[gentoo-dev] Re: new-style virtual/editor

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Chris Gianelloni <wolf31o2@gentoo.org> posted
1191615728.8800.16.camel@inertia.twi-31o2.org, excerpted below, on  Fri,
05 Oct 2007 13:22:08 -0700:

> On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 14:57 -0400, Olivier Crête wrote:
>> On Fri, 2007-05-10 at 11:46 -0700, Donnie Berkholz wrote:
>> > How many packages depend on virtual/editor? Should it be a virtual at
>> > all?
>> 
>> <Tester_> !rdep virtual/editor
>> <jeeves> virtual/editor <- app-admin/sudo sys-process/fcron
>> 
>> I think the answer is none that really should, I would favor just
>> removing virtual/editor.
> 
> Ehh... "system" also requires it.  Removing the virtual means everybody,
> no matter what, will get nano and won't be able to remove it without
> portage bitching up a storm.  Currently, you can replace nano with any
> editor that meets the virtual and it'll satisfy the system target.

Couldn't people just profile/package.provided or profile/packages it, as 
I used to do with ssh (which apparently isn't a system dependency any 
longer, maybe omitted just on desktop profiles?) and still do for 
busybox, as neither is necessary or useful on my system, at least not to 
the point of justifying future upgrade hassles on a from-source 
distribution like Gentoo.

As for editor, even where people have an alternative system default 
editor, nano is extremely useful as a self-documented, small, low-
dependency fallback (for which it'd be more useful if it were compiled 
static, is it?).

Earlier in my Linux life I ended up in a situation where I had no working 
interactive editor at all, or at least none I was aware of (I later found 
they shipped a static vim-minimal as an emergency fallback editor, but I 
had no way of knowing it at the time)!  It's not a pleasant situation to 
be in, especially when you know all you have to do to get back to a 
working system is edit a single line in a single file -- only you can't 
do it without an editor!  Luckily, I remembered sed, and the sed appendix 
in the back of the "Linux in a Nutshell" book I still keep within easy 
reach to this day.  I'd never used sed before, but that day i had a crash-
course, and yes, I did manage to use it to get a working system back! =8^)

So yes, I definitely appreciate nano's role as low-dep fallback editor, 
and deliberately keep it on the system for exactly that reason.  I think 
I've used it twice in that role in the years I've been on Gentoo, during 
which I've upgraded or otherwise remerged it several times, but it's an 
easy and very quick emerge (unlike say, busybox), and VERY handy when 
nothing else works, so it's worth it.

>From here, therefore, a hard system dependency on nano doesn't look so 
bad, particularly since Gentoo already provides reasonable, easy and 
documented ways to avoid that dependency if one should prefer to.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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