From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 24 11:11:28 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 343631065672 for ; Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:11:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ticso@cicely7.cicely.de) Received: from raven.bwct.de (raven.bwct.de [85.159.14.73]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8A598FC18 for ; Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:11:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail.cicely.de ([10.1.1.37]) by raven.bwct.de (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id p2OBBP8R027773 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:11:25 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from ticso@cicely7.cicely.de) Received: from cicely7.cicely.de (cicely7.cicely.de [10.1.1.9]) by mail.cicely.de (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id p2OBBI9A091854 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:11:18 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from ticso@cicely7.cicely.de) Received: from cicely7.cicely.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by cicely7.cicely.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id p2OBBIJb088229; Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:11:18 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from ticso@cicely7.cicely.de) Received: (from ticso@localhost) by cicely7.cicely.de (8.14.2/8.14.2/Submit) id p2OBBInW088228; Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:11:18 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from ticso) Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 12:11:18 +0100 From: Bernd Walter To: Zhihao Yuan Message-ID: <20110324111118.GF65750@cicely7.cicely.de> References: <86mxkm1erm.fsf@gmail.com> <86aaglx1ow.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: X-Operating-System: FreeBSD cicely7.cicely.de 7.0-STABLE i386 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.9 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED=-1, BAYES_00=-1.9, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01 autolearn=ham version=3.3.0 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.0 (2010-01-18) on spamd.cicely.de Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Pan Tsu , Arnaud Lacombe Subject: Re: [GSoC] About the idea: Unicode support in vi X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: ticso@cicely.de List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:11:28 -0000 On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 08:20:07PM -0500, Zhihao Yuan wrote: > On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 7:26 PM, Arnaud Lacombe wrote: > > Hi, > > > > On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 7:32 PM, Zhihao Yuan wrote: > >> Among *all* the GNU/Linux distributions I used, they include a vim > >> compiled in tiny mode (ln -s it to vi), which doubles the size of nvi, > >> in their base systems. A vim.tiny contains much more features compared > >> with nvi, but it's not compatible with POSIX vi. > >> > > Let's compare the comparable, I don't really care if PCbsd ship vim as > > its default, but FreeBSD as the base is not only aimed at desktop > > specifically. So you should take into account that I may want to run > > FreeBSD on an adm5120 board with 32MB of RAM, without having a text > > editor consuming too much disk-space/ram. > > > >  - Arnaud > > > > If you really want to use vi in a 32MB mem environment, the ex-vi may > make sense. It consumes 1600KB memory while nvi consumes 2000KB. Note > that the ee editor uses same amount memory as ex-vi. If you really want to save memory - RAM and filesystem - in such a reduced way, then you need something else. /bin/sh without history, reduced termcap, sparsed rc.d and you should also consider static linked crunchgen binaries. This has nothing to do with any other typical installation. Also Linux doesn't do this - there are Linux distributions using bloated featured binaries and there are tiny distributions with low footprint tools such as busybox. > So basically, if no one disagree that we can drop the infinite undo, > multiple buffer, multiple window and some other potential missing > features, we can replace the nvi in the base system with ex-vi. Of course people will disagree. The thread is about adding unicode support this means they want to stay with the features of our current editor. I like the window feature of nvi, but I don't really need it for the system editor, but having Unicode support would be a big win and multiple undo is very valueable for a system editor. Of course this isn't one of the must have features on a memory constrained box, but only because you have a higher pressure. It is true that you can easily add your favourite editor from ports, but it is also true that I often get phone calls to help them with their systems and in this case you want a useable editor, which is just there for sure. If a machine isn't online, e.g. because of a trashed filesystem you can't install a random editor and must live with what's there to fix the situation. And yes - I also often use ed in many crashed situations, because it is easier to fix e.g. an fstab with ed and reboot than to setup your terminal environment. -- B.Walter http://www.bwct.de Modbus/TCP Ethernet I/O Baugruppen, ARM basierte FreeBSD Rechner uvm.