From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 24 16:16:33 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E39991065670 for ; Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:16:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: from outbound-mail-40.bluehost.com (outbound-mail-40.bluehost.com [69.89.20.194]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id B5AA78FC18 for ; Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:16:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perrin@apotheon.com) Received: (qmail 3122 invoked by uid 0); 24 Jun 2009 16:16:33 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO box543.bluehost.com) (74.220.219.143) by outboundproxy2.bluehost.com with SMTP; 24 Jun 2009 16:16:33 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=default; d=apotheon.com; h=Date:From:To:Subject:Message-ID:Mail-Followup-To:References:Mime-Version:Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To:User-Agent:X-Identified-User; b=kKW+D0xNyq77sw+UAZ72+Wx+NsSY+RJ/edPpVZhCIzKUQCe1j9N2zQgClyElb22s0FChoLn0Prsr+V0E2aU13IgYOsWA2Z+ECHPOb5mTGVKWIUEBAk4KPGzD486yF3Av; Received: from c-24-8-180-234.hsd1.co.comcast.net ([24.8.180.234] helo=kokopelli.hydra) by box543.bluehost.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MJV9E-0000Ju-Tn for freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org; Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:16:33 -0600 Received: by kokopelli.hydra (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:10:41 -0600 Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:10:41 -0600 From: Chad Perrin To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <20090624161041.GD84350@kokopelli.hydra> Mail-Followup-To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="Y/WcH0a6A93yCHGr" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Identified-User: {2737:box543.bluehost.com:apotheon:apotheon.org} {sentby:smtp auth 24.8.180.234 authed with ren@apotheon.org} Cc: Subject: Re: The question of moving vi to /bin X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:16:34 -0000 --Y/WcH0a6A93yCHGr Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 06:13:49AM -0700, b. f. wrote: > > On Tuesday 23 June 2009 15:41:48 Manish Jain wrote: >=20 > >That's the whole problem of /rescue/vi. When you suddenly find yourself > >in single-user mode, the last thing you want to do is realise that > >tweaking is needed for something which should work normally just when > >you need it, and quickly too. >=20 > Yes. But there have been some recent changes: >=20 > http://svn.freebsd.org/changeset/base/194628 >=20 > that suggest that this problem is being addressed. That's definitely good news. There isn't much point in putting something in /rescue that won't work when other filesystems won't mount. >=20 > >But why are we talking about a few hundred > >kilos for such a basic utility as vi in times when everyone has hundreds > >of GB's on the disk, and the / partition itself is 512 MB by default. > >The BSD concept of having vi under /usr originated when resources were > >less by a factor of thousands (<=3D (100 MB disks), <=3D (8 MB physical = RAM) > >and so on). When we are well past those kind of constraints, the concept > >needs an rethink. >=20 > No, we're not. A lot of people are still using old hardware, or > embedded hardware, where efficiency in space and computational effort > are still important, and will remain so for a while. Please don't > encourage bloat. I sympathize with the desire to keep "bloat" down for the minimal default case. Embedded systems were the first examples that came to mind for cases where having vi in /bin might not be ideal. On the other hand, I don't see any reason to refuse to offer an optional install of /bin/vi for those who prefer it and don't want to have to brute-force "install" it by manually copying it, thus eliminating relatively simple and easy upgrades when security concerns demand it. --=20 Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ] Quoth Jon Postel, RFC 761: "[B]e conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others." --Y/WcH0a6A93yCHGr Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (FreeBSD) iEYEARECAAYFAkpCUAEACgkQ9mn/Pj01uKWeKwCdHf1MmOjmI4LlVWkmMUO37Isd /MkAn2d+l+Y3lMi6Ugj69ishoTrvsF3X =b+DR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --Y/WcH0a6A93yCHGr--