Bug#367933: vim-tiny in the base system, request of changes in nvi

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

Package: nvi
Version: 1.79-22
Severity: normal
Tags: patch

[ Posted to the BTS the body of a private mail already sent to the
  package maintainer, having received no answer and to keep track of the
  issue ]

Hi Steve,
  as you probably remember we discussed on debian-devel the inclusion of
vim-tiny in the Debian base system replacing nvi [1]. I've implemented
the changes that were requested in this thread and now running vim as
'vi' gives a more vi-like editing environment (addressing AFAICT all the
issues raised in the thread).

I'm here at the Debcamp and I've discussed with Joey Hess the needed
changes in d-i and we are ready to go ahead.

The only change required in nvi is to change its priority from important
to optional. Attached there's the (one-liner) patch nvi-priority.diff
for the current unstable package.

Still, I've another change request for the nvi package. Currently nvi
priority when providing the 'vi' alternative is 30, and vim-* priorities
are 10 for vim-tiny, 20 for vim-basic, 40 and up for the other vim
variants. It is my belief that the initial part of the ordering should
be: vim-tiny < nvi < vim-basic. Being vim-basic a full-fledged version
of vim missing only stuff like support for external scripting languages
(e.g. perl). Do you agree? If so please change the priority of nvi
alternatives to 20 (I will change vim's to 30). The attached patch
nvi-alternatives.diff implement the required change.

Many thanks in advance,
Cheers.

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2005/12/msg00796.html

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15-1-686
Locale: LANG=it_IT.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=it_IT.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages nvi depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.3.6-7    GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libncurses5                   5.5-2      Shared libraries for terminal hand

nvi recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information
-------------- next part --------------
diff -ur nvi-1.79.orig/debian/control nvi-1.79/debian/control
--- nvi-1.79.orig/debian/control	2006-05-13 13:02:51.000000000 -0500
+++ nvi-1.79/debian/control	2006-05-13 13:03:01.000000000 -0500
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Source: nvi
 Section: editors
-Priority: important
+Priority: optional
 Maintainer: Steve Greenland <stevegr at debian.org>
 Standards-Version: 3.5.8
 Build-Depends: debhelper, libncurses5-dev
-------------- next part --------------
diff -ur nvi-1.79.orig/debian/postinst nvi-1.79/debian/postinst
--- nvi-1.79.orig/debian/postinst	2006-05-13 13:02:51.000000000 -0500
+++ nvi-1.79/debian/postinst	2006-05-13 13:07:07.000000000 -0500
@@ -4,11 +4,11 @@
 # Don't bother the user with it.
 update-alternatives --remove view /usr/bin/nvi >/dev/null
 
-update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/ex ex /usr/bin/nex 30 \
+update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/ex ex /usr/bin/nex 20 \
   --slave /usr/share/man/man1/ex.1.gz ex.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/nex.1.gz
-update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/vi vi /usr/bin/nvi 30 \
+update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/vi vi /usr/bin/nvi 20 \
   --slave /usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz vi.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/nvi.1.gz
-update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/view view /usr/bin/nview 30 \
+update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/view view /usr/bin/nview 20 \
   --slave /usr/share/man/man1/view.1.gz view.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/nview.1.gz
 
 # These are for the generic editor links