FreeBSD 13.1 in beta...

kpedersen said:
The question whether it should be the default is an awkward one. Really it all simply depends on what the EDITOR variable in your .profile script contains by default (so is trivial to change). The question is, are there more beginner FreeBSD users (ee) compared to experienced FreeBSD users (vi) in this community? In Windows or Ubuntu, I would say yes but for something a bit more niche like FreeBSD, I am inclined to say no.
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Well, let us put in this way, the installer might be so kind to put as option "EE" and describing it as "recommended for beginner users" ; in this way veteran and advanced users won't hurt their feelings while beginners can avoid to deal with VI... 😬

For instance I write (not code) a lot on the terminal with Micro: it is my daily driver editor!
 
freezr said:
Well, let us put in this way, the installer might be so kind to put as option "EE" and describing it as "recommended for beginner users"
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No other OS really does that. Would it set it globally by adding it to i.e /usr/share/skel/dot.profile? For all users regardless of beginner or advanced? For example the guy installing the OS might have quite different needs to the users actually utilizing the system. More likely this should be an option in the "adduser" flow when creating a new user rather than a systemwide default. Something like here (from the old sysinstall):

adduser2.png


Another example is moving on from the EDITOR slightly, what about the default PAGER (less, more) or SHELL? It is very "micro managery" to set all of these during install in my opinion and seems inconsistent to only specify some.

I possibly instead recommend adding this info to the "post install" help. I.e: https://docs.freebsd.org/doc/6.1-RELEASE/usr/share/doc/handbook/install-post.html
(apologies for the old link, they recently "modernized" the handbook and it is crap to search in)

Or yes, similar to what you mentioned; an optional menu in the installer that perhaps isn't in main flow (so not to convolute the process). Perhaps a similar menu to the "Security tasks" that appears allowing you to hide process IDs between Jails, etc.

freezr said:
in this way veteran and advanced users won't hurt their feelings while beginners can avoid to deal with VI... 😬
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I don't particularly think it will be the advanced users that will need to be convinced or have their feelings maintained. More likely it will be the FreeBSD developers who as you might imagine are quite familiar with (n)vi by now.
 
If drm-devel-kmod can be built on 13.1-BETA1, I'm almost sure it will work fine.
I'm currently using it without suspend issues on 13.1-STABLE, which is at the moment very similar to 13.1-BETA1.
The bug is in drm-fbsd13-kmod, not in the base system. It will probably disappear upon a future major upgrade of this port.
 
kpedersen said:
No other OS really does that. [...] More likely it will be the FreeBSD developers who as you might imagine are quite familiar with (n)vi by now.
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All your ideas are super... 👍👍👍

Based on your suggestions maybe the easier solution would be to add a big disclaimer box on how changing temporarily VI as default editor right after the Title Section in the handbook... 🤔
 
freezr said:
Based on your suggestions maybe the easier solution would be to add a big disclaimer box on how changing temporarily VI as default editor right after the Title Section in the handbook...
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I am not sure. For very basic editing with vi only a few commands are really necessary. Once you have started you can improve gradually.

BTW: The worst editing experience I had was with a Debian rescue disk. There was no vi but some pico/nano like one without any information about the control key assignment. The second worse one was long ago when I have had to use edlin which was the only editor on a DOS rescue disk. Fortunately I have had a small book with the edlin manual.
 
freezr said:
right after the Title Section in the handbook... 🤔
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Not *right* after the title section. That position is reserved for the disclaimer of how to exit out of Vi! :D

chrbr said:
I am not sure. For very basic editing with vi only a few commands are really necessary. Once you have started you can improve gradually.
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It is a good point. Lets say ee has ~1% of the features of vi. Only around 1% of features are needed anyway for basic text editing and you can learn that amount of vi in about 15 mins.
 
chrbr said:
I am not sure. For very basic editing with vi only a few commands are really necessary. Once you have started you can improve gradually.
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One could try to make a small, like a one page A4/letter size, survival guide for vi, based on the biggest stumbling blocks that users new to vi experience. Not cramming most and every conceivable command into that piece of information but centered on the very basic editing commands and curcor movements. I think the aspect of modal editing should be front and center*.

This sounds trivial but I fear it isn't: it means condensing all users' previous attitudes and experiences into such a small space that it would be usefull to all across different learning styles. New individual users probably could, when stumbling again and again on the same stuff, make such a small individual survival guide by trial and error learning. That presupposes that they do not consult some of the fine tutorials/guides that describe (n)vi(m) in depth. This doesn't mean that they will have to gell with vi as the latest** greatest thing since sliced bread as their editor of choice, or that they would (need to) become proficient with vi; or that they have to like it: just to survive with it.

That said: if there will be a selection mechanism that selects either vi or another (non-modal) editor and that selection can also be made after installation (also not a trivial task covering for all eventualities), then I would be fine with that.

