On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 1:59 PM, Sam Stuewe
This may just be my personal opinion, but I have always thought that `base` was supposed to be the absolute bare minimum to have a bootable installation. From that view, it makes sense that a few very small editors made sense in `base` back when Arch wasn't net-install only.
Now, however, since Arch is only officially supported for netinstall only and getting an editor on your fresh new install is as simple as running `pacstrap -i /mnt <youreditornamehere>` from the installation medium. I am unconvinced that vi (or vim-minimal) or nano actually have a place in `base`.
Honestly, I think an idea world would put pacman, linux, systemd, bash, a few bootloaders, efi-related utilities and their dependencies in `base` and essentially nothing else.
Having said that, I think it makes perfect sense to have nano and vim-minimal on the installation media, but I think of “what is on the installation media” and “what is in `base`” as being two separate things.
All the best,
-Sam
People forget vi(1) is part of POSIX so required on "systems that both support the User Portability Utilities option and define the POSIX2_CHAR_TERM symbol." [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/ ] The former is probably a good idea, seeing as the User Portability Utilities option in POSIX is written to be: "a requirement for a user portability interactive system. It is required frequently except for those systems, such as embedded realtime or dedicated application systems, that support little or no interactive time-sharing work by users or operators" The latter is defined to mean that at least one terminal type has all user control options. Unless Arch Linux wants to be deliberately non-POSIX compatible, vi should be in base. -- - Toyam