Alpine Linux in a qemu VM .... how to set boot parameters?

Other Distributions
41

I just remembered something I DETEST about Q4OS…

It doesn’t install vi / vim!

WTF?

I was trying to edit sudoers :

sudo -i 
export EDITOR=vi
visudo

(export EDITOR because debian based distros default to nano for visudo)

and it still opened nano - FFS! I HATE NANO - never mind the jokes and memes about being unable to exit vi - I’m nearly always unable to figure out how to exit and/or exit+save in nano and end up kill the session or teminal window just to get out of it!

WHY WOULDN’T YOU INCLUDE “vi / vim” ? What space cost saving did they make?

Anyway - it wasn’t till I tried to directly vi /etc/sudoers - I realised - “vi” wasn’t even installed!

2 Likes
42

Alpine has vi… even though it is based on busybox…
Alpine has some install issues with HDD and multiboot., but is OK in VM.

1 Like
43

Isn’t it always listed in the help lines at the bottom? Maybe those lines can be suppressed or it is not the default to show them.

2 Likes
44

It is listed but I find it difficult to interpret… there is no ‘save and exit’ in one step.
Maybe I have vi mind lock. Nano is more like emacs.

2 Likes
45

CTRL>X>Y Is how I do exit and save with nano!!! With vim I use esc>:>wq!!!

4 Likes
46

As @Daniel_Phillips said, ctrl+x is exit. If there have been changes it prompts you to save. VI is definitely one that becomes muscle memory.

2 Likes
47

The version of busybox you get by default in debian (and thus Ubuntu) doesn’t have vi!

The version of busybox shipped with RPM (i.e. Red Hat based - like Fedora, RHEL, Oracle CentOS, Rocky etc) does have vi… And vi is the default editor (e.g. “visudo” and “crontab -e”) on Red Hat and Fedora…

Ubuntu / Debian ask you which editor you want to use the first time you run “crontab -e” - why can’t they do that with “visudo”?

3 Likes
48

Why not update-alternatives ?
The traditional way was to set the EDITOR environment variable, you must have used that in the past.

2 Likes
49

That’s what I did - that’s what I always do in Debian / Ubuntu :

export EDITOR=vi
visudo

but that didn’t work - 'cause “vi / vim” wasn’t installed… that’s an instant turn-off with a distro - I remember trialling Sabayon about 10+ years ago - and vi / vim wasn’t installed… if you want your users to only use nano… then that’s not the distro for me…

I want UNIX when I use Linux… FFS - even MacOS installs “vi”… if I want more features (beyond “vi”) I’ll install vim via homebrew…

So on my list of distros I won’t use as daily drivers :

  • Sabayon
  • Q4OS
3 Likes
50

Does POSIX not include vi?

This google AI says it does
" Yes, the vi text editor is included in the POSIX standard. Specifically, the portable subset of vi’s behavior and the ex editor language, which vi utilizes, are standardized by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX. This means that a POSIX-compliant system is expected to provide an implementation of vi."

So no ‘vi’ breaks Posix!

Note: All BSD distros include vi. It was originally built for BSD

3 Likes
51

They are on Sheldon’s list. :laughing:

2 Likes
52

OK - so I blew away my Q4OS guest…

Found a netinstall ISO for Debian Bookworm i386…

Installed it… Then snapshot’d it - then - cloned it…

Then installed gnustep in the clone… I’m looking for a lightweight WM to run on a Pi Zero 2W (not the original Pi Zero - I wouldn’t run any WM or GUI on that)… So I stood up a Debian Bookworm i386 guest, with 4 vCPU and 512 MB RAM…

I’ve currently got “ctwm” running as my WM on Raspbian 12 on a Pi Zero 2W… but it’s a bit feature limited - but I don’t want a full blown XFCE either and I kinda detest the Pi Foundation’s implementation of LXDE “Pixel”…

I like GNUStep… looks a bit like Motif, and also a bit like NextStep (it’s sorta “related” to NextStep)… NextStep is the direct ancestor of Mac OS/X…

1 Like
53

Try IceWM… it is in between CTWM and Xfce. Has a toolbar and 4 workspaces.

3 Likes
54

Is that one of the characters from that US show about nerds (Big Bang Theory?)?.. I never found it funny… The best show about nerds and IT is “The IT Crowd” - but I readily admit I’m way more of an anglophile when it comes to comedy…

Anyway - just found another distro to strike off my list : DietPi (it’s mostly for ARM single board computers - but there was an x86_64 build at one stage [I can’t find it on their page any more - but I dowloaded it in 2019])…

Strike 1 : doesn’t ship with vi or vim…
Strike 2 : you have to accept it’s default user “dietpi” with UID 1000 and there’s no getting around that! I don’t want UID 1000 for a system account - I want it for my own username! And you can’t change the username, or move it to another UID without breaking everything… And I created my user account with UID 1001 on there - but it can’t log into the GUI (user dietpi works - however)…

So - now I’m shopping around for something reliable to run on my Pi5 - somehow the Ubuntu 24.04 I had running on it got its knickers in a twist - and instead of trying to figure out why, decided to try DietPi (overwrote the USB 3 SSD I had it installed on with DietPi - not accidentally mind you - I was well aware of what I was doing)… But - it seems there’s 3 choices for the Pi5:

  • Raspbian 12 (Pi foundation haven’t updated to Trixie yet)
  • Ubuntu 24.04
  • DietPi

No other distros have updated with full support for Pi5 (it’s ArmV8 - all the others like Armbian, etc, only offer full support for ArmV7 [e.g. Pi4, Pi3] on arm64/aarch64]).

And I REFUSE to use the clunky toy interface of the Pi Foundation’s “Pixel” desktop (which is LXDE based)… And when I’ve tried XFCE on Raspbian in the past, it was a bit rough around the edges… i.e. stuff in the “system tray” didn’t work - e.g. WiFi and Bluetooth…

So - anyway - DietPi was a waste of time - I can’t lose anything by trialling Rasbian 12 “trixie” with XFCE… At least vi gets installed by default (even if I have to manually set visudo to use vi) and I can pick and choose my default UID… And I can install GnuSTEP or icewm too if I want… But the exercise isn’t about low footprint - the Pi5 is quite powerful enough to run a full distro with Gnome - it’s just that Ubuntu is a bit flaky on there and I didn’t hang around long enough to figure out why…

3 Likes
55

Have you looked at Void Linux?

" Yes, Void Linux supports the Raspberry Pi 5. Official support began with the March 2024 image release, which includes rpi-aarch64* images and the necessary kernel for the Raspberry Pi 5, enabling users to install and run Void Linux on the device."

Void supports a lot of architectures. ( and it has vi )

Another possibility is Alpine (yes it has vi too)

2 Likes
56

Thanks for the info Daniel at first I thought it was a joke aimed at Pepsi but it’s a real linux distro. Pleased I read the item.

2 Likes