[SOLVED] why vi is now suggested to be replaced with ex-vi-compat ?

Succulent of your garden · 2026-01-26 13:31:48

So today pacman suggest this package to replace vi ? https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/ex-vi-compat/

I'm curious why is that the case and decision to do so ? Seems also the old vi package is no longer in the extra repos, and in the AUR doing a quick search.

Last edited by Succulent of your garden (2026-01-26 17:36:12)

Lone_Wolf · 2026-01-26 13:59:40

from https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … da99b3030d

Add package as replacement for the "traditional vi", which is unmaintained and no longer builds.

Succulent of your garden · 2026-01-26 17:35:32

Thanks for the info ^^

tirsek · Today 02:49:02

Hmm, it builds fine for me if I add

CFLAGS=-std=gnu90

before the call to make in the PKGBUILD. If there's no plan to re-add it to the official repositories, I would consider maintaining an AUR package for it, except the main source tar file comes from somewere on sources.archlinux.org, and I'm not sure if that's stable enough to base an AUR package on, or if that file is likely to be deleted soon as well if the official package is no longer supported?

Vim is nice and all, but for really slow terminals, ancient vi is way faster. I'm sure that's a very niche use case though, and not reason enough to warrant a official package.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-01-26 13:31:48

[SOLVED] why vi is now suggested to be replaced with ex-vi-compat ?

#2 2026-01-26 13:59:40

Re: [SOLVED] why vi is now suggested to be replaced with ex-vi-compat ?

#3 2026-01-26 17:35:32

Re: [SOLVED] why vi is now suggested to be replaced with ex-vi-compat ?

#4 Today 02:49:02

Re: [SOLVED] why vi is now suggested to be replaced with ex-vi-compat ?

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