
variable.
Users can set this variable before starting NEdit, but it is much
more convenient that NEdit takes care of this. This must be done
before
the display is opened (empirically verified). */
putenv("XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1");


Andrew

[Jeremy]

Post by Andrew Hood

Post by Jeremy

Post by Jeremy
You got me thinking in a new direction and I want to attempt a couple
of things first.

SOLVED!!!
It took me a while to get to it, but it was as simple as entering the
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
before starting NEdit. I have made it part of a script I now use each
time to start NEdit on the laptop.
It seems that Motif has a problem with the ARGB visuals called upon
by X.Org when interacting with the specific hardware on my laptop
(or something similar to that extent).
'XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1' directs the X library to prevent the
interaction of these ARGB visuals with Motif, which solves the
problem perfectly. Now, NEdit performs on my old laptop as
perfectly as it does on my other larger, newer machine. :)

If you rebuilt NEdit from CVS, it does that by itself. Quote from
/* X.Org 6.8 and above add support for ARGB visuals (with
alpha-channel),
typically with a 32-bit color depth. By default, NEdit uses the
visual
with the largest color depth. However, both OpenMotif and Lesstif
cannot handle ARGB visuals (crashes, weird display effects, ...), so
NEdit should avoid selecting such a visual.
Unfortunatly, there appears to be no reliable way to identify
ARGB visuals that doesn't require some of the recent X.Org
extensions. Luckily, the X.Org developers have provided a mechanism
that can hide these problematic visuals from the application.
This can
be achieved by setting the XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment
variable.
Users can set this variable before starting NEdit, but it is much
more convenient that NEdit takes care of this. This must be done
before
the display is opened (empirically verified). */
putenv("XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1");

Hi Andrew. Unfortunately, I never looked at the nedit.c file as I did
not build NEdit but downloaded the version currently available at this
website.
My only question is, given you likely have had this information all
along and that I had described from the very start the weird display
effects on my laptop, assuming you have been following this thread,
why did you not volunteer this information earlier and thus help me
avoid a major waste of time and the grief thereof?
I'm grateful for the help received here and it has been a great
learning experience, no doubt, but am just wondering...

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
My only question is, given you likely have had this information all
along and that I had described from the very start the weird display
effects on my laptop, assuming you have been following this thread,
why did you not volunteer this information earlier and thus help me
avoid a major waste of time and the grief thereof?
I'm grateful for the help received here and it has been a great
learning experience, no doubt, but am just wondering...

Yeah, Andrew dude, where were you when we were all making a fool's attempt
at problem solving? :-)

Aaron W. Hsu

[Anthony Nemmer]

Yes, this is positively scandalous!

Post by Aaron W. Hsu

Post by Jeremy
My only question is, given you likely have had this information all
along and that I had described from the very start the weird display
effects on my laptop, assuming you have been following this thread,
why did you not volunteer this information earlier and thus help me
avoid a major waste of time and the grief thereof?
I'm grateful for the help received here and it has been a great
learning experience, no doubt, but am just wondering...

Yeah, Andrew dude, where were you when we were all making a fool's attempt
at problem solving? :-)
Aaron W. Hsu
--
Programming is just another word for the lost art of thinking.
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Post by Anthony Nemmer
Yes, this is positively scandalous!

Well, let's not be so hard on Andrew... ;-) This issue is probably
not a very common one and on top of that we were all focused on
finding the culprit in a missing program or font.
For the record, the only X Windows font set currently installed on my
(old) laptop is the TTF-xfree86-non-free-4.2.1.3-fonts (the whole 900
KB of them, uncompressed) - these include the luxi mono fonts that
work well in NEdit and also look great in all the other applications
on my system, including the Opera web browser. For the console, I have
only one single font, 2.3 KB in size. And yet all my applications work
perfectly. I'm a minimalist, and I love it this way!

Regarding the incompatibility of OpenMotif with the ARGB visuals, the
weird thing here is that the issue was confined to one machine only.
On my desktop, NEdit has run from the start without a single glitch on
exactly the same software as used on the laptop. Which makes it a
hardware-related issue...with both the laptop and the desktop running
NEdit at a 32-bit color depth... which theoretically should have
created a problem in both instances, no?

Anyway, the time I have spent on this forum has been an absolute pleasure.
Thank you all.

Jeremy

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
the
weird thing here is that the issue was confined to one machine only

This occurs because these visuals manifest differently on different
chipsets and even versions of graphics chips. I know that some ATI cards
differed in this even with the same driver.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Andrew Hood]

Post by Jeremy
My only question is, given you likely have had this information all
along and that I had described from the very start the weird display
effects on my laptop, assuming you have been following this thread,
why did you not volunteer this information earlier and thus help me
avoid a major waste of time and the grief thereof?