___
* not particularly explaining what that is in depth but more so explaining what kind of (unexpected) behaviour one can experience in the wrong mode and what to do to get out of that.
** well, ... actually one of the oldest
 
freezr said:
"EE" and describing it
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freezr said:
Micro: it is my daily driver editor!
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chrbr said:
with vi
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Erichans said:
for vi,
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forums.freebsd.org

What is your favorite text editor?

I would like to know which text editor you use in FreeBSD, I like vim very much to program, for very simple things I usually use nano. Which one is your favorite? PD: This does not try to be a flame "emacs vs vim" just a nice debate.
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

(Maybe better to discuss 13.1-BETA in this 13.1-BETA topic? Thanks.)
 
For emergency mode boot ups, vi and other commands from /rescue/ are useful. In this setting, the whole directory with the command must be used: /rescue/vi.

What's helpful for normal uses of vi, is to create .nexrc, in your home (plus including root) directory, and add to it:
Code: 
set showmode
set verbose
This adds a text display to the bottom right corner of vi, to show which mode it's in. This helps a lot, so I don't have to guess if it's in command mode or append mode.
 
Guys seriously... in the middle of a panic attac understanding why VI is so hardly convoluted is not what you want learning. :D

The point is you don't need any 30", 1', 5', 15" tutorial to learn how to use Nano(Pico) or EE; the fact that is supposed to learn a tutorial to edit or remove a line is just diabolic!
 
Nano (Pico) and EE aren't in rescue mode, as they're not in the /rescue/ directory.

For the configuration file in the home directory, that may not accessible from rescue mode anyway, If you use other text editors that may not be needed. You'll need basic configuration files like that anyway to use FreeBSD.
 
freezr said:
The point is you don't need any 30", 1', 5', 15" tutorial to learn how to use Nano(Pico) or EE
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Similar to chrbr's point. nano or ee don't even support the functionality of "n, so why would someone suddenly feel they need it when using vi? Stick to the basics until they are more experienced.

... or they could simply just run ee rather than vi from the shell.
 
I just ran a freebsd-update on a pretty much unused laptop (shared with Linux distros) and it went quite smoothly. The FreeBSD install is on ZFS so ran bectl create before upgrading in case I ran into issues. However, there were none. Upgrade was smooth, all packages continued to work, including X which uses drm-kmod (Built with package, not port). I'm not confident enough to upgrade on my main workstation, but I had no probems on this machine, which admittedly, doesn't have too much on it.
 
kpedersen said:
It is a good point. Lets say ee has ~1% of the features of vi. Only around 1% of features are needed anyway for basic text editing and you can learn that amount of vi in about 15 mins.
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Please, please, leave vi alone, don't change it to ee! It's not about features, it is about the nature of Unix. Let beginners feel the nature of Unix from the start, let them use vi(1). My suggestion is to show a brief vi cheatsheet before invoking editor for beginners, tell them how to save and quit.
 
checkpoint said:
it is about the nature of Unix. Let beginners feel the nature of Unix from the start
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Indeed. It goes even further. vi is part of the UNIX specification - Shell and Utilities (XCU). It needs to remain for potential certification and I don't believe are optional components:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specification

Whilst certification doesn't mean too much in this day and age, I think what some beginners are suggesting these days is change the "default" UNIX editor to ee which I (and I imagine many others) are a little skeptical about.
 
grahamperrin said:
For anyone who would like to discuss FreeBSD 13.1-BETA, instead of text editors, there's this 𠄶– begun by vermaden:
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In an empty 4 days old thread on reddit with just one comment (removed by moderator)?

;) I think people would rather take their chances in here even though the discussion has devolved into text editors (partly my fault, I admit).
 
I do remember some sort of joke, maybe a facial expression or something, or maybe a shocked cat, with the caption, someone who just ssh'd into Debian and can't get out of nano. (On Debian, I believe nano is their default editor)

I've told this story before, but I thought I was cool because I knew how to use pico. It was my first IT job and my boss asked me to do something on the AIX server. I telnetted in (this was a LONG) time ago, and then had to call him back, "They don't have pico on there." He said, "You don't know how to use vi? Never mind, I'll do it"
That night I learned the vi basics. He was a good guy, and amused by it, and probably more amused by how embarrassed I was.
And yeah, I assume covacat, (who has one of my favorite icons here, by the way), is joking.
 
kpedersen said:
Similar to chrbr's point. nano or ee don't even support the functionality of "n, so why would someone suddenly feel they need it when using vi? Stick to the basics until they are more experienced.

... or they could simply just run ee rather than vi from the shell.
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Sincerely I didn't understand the irony... (is not a complain) 😅

I don't care about the elitism of *BSD, Unix, etc. I totally endorse it! 👍

I discovered the *BSDs and I liked them more than Linux, I think the BSD licenses preserve the software freedom much better than the GPLs (although I am not against the GPL at all, simply BSD licenses are more effective from my point of view), I would like to use the *BSDs as much as I can, however I have my limitations as well as my aspirations (but not as sysad, devops, coders and the likes).

Please just give me tools that I understand and I can use and put them visible, I can't go as a "dowser" looking for answers when I don't even know the questions... 😓
 
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