coreos / coreos/fedora-coreos-docs

os-extensions: vim is not a good example

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Description

I believe VIM is an extremely poor example that, if anything, undercuts the pro-containers message the documentation as a whole is trying to make, for these reasons:

  • It's a prototypical user-space program.
  • It is not hard to containerize: look at https://github.com/troglobit/mg for an example of editor-in-a-container; podman documentation suggests --security-opt label=disable when bind-mounting host's directory into a container. I suspect you could edit just about any file on the system by running a VIM container, bind-mounting the directory that contains the file, and using the aforementioned --security-opt label=disable.
  • If one must needs have vim on the machine, it is simple enough to install VIM below /var/usrlocal. This is something that can be done from a container with a couple of bind-mounts (and potentially with relabeling /var/usrlocal afterwards, as Redhat's very own documentation for Fedora Server suggests.

Please replace VIM with an example that makes sense in the context this page is trying to illustrate.

Here are some suggestions:

  • OpenVPN. Yes, Wireguard is arguably technically superior, but there may be organizations that cannot migrate for a while.
  • An out-of-tree driver. Maybe one of the WiFi cards from BrosTrend (yes, it's a bit silly -- but not nearly as silly as VIM). Or maybe a driver for a popular optical fibre network adapter? (no idea if all of those are in-tree these days). Or a GPU driver for AI workloads? (again, no idea if all the popular ones are in-tree these days).
  • NixOS or GNU Guix? (again, not the most convincing example -- but way more convincing than VIM, IMO).

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Locate the Fedora CoreOS documentation page that uses VIM as the example and read the surrounding explanation of the pro-containers message. Review the proposed alternatives in this issue and the existing discussion before choosing a replacement. Done means the page uses a contextually appropriate example and no longer presents VIM in that role.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
vim
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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