On Wed, 2009-09-09 at 19:02 -0400, James Vega wrote: > tag 528494 help > thanks > > #528494 raised the idea of having vim-tiny (the default vi-like editor > on a base install) provide /bin/vi so that it would be accessible in > situations where /usr isn't available. At first glance, I naïvely > figured this would be an easy change. Of course, this wasn't the case > so I'd like to get some feedback on the proper approach for this since > this use case is actually something I've intended on doing since > vim-tiny became Priority: important. > > We currently have 8 source packages[0] building binary packages which > provide vi in some form. All except elvis-tiny use the alternatives > system to provide /usr/bin/vi. Elvis-tiny ships /bin/vi which is a > small binary implementing its own sort of alternatives functionality[1]. > > The problem here is that I can't simply have vim-tiny ship /bin/vi > partly due to elvis-tiny but primarily due to the alternatives system > rightly not supporting a provided alternative changing location > depending on which of the available alternatives is active.
[I sent this as a reply to bug #528494, but forgot to add Cc's, so here it is again] Well, the original bug submission #528494 talks about that- you cannot have different 'vi' binaries in /bin and /usr/bin, since that would be very inconsistent. What /bin/vi in elvis-tiny does is very simple: - if /usr/bin/vi exists, execute it (common case) - else if /bin/elvis-tiny exists execute it (/usr not available) - else print error and exit This way you always get /usr/bin/vi, even if /bin is in your PATH first, unless /usr/bin/vi doesn't exist. We could work together to allow multiple '*vi-tiny' packages to be installed, in that case we should really do the following: - each *vi-tiny package sets an alternative for /bin/vi-tiny - each *vi-tiny package depends on vi-tiny-common - vi-tiny-common is basically the /bin/vi from elvis-tiny, as described above, where it tries to execute /bin/vi-tiny instead of /bin/elvis-tiny However, to me this sounds as a lot of work for very little gain. We already have the elvis-tiny package to provide a small vi clone for situations where /usr is not available. This would be a rescue situation. Is it really neccesary to be able to choose between tons of vi-clones in that case ? Mike. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
