Bug#528494: vim-tiny: move to /bin?

[Colin Watson]

Package: vim-tiny
Version: 7.2.148-2
Severity: wishlist
User: ubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
Usertags: origin-ubuntu karmic

Hi,

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vim/+bug/372364 requests that
vim-tiny be available on the root filesystem as a rescue utility. I have
some sympathy with this: a separate /usr is more likely to be used by at
least moderately experienced users rather than complete novices, and if
/usr fails to mount they may well be more comfortable with vi than nano.

I'm aware that alternatives handling is rather delicate, though,
especially in Debian where the vim-tiny package also needs to support
the Hurd with /usr symlinked to /, so I thought I'd just pass this on to
you as a wishlist request.

We probably can't assume either that /bin is in front of /usr/bin on
$PATH or the other way round, so some care would be needed. What if vim
is installed so /usr/bin/vi is a symlink to /usr/bin/vim.basic, which
isn't on /? We wouldn't want /bin/vi to be vim.tiny despite that, since
that could produce inconsistent results when typing 'vi' in a normal
environment. Maybe a sensible approach would be to move vim.tiny to
/bin, but not worry about providing a /bin/vi symlink - people can just
type vim.tiny if they're in a recovery situation.

In a recovery situation, it probably doesn't matter much that
/usr/share/vim/ (including /usr/share/vim/vimrc.tiny) would be
unavailable.

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]