I've never had that particular problem. It was your mention of
XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS that woke up the "leetle gray cells" (thank you
Hercule). On the other hand, a few people had suggested building from
CVS, so you get to share the blame. :-) You can have a copy of my CVS
built with static OpenMotif 2.3.1 if you want to try NEdit without the:

export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

however mine has a "few" differences - beyond Motif version - from the
straight CVS.

Post by Jeremy
Yeah, Andrew dude, where were you when we were all making a fool's attempt
at problem solving? :-)

:-) Matey, you were asleep too.

Post by Jeremy
Yes, this is positively scandalous!

You're right! We should have had a new release ages ago.

Post by Jeremy
This occurs because these visuals manifest differently on different
chipsets and even versions of graphics chips. I know that some ATI cards
differed in this even with the same driver.

This box has an ATI card, and I've never seen the problem because I've
always built from CVS.

Andrew

[Jeremy]

Post by Andrew Hood
You can have a copy of my CVS
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1

Are you kidding me?? Starting NEdit with the SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS script
will forever remind me of the wonderful feeling of elation that filled
me upon figuring the problem out and successfully implementing the
solution, and of course of the great time I've had on this forum with
you guys :-)

Post by Andrew Hood

Post by Anthony Nemmer
Yes, this is positively scandalous!

You're right! We should have had a new release ages ago.

What are you trying to do....smash Emacs' record of time passed
between releases? ;-)

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
What are you trying to do....smash Emacs' record of time passed
between releases?

I think only Emacs can get away with such things. As it is, I am surprised
that more people have not tried NEdit, but maybe that is because Emacs and
Vi get all of the attention in the post-UNIX *NIX world. Sad.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Andrew Hood
Matey, you were asleep too.

I, er, um...

Unicode!

Aaron W. Hsu

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy

Post by Jeremy
You got me thinking in a new direction and I want to attempt a couple
of things first.

SOLVED!!!
It took me a while to get to it, but it was as simple as entering the
export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1
before starting NEdit. I have made it part of a script I now use each
time to start NEdit on the laptop.
It seems that Motif has a problem with the ARGB visuals called upon
by X.Org when interacting with the specific hardware on my laptop
(or something similar to that extent).
'XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1' directs the X library to prevent the
interaction of these ARGB visuals with Motif, which solves the
problem perfectly. Now, NEdit performs on my old laptop as
perfectly as it does on my other larger, newer machine. :)

Duh, I totally should have remembered that. On the other hand, I haven't
seen that issue in such a long time (probably because I use a CVS version)
that it completely escaped me.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Anthony Nemmer]

I hear that! I have an old quad pentium server that I bought for $20. It
has three power supplies and about 10 scsi disks and when you start it up it
sounds like the engine room of the original Star Trek Enterprise. As soon
as I got it home I powered it up and it booted up, of all things, OS/2! Now
playing around with OS/2 is kind of fun but what I really want to do is get
Slackware running on it!

Post by Jeremy

Post by Anthony Nemmer
You can get a used Pentium IV tower for $50 nowadays.

Then I would miss the pleasure I derive from running Slackware 12.2
(with one of the latest kernels) on a top-of-the-line, 13-year-old
Toshiba laptop ;) (you won't find such build quality in any of the new
stuff available today).
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeremy]

Post by Anthony Nemmer
I hear that! I have an old quad pentium server that I bought for $20. It
has three power supplies and about 10 scsi disks and when you start it up it
sounds like the engine room of the original Star Trek Enterprise. As soon
as I got it home I powered it up and it booted up, of all things, OS/2! Now
playing around with OS/2 is kind of fun but what I really want to do is get
Slackware running on it!

It reminds me of an old AST quad pentium server I got as part of a
deal (basically for free) a few years ago. It had six 11.8 GB scsi
disks and made a sound similar to what you describe. I played with it
for a while.... It was HUGE and weighed a ton.... Eventually I
disassembled it and sold various parts of it. I think I still have
some of those parts (perhaps the hard drives and tape drives) stored
somewhere.

[Jeff Pohlmeyer]

Post by Jeremy
I don't have Gnome or KDE, so I can't capture any screen shots
at the moment. That would involve downloading and installing
something like ImageMagick then filling in all missing
dependencies and I'd rather pass on that.

