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Re: policy on editor/pager support



On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Scott Ellis wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Dale Scheetz wrote:
> 
> > This seems much more complex than necessary. I don't see any reason that
> > EDITOR and PAGER can't be guaranteed to exist on the system. (Have the
> > base system provide them in /etc/profile)
> 
> Still doesn't handle what happens if they go away.  

How does /usr/bin/editor do any better? It can "go away" just as easily?

>                                                     As it stands now, it
> just formalizes what many packages already did, used EDITOR or PAGER if
> they were set, and if not fell back on something. 

And, if /etc/profile were guaranteed to contain "sane" values for these
variables (provided by the base install) what is the need to "fall back"? 

>                                                   However, lots of stuff
> fell back on vi and more rather than something more elegant, we just
> provide something more elegant, so stuff uses less by default (if
> available), as well as something more intuitive than vi.  (of course if
> the admin WANTS to use more and vi, they can do that too)

With update-alternatives the last package installed with the highest
priority becomes the default editor. This will only guarantee that most
folks will get the editor they don't want ;-)

Waiting is,

Dwarf
-- 
_-_-_-_-_-_-                                          _-_-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (904) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

_-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-


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