Useful tools missing from /rescue

[Yar Tikhiy]

On Sun, Sep 02, 2007 at 11:18:04AM -0700, Tim Kientzle wrote:
> Yar Tikhiy wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I've had to use /rescue recently and felt lack of a few basic tools
> >in it, namely pgrep(1), head(1), tail(1), tee(1), and a text filter,
> >e.g., sed(1).  Well, in fact most functionality of pgrep(1), head(1),
> >tail(1), and even tee(1) can be emulated if one has sed(1), but the
> >tools are so tiny and convenient that it's a pity not to have them
> >all handy during hard times.
> >
> >In addition, there are chflags and chmod in /rescue, but there's
> >no chown in it, so the toolset is a bit incomplete.
> 
> Oh, my.  chown was definitely an oversight.  That
> should have been in there.
> 
> My opinions:
>  * head, tail, and tee are no-brainers; just do it.
>  * sed would be a nice addition.  (I atttempted to
> fit 'vi' in there, but curses is rather finicky;
> 'sed' would be more useful.)

Thank you for supporting my idea!

>  * I personally would not add pgrep/pkill because I
> never use them.

They can be handy if you find yourself with a botched system still
in multi-user mode and want to fix the things w/o dropping to
single-user mode.  Now there are ps(1) and kill(1) in rescue, which
together with sed(1) can do the same job, but pgrep/pkill is much
more convenient.  Another option can be killall(1), but pkill(1) has
almost superseded it because it is more widely adopted and has
richer features without code bloat.

-- 
Yar