Re: Berkeley (was UUCP)
charlieb@budge.apana.org.au writes:
> On Fri, 25 Mar 1994, Remy CARD wrote:
>
> > My version can use dbm maps but can also use the new db library from Berkeley.
>
> Remy, is this Berkeley 4.4? The new db library with no size limits? Are we
> considering other new things from Berkeley, such as genuine vi with no
Well, it's not really "genuine vi." Much of the core was apparently lifted
from elvis. From the man page:
This manual page is the one provided with the nex and nvi versions of the
vi text editors. Nex and nvi are intended as bug-for-bug compatible re-
placements for the original Fourth Berkeley Software Distribution (4BSD)
ex and vi programs.
[...]
HISTORY
The nex/nvi replacements for ex/vi first appeared in 4.4BSD.
> line length limit, and fully eight bit clean? If we can legally use some
> of the new work from Berkeley, then I think we should. I think the source
> is freely avaliable and re-distributable, and it is certified uncontaminated.
Look at this:
$ ls -l `which nvi` `which elvis`
-rwxr-xr-t 1 root bin 99332 Jan 14 08:18 /usr/bin/elvis
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root bin 300036 Mar 4 16:33 /usr/bin/nvi
nvi's bloat is partly caused by the inclusion of a new BSD curses
and the db library. I tried linking nvi against ncurses and it was
SLOW. nvi uses more capability than is available in the current Linux
version of BSD curses (i.e. the one in the shared library). So, it's
either large with BSD4.4 curses or large and slow with ncurses. If
the BSD4.4 curses can be binary compatible with the older BSD curses,
then it might be nice to get them into the libc shared library.
As for the new db, well, I don't think it's even source compatible
with ndbm/gdbm. It may be the best thing since sliced bread, but
gdbm is what's in the shared library, and it works pretty well
for me. Now, that's not an argument against including libdb.a
in Debian, just that making it the system db library probably
isn't a good idea.
One good thing about nvi is that it comes with comprehensive documents
about vi. Not just a reference card, of which there are untold numbers
floating around, but real honest-to-god manuals. These are the preformatted
versions (they're ms or me troff source):
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 82990 Mar 8 13:12 ex.rm.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 20344 Mar 8 13:12 ex.summary.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 140173 Mar 8 13:11 vi.intro.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 59579 Mar 8 13:11 vi.rm.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13035 Mar 8 13:11 vi.summary.txt
Of course, I don't care one way or the other which vi Debian uses,
because I'm an Emacs fanatic.
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