<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Mark,</p>
<p>On MX Linux vi is (round-about) connect to vim.tiny, which vim is
also linked to. So there is no difference between vi and vim.</p>
<pre> /usr/bin$ ls -l vi*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 May 4 2023 vi -> /etc/alternatives/vi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 Feb 14 2023 view -> /etc/alternatives/view
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 32288 Feb 28 2020 viewres
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Sep 14 2024 vim -> vim.tiny
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1082 Jul 14 2024 vimdot
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1629584 Feb 15 2025 vim.tiny
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 239 Dec 8 2022 virtualenv
cvmiller@ohe /usr/bin$
cvmiller@ohe /usr/bin$
cvmiller@ohe /usr/bin$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/vi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 May 4 2023 /etc/alternatives/vi -> /usr/bin/vim.tiny
</pre>
<p>On Alpine Linux, vi is part of busybox (a multicall binary), and
there is no vim by default.</p>
<p>On PiOS (bookworm), there is vi, and no vim (be default).</p>
<p>So I guess the answer is: "it depends" </p>
<p>Craig....</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/26/26 12:14, Mark G. wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7da965bd-2c2d-4c6b-bca7-b67ee6804293@palaceofretention.ca">Nice
that it is patched. I just noticed, however, that FreeBSD
<br>
ships plain old vi, not vim. Is vi a default in Linux, or is
<br>
it vim instead? Curious, are there essential features that
<br>
vim has that makes it more useful than vi?
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 4/24/26 07:49, Greg H wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Here's the vim zero-day discussed last
night:
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html">https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html"><https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html></a>
<br>
<br>
/\u201cAn attacker who can deliver a crafted file to a victim
achieves arbitrary command execution with the privileges of the
user running Vim,\u201d Vim maintainers noted in their security
advisory <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-2gmj-rpqf-pxvh"><https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/
GHSA-2gmj-rpqf-pxvh></a>. \u201cThe attack requires only that the
victim opens the file; no further interaction is needed.\u201d/
<br>
<br>
I forgot to mention an emacs flaw was also discovered.
<br>
<br>
Greg
<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
IPv6 is the future, the future is here
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ipv6hawaii.org/">http://ipv6hawaii.org/</a></pre>
</body>
</html>