Re: Review article for Amiga Unix Compendium

["Martin Steigerwald" <Martin-Steigerwald%gmx.net@localhost>]

> ... and your personal problem... IMHO. 'vi' is there because it is EVERYwhere.
> It is also small, fast and efficient if you know how to use it of course. If
> you don't, then EVERY UN*X starter book has a chapter on it.

Oh, not only my problem... 

> Learn it once and you (like me and many others) will ever wonder how could you
> not understand it before... Learn it. Even if you will use something else
> afterwards. It will help you in many cases not only with plain NetBSD setup.

No, I will install Pico or something like this. There are so many other
fine little editors. And putting at least one other small editor that
behaves more like something people coming from other Operating System
would expect would be of great benefit for NetBSD I guess.

Cause it will minimize the count of people giving up frustrated, cause
they was not able to edit files like they are used to.

> and I really wouldn't like to to download the base install set with 'emacs'
> inside! This is of course my opinion but if you don't know how to use 'vi',
> you shouldn't start any UN*X adventures.

Okay, emacs might not be a good example?

Unix adventures? I already installed a dozen of Linux systems... but I
never had to trouble around with "vi" of any of them... Debian has "ae",
very simple, but works. RedHat don't need one cause it runs via X11 right
after installing it.

> >or such a simply thing like ae - that comes on a Debian m68k base
> >installation and is merely a totally simply full screen editor where I can
> >move a cursor with the cursor keys and type where the cursor is

> If you can't move the cursor in 'vi' with the cursor keys then your terminal
> is broken. The same if you can't type where the cursor is.

Then this is about edit mode. 

> >and it has
> >an easy to remember hotkey for saving the file and quitting the editor

> Is ':wq' (w)rite and (q)uit or 'ZZ' so hard to remember? ;-)

hmmm.... 

> >Oh well... I guess this sentence did not come from the NetBSD
> >organisation, but if you really require the user who wants to look into
> >NetBSD to use "vi" or "ed" you are IMHO not promoting NetBSD powerfully.
> >"vi" is about "how to I make as much users as possible afraid of NetBSD"
> >IMHO.

> I'd rather call it "how do I keep as much lamers as possible away from digging
> inside NetBSD and asking stupid questions then" ;-) No! Please don't take it
> personally. It's only a joke!

Well but its important to get on that, cause I write an article for an
Amiga magazine and I am quite sure there are some of such "lamers" lurking
around wanting to try NetBSD... so if its not for them, I probably should
clearly say so? 

> Really IMHO NetBSD install sets are perfectly (well, almost) composed.

Hmmmm... I did not have any other problem...

> AFAIR all the BFFSs are compatible with... BFFS which is used on all NetBSD
> systems so far. The last one allows writing to the filesystem but does not
> make it 'clean' afterwards what means that you will have to 'fsck' the
> partitions you messed on when you boot NetBSD.

Not the best option. I guess I will only read from them then.

> >But it doesn't work. Oh, it says it mounts it read-only, and there is no
> >further error message, but then I do a "ls /amiga" I get nothing. Using
> >"mount" to display mounted partition shows that the partition was not
> >mounted, its not in the list. I was not quite sure about the partition
> >naming but I also tried /dev/sd0f and other names, so I must have got it.

> It is simple (and AFAIR stated in the docs/faqs) you should explicitly mount
> it with '-oro' as it is still not writable.

Ok, sorry. Probably I should have read this. I was used to the habit on
Linux that it seen just seems to mount read-only and thats it... no need
to give an extra option as the computer itself can find out what option to
use.

> Did I mention 'Learn vi'? ;-) It really is not that difficult as it seems at
> first glance. As for the BFFS I recall using 1.5b (?) with all success. But it
> was in the stone ages when I wasn't able to understand how to use 'vi' to edit
> files... ;-)

Before that I will download pico, emacs or something and I will get some
of them to work. No, I am a die hard "I will not use vi"-user. ;-)

Well, I think thats not the first discussion on that topic.

-- 
Martin 'Helios' Steigerwald  - http://helios.home.pages.de
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