/rescue/vi useless?

I remember that when I ran 5.x I was able to use /rescue/vi in single user mode. Nowadays I have to mount /usr, because it needs some file from /usr/share and I have to mount /var because it wants to use /var/tmp.

This is rather annoying, and using ee just feels awkward. /rescue/vi used to be so much more useful. You were just able run it and adjust your fstab or your loader.conf, whatever had broken your booting process.
 
I wonder how it used to work. Was the termcap file located somewhere else? Did vi not use a termcap file?
 
I've been using FreeBSD since 4.2. Even back then, I really wish that the termcap symlink would be flipped. I should be in /etc and symlinked to wherever in /usr, not the other way around as it is now. It's a problem with more than just vi.
 
Just reading a few man pages: Wouldn't a minimal termcap installed as /root/.termcap solve these problems? I'd try it myself, but I am not sure just what a minimal termcap would look like: Which entry is used for single-user consoles?
 
That works! Thanks a lot.

My /root used to be a symlink to /home/root, till 5 minutes ago. I removed the symlink, created the directory /root, copied /usr/share/misc/termcap to /root/.termcap and added a nullfs mount from /home/root to /root into the fstab. That way I'll have the termcap file in single user mode and my usual /root in multi user mode.
 
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