From: someone... > I've never seen a base-line Unix box w/o vi that was what prompted the > initial mail.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Martin Schulze) > Me too. Apart from the fact that i cannot understand the decision [...] It's funny how often this comes up. The reason is that the base system is the minimal subset you need to install packages. "ae" is there because it's the smallest usable editor. Once you can install packages, you're expected to pick one of the three flavors of "vi" or one of the multiple flavors of emacs-like editors, etc. Since the base system is sometimes installed from floppy disk, it really does have to be small. The rescue floppy has even more serious size limitations. We really should have something that asks you what editor you use, what languages you speak, and what you want to do with the system. Currently we're expecting first-time installers to make those decisions with "dselect", and it's no surprise that they don't always figure out how to do that. Thanks Bruce -- Bruce Perens K6BP [EMAIL PROTECTED] 510-215-3502 Finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP public key. PGP fingerprint = 88 6A 15 D0 65 D4 A3 A6 1F 89 6A 76 95 24 87 B3