Editor in minimal system (was Re: The question of moving vi to /bin)

[Gary Kline]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 09:59:28AM +0200, Jonathan McKeown wrote:
> This whole thread only really got started because I questioned Manish Jain's 
> assertion that there was no editor available in /bin.
> 
> To summarise:
> 
> There are several editors available ranging from ed (49604 bytes) and ee 
> (60920 bytes) (both with two library dependencies) to emacs (in ports; 
> 5992604 bytes and 50 library dependencies in my installation) and probably 
> beyond.
> 
> One of them, ed, is available in /bin and therefore in single-user mode.
> 
> Two of them, ed and vi, are available in /rescue and therefore in single-user 
> mode even when something horrible happens and libraries are broken (although
> /rescue/vi is currently slightly broken itself due to the termcap issue which 
> is being fixed in -CURRENT and I hope will be MFC'd).
> 
> Anyone who wants /usr/bin/vi available in single-user mode can install FreeBSD 
> with one large partition; or mount /usr once in single-user mode.
> 
> The original poster suggested that the fix for not having vi in /bin was not 
> to have any editor at all in /rescue, which comprehensively misses the point 
> of /rescue.
> 
> The only argument that's been advanced for moving vi seems to be ``vi should 
> be in /bin because that's how I want it''. I find that argument unconvincing, 
> but it's not up to me. I'm open to a sensible argument, if anyone has one.
> 
> Jonathan


	What about making it be a build option?  Or at least symlink the
	static vi in /rescue to /bin...?  I mean we have 1.5TB drives
	now! 3700 blocks is a burp.  A small burp.

	For that matter, why not have the option of moving the majority
	of /rescue to /bin?  I've only had to use the rescue floppy a few
	times, but did so only because i needed grep and vi to edit
	/etc/fsck ...  And major, irksome desl using cat and ed to look
	at that file.  And a few others in /etc.


	gary



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