You can install the xwd package from slackware and do:

xwd -root -out ~/captured.xwd

xwd has no extra dependencies outside of a bare X11 installation,
and it's only around 60 kb installed.


The ~/captured.xwd file will be rather large (3MB or so) If you want
to convert it to jpeg, you'll need ImageMagick or Gimp or something
installed somewhere, but not necessarily on the laptop.


- Jeff

[Jeremy]

Post by Jeff Pohlmeyer
xwd -root -out ~/captured.xwd
xwd has no extra dependencies outside of a bare X11 installation,
and it's only around 60 kb installed.
The ~/captured.xwd file will be rather large (3MB or so) If you want
to convert it to jpeg, you'll need ImageMagick or Gimp or something
installed somewhere, but not necessarily on the laptop.

I just did that, but

$ xwd -root -out ~/captured.xwd

results in an empty file. On the other hand, I tried running:

$ xwd -out ~/captured.xwd

which resulted in an 83 KB file. Nothing I have available is capable of opening
that file though. I have no idea if that command created anything useful, since
you said the file size would be around 3 MB.

[Charles Cossé]

I think there must be something "Motif" somewhere ... perhaps you're using
static libs or something, but Nedit cannot run without Motif. Motif libs
have an "Xm" in them... if you do a "locate Xm" on your working system there
must be something coming back. Here are some commands to try:
1. updatedb; locate Xm;
2. ldconfig -v|grep Xm
3. find / -name Xm -print
4. ...???...
-Charles

Post by Jeremy

Post by Edward A. Berry
This might be useful for narrowing down the problem: ssh into the desktop
from the laptop and run nedit, then try the other way around. Is it the computer
which is managing the display, or the computer on which nedit is running,
that matters?
eab

Impossible to do. The laptop is old hardware missing the docking
station (no network card). NEdit is installed on both. The Slackware
version on the laptop is exactly the same as on the desktop minus some
packages I removed to make it small enough so that it could be
installed on the laptop. So it's just a matter of some files
missing....
--
http://www.nedit.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

[Jeff Pohlmeyer]

Post by Charles Cossé
Nedit cannot run without Motif.

The statically linked binary from the nedit website has motif linked
in statically.
It does not require any additional motif libraries.

- Jeff

[Edward A. Berry]

Post by Jeff Pohlmeyer

Post by Charles Cossé
Nedit cannot run without Motif.

The statically linked binary from the nedit website has motif linked
in statically.
It does not require any additional motif libraries.
- Jeff

What do you see under help menu, "version":
NEdit 5.5
Sep 30, 2004

Built on: Linux, 386, GNU C
Built at: Nov 10 2007, 07:57:53
With Motif: 2.1.0 [@(#)GNU/LessTif Version 2.1 Release 0.95.0] (UNTESTED)
Running Motif: 2.1 [unknown]
Server: The X.Org Foundation 10300000
Visual: 24-bit TrueColor (ID 0x23, Default)
Locale: en_US
--------------------------
And
# rpm -q lesstif
lesstif-0.95.0-26.fc8

I think this means it is using lesstif libs from my distribution,
even though I never built nedit (maybe folks at Fedora did)

[Jeremy]

This:

Built on: Linux, 386, GNU C
Built at: Oct 1, 2004, 15:55:40
With Motif: 2.1.30 [@(#)Motif Version 2.1.30]
Running Motif: 2.1 [unknown]
Server: The X.Org Foundation 10402000
Visual: 32-bit TrueColor (ID 0x1e)
Locale: C

[Lester M. Petrie Jr.]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Jeremy]

Post by Lester M. Petrie Jr.
If you didn't build NEdit, then Motif (or lesstif) is probably statically
linked into the executable. NEdit uses Xresources to control a number of
features. Look for files named "NEdit" in directories named "app-defaults".
Also look at your .Xdefaults or .Xresources files. If all else fails, try
renaming your .nedit directory when NEdit is closed, then start it again and
see if it comes up looking better.

Didn't build it, just downloaded it from the website. There is one file in
the working installation that was absent in the laptop installation:
/usr/share/applications/nedit.desktop. I copied it to the laptop installation.
Didn't make any difference.
The .Xresources files are identical in both instances.
I renamed the $HOME/.nedit directory with NEdit closed, then started
NEdit. Nothing changed.
I think that rather than copying the files NEdit is supposed to be generating
from the working installation to the non-working one, I should copy (to the
non-working install) the files NEdit needs in order to generate its own files
Now, what could these files (libraries and/or programs) be?
An 'ldd /usr/bin/nedit' shows that all library dependencies are present.

