<div dir="ltr">It depends on what you consider essential. <div><br></div><div><div>From what I recall <b><font face="monospace">vim</font></b> supports a few features that <b><font face="monospace">vi</font></b> did not:</div><div><ul><li>Visual mode (v) - Once I started using this it quickly integrated into my normal workflow.</li><li>Multi-level undo / redo.</li><li>Syntax highlights</li></ul><div><b>Note</b> - I have been test driving <b><font face="monospace">nvim</font></b> (neovim) as a replacement. Seems pretty good so far, but not as big a difference as <b><font face="monospace">vi</font> </b>to <b><font face="monospace">vim</font></b>.</div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 4:49\u202fPM Craig Miller <<a href="mailto:cvmiller@gmail.com">cvmiller@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<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>On 4/26/26 12:14, Mark G. wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">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 href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html" target="_blank">https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html</a>
<a href="https://www.csoonline.com/article/4153288/vim-and-gnu-emacs-claude-code-helpfully-found-zero-day-exploits-for-both.html" target="_blank"><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 href="https://github.com/vim/vim/security/advisories/GHSA-2gmj-rpqf-pxvh" target="_blank"><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>
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