Re: [9fans] lenovo or other laptop support

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

> I completed the installation. When I rebooted  I got the same error
> with the graphic card as I got in the live mode. I think  editing the
> 9fat.ini should resolve the problem, but I have to learn how to edit
> files in Plan9 without rio. The graphic card is not supported (I think
> so: http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/Supported_PC_hardware/index.html
> ) but it should work with vesa or the mode used in the installation
> mode.

this comment has come up a couple of times recently.
"how do i edit a file without rio".  it's quite amazing to
me that this appears to be an open question in many
people's mind these days.  ed(1) has been the answer
for a long time—maybe 35 years.  but that seems to have
been forgotten.  (you can use sam -d, but that's a little
wierd for most tasks.  very powerful, though.)

and i think that's a big loss.  there are plenty of cases
where it's just too anoying to use rio, such as on a
serial console*.  since i administer 10s of cpu servers
at 4 sites, i use ed within acme (!) to edit things in 9fat.
it's often much easier than putting those things in acme's
namespace.

at coraid, we're considering asking new hires use ed for
a week exclusively.

- erik

* historical irony notwithstanding.