Hi, IMO it's a good idea that the Arch developers want to rework "base", but IMO the result is a bit overdone. Don't get me wrong, I can live with the current base package, if the developers like it, it's ok for me. However, I do understand that users are surprised that even vi/m is excluded. My contribution to the bike shed: On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 21:26:26 -0400, Eli Schwartz via arch-general wrote: >vi (required by the POSIX User Portability option, commonly assumed to >be "the text editor you have even when you don't have anything else") It _is_ or at least vim is, without doubts the editor most users, including the emacs users, expect as _the_ basic default editor. There obviously is a reason that some commands were named non-neutral, such as "visudo". While I'm in favour of nano for _simple_ editing, I don't expect that nano is installed, but I expect that vi/m is installed on even a minimal BSD or Linux install and I expect manual pages. Nano and mcedit are probably the most wanted "user-friendly" editors for _simple_ editing needs, but almost all users are able to handle vi/m, too, it just beeps a little bit, when inexperienced with using vi/m. GUI editors are probably irrelevant for a base install. IMO excluding manual pages and vi/m from a base install is unwise. That "less" is excluded is bizarre. I do understand that something such as "reiserfsprogs" and even "linux" is excluded, but there seems to be no rational reason for excluding "less". Is really anybody annoyed, if installing "less" is enforced? Could installing "less" make an install unnecessary bloated? especially if an editor is missing, "less" probably is a much wanted feature ;). But again, I can live with the current base package, if the developers like it, it's ok for me. By one way or another I anyway need to install a lot of packages, that without doubts don't belong to "base", next time I just need to install a few additional packages. Regards, Ralf
