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Lews_Therin
l33t
Joined: 03 Oct 2003
Posts: 657
Location: Banned
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 Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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So, basically, you dislike Nano because you are used to Vim? So what if you occasionally type :wq in the file? Try regularly typing ctrl+x, y, enter into a file while editing it with vi. Just because you don't choose to use it, do not insult us for wanting an editor that actually edits easily.
Since you probably don't load up OpenOffice to edit /etc/fstab, why should we load up Vi(m)? Just being more powerful isn't a very good reason. Nano writes, saves, and finds just perfectly, thank you. |
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papal_authority
Veteran
Joined: 31 Mar 2004
Posts: 1823
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
So, basically, you dislike Nano because you are used to Vim?
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So, basically, you didn't read my post. I don't dislike nano. In fact I never said anything about liking or disliking anything. Nano's fine and much preferable for newbies.
I was merely posting my opinion that vi(m) should be supplied as a non-default option. It's small and most users wouldn't have to even know it was there. I can't even think of a UNIX I've worked on that doesn't have vi. As powerfactor pointed out it's a POSIX standard. That is all. |
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ikaro
Advocate
Joined: 14 Jul 2003
Posts: 2527
Location: Denmark
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| Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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I use vim most of the time, but it also happens that I use nano sometimes.
Its about choice and using the right tool for the right job.
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G-Style
Apprentice
Joined: 10 Nov 2003
Posts: 275
Location: Toronto, Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 1:43 am Post subject: |
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| aut0maticdan wrote: | | TWM gets the job done too. Is that the window manager you use? |
Is it easy to use and understand, as how Nano is?
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RaaR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jul 2003
Posts: 125
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 1:50 am Post subject: |
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I can see why having vim-core in the LiveCD is a waste of space but the original vi is less than a third nano's size.
| Code: | * app-editors/vi
Latest version available: 3.7-r5
Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
Size of downloaded files: 277 kB
Homepage: http://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/
Description: The original VI package
License: Caldera
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I agree with keeping nano as the default editor but I really think vi should be in there for those of us who like it better. |
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langthang
Retired Dev
Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 620
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 1:57 am Post subject: |
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OT
* app-editors/vi
Latest version available: 3.7-r5
Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ]
Size of downloaded files: 277 kB
Homepage: http://ex-vi.sourceforge.net/
Description: The original VI package
License: Caldera
* app-editors/nano
Latest version available: 1.3.2
Latest version installed: 1.3.2
Size of downloaded files: 922 kB
Homepage: http://www.nano-editor.org/
Description: GNU GPL'd Pico clone with more functionality
License: GPL-2 |
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compucoder
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Sep 2002
Posts: 246
Location: London, Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 2:33 am Post subject: |
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My $.02
I personally think editors like Vi are useless. They may have powerful features but to a person who wants to edit a config file, html file, etc. They are sh*t out luck if they open it in Vi. It's far from intuitive and requires a huge learning curve. Hell, I still haven't figured the bloody thing out yet.
I think an editor should be simple to use, require very little learning and intuitive. At least for a default editor on a distro. Couldn't imagine a newbie trying to install Gentoo the first time and having his head already in pain and then trying to edit grub.conf with Vi and needing another 20 page tutorial showing him how to make/save the file.
I am sure it's great after you learn your P's and Q's and can benefit from the extra features. Vi as a default gentoo editor would probably up the newbie installation failure rate exponentially.
Since you didn't even suggest it being default I babbled for nothing  Can't see an issue not including it in the base install for standards sakes and those who know it best.
Just me little opinion
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Last edited by compucoder on Sat May 08, 2004 2:36 am; edited 1 time in total |
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RaaR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jul 2003
Posts: 125
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 2:36 am Post subject: |
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Nobody's saying vi should be the default editor. What we're saying is it could be included as an option for those who like it.
People who prefer nano wouldn't even notice vi was in the CD. |
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compucoder
Apprentice
Joined: 16 Sep 2002
Posts: 246
Location: London, Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 2:37 am Post subject: |
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hit save before i typed my last thought 
I agree with you.
