Post by @cks@mastodon.social

2026-02-12 01:12 UTC

People who are more into the vi world than I am: are there any other active, still out there vi clones than vim (and things forked from it, like neovim), nvi, and evil for GNU Emacs? I've heard of elvis but it seems relatively moribund (it's not packaged for Debian, for example). (True classic vi is out there somewhere. I know of vile but I don't think it indents to be a version/clone/etc of vi, just to feel like it.)

Replies (5)

@JdeBP__dup_33984@mastodonapp.uk 2026-02-12 04:03

@cks@mastodon.social OpenWatcom vi is source available. https://mastodonapp.uk/@JdeBP/116052015020764901 Ritter's Heirloom #vi is in #FreeBSD ports today, coming from the same place that it has for a long time. https://freshports.org/editors/2bsd-vi/ It was dropped from #ArchLinux because it did not compile and hadn't changed in 20 years. Ironically, this is because the (GNU) C language had changed, and it has to nowadays be compiled forcing an older GNU C language version. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=2285124#p2285124 Several people have independently discovered the Makefile patch that gets it to build on #Debian and the like. https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=629775 https://gist.github.com/cwfoo/01abac5c39f398b7e7b16a2b87aa518b #elvis, the precursor to #nvi, is packaged for both #NetBSD/#pkgsrc and #OpenBSD. https://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/editors/elvis/index.html https://github.com/openbsd/ports/tree/master/editors/elvis #retrocomputing #ComputerHistory #Watcom #OpenWatcom

Open ##265232
@gumnos@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-02-12 03:07

@cks@mastodon.social I know that Sven Guckes maintained a list of vi clones until his passing. I'm sure many are no longer maintained, but it would at least provide a starting-point if you're poking around: https://www.guckes.net/vi/clones.php

Open ##5107878
@ireneista@adhd.irenes.space 2026-02-12 01:19

@cks@mastodon.social we were big into elvis about twenty years ago but we haven't really seen it since the younger people we know use a bunch of editors that are conceptually descended from vi but have features around multiple simultaneous cursors. we're not sure what those are called.

Open ##5172821
@r1w1s1@snac.bsd.cafe 2026-02-12 01:28

You might also want to look at neatvi and nextvi both are small, active vi-style editors: https://github.com/aligrudi/neatvi https://github.com/kyx0r/nextvi

Open ##5172822
@gnomon@mastodon.social 2026-02-12 02:41

@cks@mastodon.social it's not _super_ actively maintained¹ but it's probably worth including busybox vi in that set of implementations just due to sheer ubiquity. People definitely use it even if it's not due to preference. And incidentally, I recently ran across two articles specifically about nvi: - https://mattwidmann.net/notes/the-nvi-text-editor/ - just a brief interesting intro - https://git.sr.ht/~r1w1s1/code-notes/blob/main/notes/NVI_Editor_Guide.txt - a surprisingly insightful architectural review of nvi's implementation choices. I learned lots! ¹: https://git.busybox.net/busybox/log/editors/vi.c

Open ##5172823