[Jeremy]

You should try running mkfontdir and mkfontscale in your various fonts
directory, for a start.

That's the very first thing I did when I installed the Luxi Mono fonts
(which are the ones selected in NEdit):

# fc-cache
# mkfontscale
# mkfontdir

from the directory in which the fonts were found. The fonts properly
showed in the fonts.scale and fonts.dir files in that directory.

I have repeated that procedure (for all fonts installed) now, just in
case. But it didn't change a yota in NEdit current behavior on the
laptop.

Does the output of these fonts look the same in xfontsel ?

I don't have xfontsel in either installation. The fonts (I'm using Luxi
Mono)
look great in the working installation and terrible (microscopic in size
and partly black, partly red) in the non-working one.
Cannot convert [FONT NAME] to type FontStruct
for each of the four selected fonts in BOTH the working and
non-working instances,
with NEdit working great in the first case and very poorly in the second
one.

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
That's the very first thing I did when I installed the Luxi Mono fonts

If you change to a different font does it work? What about with and
without syntax highlighting, backlighting, or anything like that?

I am pretty sure that you do not need to install Luxi Mono fonts. They
come installed by default on Slackware.

I have installed some fonts on Slackware that do not work with the normal
X11 applications, though they work with some Word processors; at least,
they do not work when installed according to the normal conventions. I did
not bother to refine my technique for installing fonts.

Can you give us the exact font specifiers you are using? I remember Luxi
Mono is a bit strange in respect to its sizing, and I had to be careful
with my combinations when using that font.

Aaron W. Hsu

[Jeremy]

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
If you change to a different font does it work? What about with and
without syntax highlighting, backlighting, or anything like that?

I tried....same result on the laptop installation, but all those
changes work perfectly
on the other one.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
I am pretty sure that you do not need to install Luxi Mono fonts. They
come installed by default on Slackware.

Luxi Mono fonts were not there (again, on both installations many packages had
been removed over a year ago...). I read in the NEdit.org archives (I
think one of
your posts) that Luxi Mono fonts were preferable, so I downloaded and
installed them.

Post by Aaron W. Hsu
I have installed some fonts on Slackware that do not work with the normal
X11 applications, though they work with some Word processors; at least,
they do not work when installed according to the normal conventions. I did
not bother to refine my technique for installing fonts.
Can you give us the exact font specifiers you are using? I remember Luxi
Mono is a bit strange in respect to its sizing, and I had to be careful
with my combinations when using that font.

Let's think logically here... One install on the one hand where NEdit
works perfectly;
the same exact install minus some packages on the other hand where NEdit does
not work. The problem cannot be with with the fonts, as the same set is used on
both installations, right? The problem is that NEdit needs some of the
files that
were removed in the second install in order to perform as well as it does in the
first instance, everything else being equal. My question has been, repeatedly,
what could those specific files needed by NEdit (that are present in
the first install
and absent in the second) be? The answer to that question will fix this problem.
Does looking at the list of removed packages give you a hint of what
that may be?

[Aaron W. Hsu]

Post by Jeremy
My question has been, repeatedly,
what could those specific files needed by NEdit (that are present in
the first install
and absent in the second) be? The answer to that question will fix this problem.

Maybe, but the logic you use to arrive at that solution does not track
with my experience in this area, and it is obvious to me that these are
rather non-standard Slackware installations on different hardware, making
diagnosis that much more difficult. There is no way of knowing what
exactly is the cause without further investigation. Doing a comparison of
the hashes on every single file in these two systems and tracing the files
and system calls of the two running NEdit installations could do it.

Post by Jeremy
Does looking at the list of removed packages give you a hint of what
that may be?

No. There are just too many things that do not track for me to feel
confident picking out one of this packages. The most expedient solution is
to install all of the packages that you removed and see whether things
work or not. If not, then you know it is something else, if it does work,
then you know that something is there that is needed. After that you can
simply start removing packages one at a time and find out which one causes
the problems.

If you lack the space for such a venture, then your only hope is to
selectively try all the combinations of packages that could do something
and see when things start working again.

Basically, there are only two possible solutions, more analysis, or brute
forcing it. I would be inclined to brute force it, but it appears that you
do not want to do that. I see nothing in your emails that jumps out at me,
or that indicates anything amiss aside from the very strange and limited
package sets that differ significantly from mine. Of course, one can do
things with a system outside of the package system, so it is as likely
that someone or something altered something outside of the purview of the
package manager as it is likely that you have a missing package.

Aaron W. Hsu