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PowerFactor
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Posts: 1693
Location: out of it
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 2:38 am Post subject: |
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@ RaaR & langthang
Um, you guys do realize there is a big difference between the size of the compressed source code and the size of the installed package don't you?
| Code: | # equery size vi
* app-editors/vi-3.7-r5
Total Files : 30
Total Size : 1169.39 KiB
# equery size nano
* app-editors/nano-1.3.2
Total Files : 97
Total Size : 1250.04 KiB |
Its still smaller than nano, but not one third nano's size. For all practial purposes they are the same size installed. But even that's not realy a fair comparison, because the vast majority of those 97 files in nano are localization files, while vi does not appear to have any. Tha actual nano binary is about 70% of the size of the vi binary as compiled on my system. Still no reason not to include vi on the cd, but we might as well have our numbers straight.  |
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RaaR
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 24 Jul 2003
Posts: 125
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| PowerFactor wrote: | @ RaaR & langthang
Um, you guys do realize there is a big difference between the size of the compressed source code and the size of the installed package don't you?
| Code: | # equery size vi
* app-editors/vi-3.7-r5
Total Files : 30
Total Size : 1169.39 KiB
# equery size nano
* app-editors/nano-1.3.2
Total Files : 97
Total Size : 1250.04 KiB |
Its still smaller than nano, but not one third nano's size. For all practial purposes they are the same size installed. But even that's not realy a fair comparison, because the vast majority of those 97 files in nano are localization files, while vi does not appear to have any. Tha actual nano binary is about 70% of the size of the vi binary as compiled on my system. Still no reason not to include vi on the cd, but we might as well have our numbers straight. |
You're absolutely right, I just didn't have vi or nano installed and took a wild guess (a clearly wrong one) that if vi's source was a third the size of nano's, the installed files would have the same ratio. I was clearly wrong . |
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langthang
Retired Dev
Joined: 27 Nov 2003
Posts: 620
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 3:44 am Post subject: |
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| uhm...I just want to compare the licenses |
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Stormy Eyes
Veteran
Joined: 09 Apr 2003
Posts: 1064
Location: Watching God spit-shine my boots.
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 4:04 am Post subject: |
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| I can deal with nano being the default on the livecd. Like I said before, I can put up with nano until I've gotten the system to a point where I can install vim. But if vim is taken out of portage, I'll find the bastard responsible and ensure that his suffering becomes the stuff of legends. Don't screw with my vim, dammit! |
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UclaBob
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 22 Oct 2002
Posts: 83
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 4:44 am Post subject: |
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I think they should include emacs :p
Bob |
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PowerFactor
Veteran
Joined: 30 Jan 2003
Posts: 1693
Location: out of it
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 5:35 am Post subject: |
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| langthang wrote: | | uhm...I just want to compare the licenses |
Heh, guess I should have caught that. |
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robmoss
Retired Dev
Joined: 27 May 2003
Posts: 2634
Location: Jesus College, Oxford
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 7:12 am Post subject: |
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| Kihaji wrote: | | Quote: |
Really my biggest beef is not having it in the bootstrap. Ideally I would want it set up the way FreeBSD has it. They give you a lite vi in the base system and then the fancy vim/gvim is available as a port. What this means to me, is if my /usr gets wrecked, I have to use stupid nano to fix my ssytem which could add a large amount of time to my tasks as an admin (unless I copy a binary to /bin).
daniel |
If it takes you that much longer to edit a file in nano than in VI, you need help. |
If you can't edit a file in vi faster than you can in nano, you need man vi 
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emerge -U will kill your Gentoo
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Suicidal
l33t
Joined: 30 Jul 2003
Posts: 959
Location: /dev/null
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| Stormy Eyes wrote: | | I prefer vim myself, but I can see why nano's on the liveCD: it's so simple that even a drunken Republican could figure it out. |
I also prefer vim, and I have installed gentoo with nano drunk. |
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Nefarius
n00b
Joined: 03 Apr 2004
Posts: 48
Location: Graz, Austria
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 8:21 am Post subject: |
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I guess using nano for editing some plain textfiles doesn't hurt anybody, no matter what preferences and used-to's one may have - it's really just some lines before/between bootstrapping, emerge system and kernel-config/compile consuming most of the time (based on stage1 installation of course). And then you're just one reboot and an emerge away from editor-heaven ;))
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darksaidin
Apprentice
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 150
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 10:01 am Post subject: Re: Why nano? |
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| aut0maticdan wrote: | | Since we are using a serious GNU/Linux distro for serious Linux people, why is it packaged with a text editor which most serious admin/programmers cringe at? I would find it quite hard to believe that the gentoo developers use nano for much. Am I wrong? |
For a new linux user it's quite hard to keep all those command line parameters, shortcuts, program names in memory. Nano is a very simple editor, it doesn't offer much, but it doesn't expect any more from the user either. vi in contrary - while it is probably a very good editor for linux professionals - doesn't even let you quit unless you read the manual (or use killall).
