Could not find vi when installing

baomike · n00b Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 11 Location: Oregon

I got to the editing of fstab file . For this you need an editor. no vi. elvis or vim aught work .
did an enable elvis about two hours ago and it's still at download/compile.
It appears to be fetching the entire Xwindows system. Can I safely kill the enable?

Vi is a small program ( used to carry it around on 5.25. floppy), could it not be included
for installation?

zxiiro · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:39 pm Post subject:

I never used a Gentoo install disc but I believe they use 'nano' as the default editor. You can install vi at post installation.

sternklang · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject:

There have been mutiple discussions on the forums on this subject. When installing Gentoo, vim is the first package I emerge after untarring the Portage snapshot, but vi would work just as well. Yes I really wish it would be included in the install stage, but no, the devs are not going to do this.

You can interrupt the emerge of elvis, but you will have a partial X system installed. This shouldn't keep you from installing the rest later on, so it's safe to stop it now.

zxiiro · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 6:45 pm Post subject:

Use Knoppix to install Gentoo, you'll get vi.

lxg

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 8:49 pm Post subject:

Vim is included on the install cd though (both the livecd and minimal one). What I always do is to edit the files from outside of the chroot in a different terminal or console session using vim. You just have to make sure that you edit the files under /mnt/gentoo, for example, /mnt/gentoo/etc/fstab. All other (non-editing) tasks, I perform inside the chroot.
_________________

Ast0r · Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 10:59 pm Post subject:

baomike · n00b Joined: 23 May 2006 Posts: 11 Location: Oregon

Thanks for the responses.
I must admit I lost patience with the thing (emerge VIM) and killed it.
Wiped the disk. I am giving the full install a try but it begins to look like a
Debian et al install. Will see when it ends.

It appears I may have missed a vi vs EMACs type battle ....
I'll say this for gentoo, it is the first version of Linux that is not a Windows "do a like".
I am used to Slackware and liked the ability in gentoo to play with/adjust the parts.
Some I have tried didn't even have the kernel code with them. The first thing you do when you install
is customize the kernel.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
Mike