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.
This would require a separate alternative, which is sub-optimal because
it leaves the possibility for different behavior depending on the order
of the system directories in the user's $PATH, as well as a naming
conflict if /usr/bin is symlinked to /bin. Having vim-tiny simply ship
/bin/vi and not use the alternatives system runs into similar problems.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
[0] -
Felipe Augusto van de Wiel (faw) <f...@debian.org>
levee
Debian Vim Maintainers <pkg-vim-maintain...@lists.alioth.debian.org>
vim
Pierre Habouzit <madco...@debian.org>
vim (U)
Teruyuki Morimura <morim...@debian.org>
jvim
Jan Christoph Nordholz <he...@pool.math.tu-berlin.de>
nvi
Brendan O'Dea <b...@debian.org>
vile (U)
Miquel van Smoornburg <miqu...@cistron.nl>
elvis-tiny
Paul van Tilburg <pau...@debian.org>
vile
James Vega <james...@debian.org>
vim (U)
Colin Watson <cjwat...@debian.org>
vigor
Paweł Więcek <co...@debian.org>
e3
[1] - See debian/wrapper.c at
<http://patch-tracker.debian.org/patch/debianonly/view/elvis-tiny/1.4-22>
--
James
GPG Key: 1024D/61326D40 2003-09-02 James Vega <james...@debian.org>
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