I don't know how you feel, but it is my opinion that we shouldn't make it deliberately hard for a new user to switch to linux. I know first hand that it can be extremely frustrating to realize you can't even use such a simple thing as an editor - can't even exit it!
| aut0maticdan wrote: | | Since the entire distro is a learning experience for new linux users anyway, why can't the text editor be as well? Would it make such a difference to include vim-lite with the bootstrap and live cd? You could even keep nano. |
It would mean to have somebody write a chapter about vi basics and have that translated into all handbook languages. The manpages just don't cut it in this case (and a lot of other cases - but thats another topic). I wouldn't mind such a change as long as new users aren't forced to find out how to use vi (or emacs) on their own.
Speaking for myself, I don't really need vi. I don't want to spend the time learning another 10-20 shortcuts no other program uses - unless someone or something gives me a good reason to do so. Being 1.25 seconds faster editing some file isn't enough for me .
I guess I'm just not a hardcore user/professional and I don't feel like I have to be. Gentoo isn't for linux professionals only, it's for everyone.
I've been sticking my nose into other distributions before and even though they were easier to install, I found it annoying that I coulnd't just go and edit configs files (because some proprietary program generates and overwrites those configs every now and then). |
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Dr Gonzo
Apprentice
Joined: 31 Jan 2004
Posts: 276
Location: Austin, TX
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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This is a silly discussion. Absolutely silly. Yeah, maybe they should include vi on the livecd. But, what is it about being able to use the most archaic text editor on the planet that makes somebody elite? If that's what it takes, then I'm sorry, you can keep it. I'll just be a happy Linux user instead.
Emacs for life.  
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TheChuckster
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 10:54 pm Post subject: |
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| As a Linux beginner (compared to some of the die-hard Unix admins), I say Nano is the only editor I can figure out immediately upon using it for the first time without spending time reading man pages or bugging #gentoo. |
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jklmnop
n00b
Joined: 18 Jun 2003
Posts: 42
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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vim is the first thing i install so it's not that big of a deal. but i do think that
nano should somehow be installed so that it automatically has the '-w' option
passed. i can't count the number of times that leaving off the '-w' has caused
me difficulties. |
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placeholder
Advocate
Joined: 07 Feb 2004
Posts: 2500
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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Why are you people jumping at each other's throats over a text editor and other elements of a CD? Nano is simple and lite, so who needs a crapload more when they're getting Gentoo going?
I myself am a minimalist since I use Fluxbox and such. However, some people aren't and since it doesn't affect me or hurt anyone else, why should I care?
Seriously, you're all humans and you need to stick together instead of arguing and getting mad over hardly even trivial matters. |
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papal_authority
Veteran
Joined: 31 Mar 2004
Posts: 1823
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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But, what is it about being able to use the most archaic text editor on the planet that makes somebody elite?
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Because something's old does not make it bad. By that reasoning we should scrap awk, sed and C and use something new and shiny like Visual Basic .NET It also has nothing to do with being elite. Many of us used vi first on other UNIX systems and got to know it. It's lightweight and very powerful.  |
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John5788
Advocate
Joined: 06 Apr 2004
Posts: 2140
Location: 127.0.0.1
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| Posted: Sat May 08, 2004 11:49 pm Post subject: |
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since we're talking about editors, whats the equivalent of ee, the default editor in freebsd, in gentoo? i tried looking for ee in portage, but i cant find it.
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