MESS

[Kevin Kinsey]

Jerry McAllister wrote:
> Hi,
>  
>>   if i enter single user mode it dasen't seem to recognize many commands: 
>> starrtx, ee, pico, emacs etc so i cannot change my /etc/fstab in case this 
>> is the problem. 
> 
> Yes.   Generally none of those extra things are availiable in single user.
> Single user is minimal and does not have services started nor anything
> but root mounted and root is mounted in a special non-write way.
> 
> You need to learn enough 'vi' editor to fix problems in these types
> of situations because generally vi will be available even when the
> others are not usable.    

Whoops!  Are you sure about that last statement?

[admin at foobar][~]
whereis vi
vi: /usr/bin/vi /usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz /usr/src/usr.bin/vi

So, in single-user without /usr mounted, how is he
going to run vi(1)?  And if /usr *is* mounted, you can
call pico, emacs, whatever, (even vi) provided $PATH
is established or you care to call 'em directly.

I hereby admit to being a vi wimp.  I did memorize 'q:!',
for obvious reasons; and, this isn't about an editor war,
either.

Personally, I moved a binary of e3 (ports/editors/e3) into
/bin and created the following:

    [admin at foobar][/bin]
    cat /bin/ee
    #!/bin/sh

    /bin/e3pi

--- so I wouldn't have to deal with ed(1) if stuck in
single-user.

Kevin Kinsey

-- 
Then there was the Formosan bartender named Taiwan-On.