Emergency Editors (was Stabble Tag move)

[Bill Hacker]

B1389 at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
In-Reply-To: <20050314130427.GB1389 at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <42359a84$0$719$415eb37d at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 218.253.82.16
X-Trace: 1110809220 crater_reader.dragonflybsd.org 719 218.253.82.16
Xref: crater_reader.dragonflybsd.org dragonfly.users:2098

Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 14, 2005 at 02:06:26PM +0100, Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:
> 
>>Hi Joerg Sonnenberger,
>>you wrote.
>>JS> Why do we need such an editor? Heck, we are talking about a situation
>>JS> where you can't mount /usr. In which situation would an editor be
>>JS> needed for that? I can't imagine any.
>>
>>How about editing fstab not to include /usr so you can continue to
>>boot (a lot of stuff is easier to fix when the network's up) ?
>>Yeah I know, we could do that with head and tail ;-).
>>
>>But yes, there's a point.
> 
> 
> Well, how do you want to continue to boot without /usr ?!
> You can directly configure your network or call the rc scripts
> if you really want to.
> 
> Joerg

. .. and take ten to a hundred times as long by the wall-clock.

Sometimes all you need to change is one or two bytes...
but stepping through /etc/rc{whatever} with ed is not good enough.

What is missing is a 'middle ground' here.

We leap from ed (really minimalistic!) all the way to vi (very heavy-duty).
. ... welll if we can run vi ... which we cannot, at that point...

Bill