Thank you Scott! Your tutorial is really nice :) I'll star it in my gmail.
Nevertheless, even if at the time the problem was a typo in fstab (which I solved with an s/// sed sequence), I appreciate your honesty when u implicitly admit that vi would be more adequated for more complex tasks. Btw, I'm not particularly in love with vi, my editor of choice is ye good olde nano. It's just that I've always seen vi as default on the few unix I tried, so not finding it inside bsd.rd has been a bitter surprise, especially with time running damn fast... So, to answer Marc, I'd be ready to test bsd.rd with vi on 5.2 on 2/3 arches: i386, sparc64 and, if needed, amd64. Just before beginning I'd like to know if, not being a dev, it would be just wasting my time or if the thing would be then considered. Thanks Il giorno 12/gen/2013 13:33, "Scott McEachern" <sc...@blackstaff.ca> ha scritto: > On 01/11/13 16:38, Paolo Aglialoro wrote: > >> sparc64 machine, a neglected typo in fstab while changing a disk >> mountpoint >> and boom! - no boot :( >> >> >> > I didn't post this to the list because it would just be noise for most > people. > > Some quick ed(1) tips: > > #ed /etc/fstab > > (It prints out a number, the size of the file in bytes, and waits for you > to do something.) > > Use ",n" to display the entire file with line numbers. Useful for short > files like fstab that won't run off the page. (Synonymous with "%n" or > "1,$n", just like vi(1).) > > Pretend you just want to comment out a line so you can reboot and get back > to your beloved vi(1). Look at the line containing the bad data. Pretend > it's on line #5. > > Use "5i" to insert text before line five. Now, if you use ",n" to look > again, what was line 5 is now line 6 and line 5 is just "#". > > Use "5,6j" to join lines 5 and 6, thus making line 5 commented out. > > Enter "." to go back to command mode. > Enter "wq" to write the file and quit. Reboot. > > If you can't live with line 5 being commented out, because you really need > that mount point mounted, then you have to do a little typing: > > Type "5" by itself to view the line again. > Use "5c" to change the line, and retype what you see, but without the > error. > Enter "." to go back to command mode, and "wq" to write and quit. Reboot. > > Note that you don't hit <esc> to enter command mode; a period on a line by > itself does that, like with mail(1). Note that you don't type ":wq" to > save and exit like you do with vi(1). > > Print this or write it down and throw it in your desk drawer for when a > faulty fstab drops you into single user mode. > > HTH, > > -- > Scott McEachern > > https://www.blackstaff.ca
