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In the old days, Unix rescue boot floppy disk to fix workstations or servers only included minimal text editors such as ed (i think vi was added later). So if y

In the old days, Unix rescue boot floppy disk to fix workstations or servers only included minimal text editors such as ed (i think vi was added later). So if you were a Unix admin or power user, you need to know ed to fix the dam system. The 'ed' text editor was available everywhere. These days rescue disks boot from USB or CD/DVD-ROM and may have a full desktops or operating systems running. A little bit of history, I guess. BTW, I prefer https://www.system-rescue.org/ https://www.system-rescue.org/ these days to fix Linux bare metals.

kjs3 4y ago
Perhaps more important, as a line editor, 'ed' would often work when your terminal was otherwise too borked up for vi or pico to work.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  Though in most cases, you can just type “reset” to reset your terminal to a sane state. If the problem is not the terminal’s state, but how software is trying to talk to it, setting TERM=vt100 (with a “reset” for good measure afterwards) usually works for most if not all terminals nowadays.
  - kjs3 4y ago
    I used 'stty sane' or mucked with 'tset' directly. To many possibilities of 'reset' being aliased to something I might not want. setting TERM=vt100 (with a “reset” for good measure afterwards) usually works for most if not all terminals nowadays Kids these days and their 'everything is a vt100'. Perhaps true nowadays, but certainly not always (looks at his HP700/96).
vbezhenar 4y ago
Last time I checked, OpenBSD installer didn't have any editors but ed.
- cylinder714 4y ago
  It comes with vi (nvi, maybe?) and mg, a small Emacs-like editor.
  - anthk 4y ago
    He means the ramdisk image, not the installed system, which obviously has ed, vi and mg. And xedit.
awesomegoat_com 4y ago
You just reminded me a slightly related strip: http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/elemental/605973 http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/elemental/605973

kjs3 4y ago

Perhaps more important, as a line editor, 'ed' would often work when your terminal was otherwise too borked up for vi or pico to work.

anyfoo 4y ago
Though in most cases, you can just type “reset” to reset your terminal to a sane state. If the problem is not the terminal’s state, but how software is trying to talk to it, setting TERM=vt100 (with a “reset” for good measure afterwards) usually works for most if not all terminals nowadays.
- kjs3 4y ago
  I used 'stty sane' or mucked with 'tset' directly. To many possibilities of 'reset' being aliased to something I might not want. setting TERM=vt100 (with a “reset” for good measure afterwards) usually works for most if not all terminals nowadays Kids these days and their 'everything is a vt100'. Perhaps true nowadays, but certainly not always (looks at his HP700/96).

vbezhenar 4y ago

Last time I checked, OpenBSD installer didn't have any editors but ed.

cylinder714 4y ago
It comes with vi (nvi, maybe?) and mg, a small Emacs-like editor.
- anthk 4y ago
  He means the ramdisk image, not the installed system, which obviously has ed, vi and mg. And xedit.

awesomegoat_com 4y ago

You just reminded me a slightly related strip: http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/elemental/605973 http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/elemental/605973