[arch-general] `base` group replaced by mandatory `base` package - manual intervention required

[Greg Land]

Maybe I'm just old but not having a text editor by default in the rootfs
seems wrong.   I had a professor once say everyone should learn at least a
few vi commands because "no matter what distro/ flavor of Unix you have to
deal with vi will always be there".  I admit one hundred percent that it
doesn't need to be in base, and a simple pacstrap base vi solves the
problem, but I still makes me uncomfortable knowing it isn't installed by
default. I think thinning out base is a good idea however and vi is not
necessary to boot a system.

All that said I would be interested in a bit of the original design choices
around the base package.  Is there any historical information on why it was
setup the way it was?  Will the removal of the kernel by default from the
package be replaced by a new depends/provided relationship where base
depends on "kernel" and any of the kernel packages provide "kernel"?

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:52 AM Óscar García Amor via arch-general <
arch-general at archlinux.org> wrote:

> El jue., 10 oct. 2019 a las 4:27, Ram Kumar via arch-general
> (<arch-general at archlinux.org>) escribió:
> >
> > Hi, i am not clear why the base group is being replaced.. i searched in
> > wiki and couldnt get a clear idea why.  Could anyone plz explain?
>
> Yes. There is a plan to replace all package groups with metapackages?
>
> --
> Óscar García Amor | ogarcia at moire.org | http://ogarcia.me
>