[CentOS] Difference between vi an vim on Centos5?

[Paul Heinlein]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007, Sebastian Marten wrote:

>>>> On 5 vi have no syntax highlighting while vim have it.
>>>>
>>>> Whats wrong?
>>>>
>>> In CentOS 4, by default vi is aliased to vim.  The unaliased vi 
>>> does not have syntax highlighting.
>>>
>>> Could it be that vi is not aliased to vim by default in CentOS 5? 
>>> Run the 'alias' command to see a list of aliases.  If you want to 
>>> alias vi to vim, just run: alias vi=vim
>>
>> I believe that root is the only user where this happens ...
>
> That is correct, with a non-root user it works.

I know *nix is all about letting you do it your own way, but imo root 
ought to have as few aliases, odd $PATH entries, special shell 
functions, etc. as possible. The fewer abstractions, the better, so 
you don't have to think much about what you're *really* doing when 
you're mucking about as root.

Even the RHEL standard shell aliases (e.g., rm="rm -i") strike me as 
too much for root. If I want vim, I ought to invoke "vim," not "vi."

That's doubly or trebly true in a multi-platform environment with 
several sysadmins. Who really wants to have to document and remember 
all the special instructions associated root's command-line 
environment with each released version of $LINUX_DISTRO and/or Solaris 
and/or $BSD and/or OS X?

But that's just me...

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> www.madboa.com