What feature/utility/app are you surprised is not installed by default in Linux distributions?

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I think most people (including myself) prefer a minimal desktop by default, and then proceed to install only the software they need. Nevertheless, it always surprises me when I log in to a system that doesn't have vim.
- For almost all users, especially beginners, nano is just simpler faster and better. A lot of distributions are bundling it, and I am finding indeed systems without vim at all.
  
  Although most of the times while vim is not installed vi is. Even often together with nano.
  
  Man I tried to use vi once because I started with vim and wanted to see what all it was before, and holy shit vim really is IMPROVED
  
  Especially for beginners, micro would be even better.
  
  I'm surprised there aren't more distros that come packaged with it. If someone's used a graphical text editor in the past decade, then they know how to use micro. The only distro I know of that has it by default is Garuda.
- I disagree. Don't get me wrong, vim is amazing and all that, but I think nano is easier for new users to grok out of the box, making it a better choice most of the time. What it lacks in features it makes up for in transparency.
  100% agree about the minimal set of desktop apps, though. That drives me crazy.
  Just my 0.02$.
  Edit: silly mistakes and clarification
- In all distro I tried, I always found Vi.
  
  Vi is standardized in both POSIX and Single Unix Specification.
  
  You've never used a minimal Linux distro for cloud servers then. Some don't ship any text editors. Others ship only nano. Part of the reason why I think learn vim because vi(m) is everywhere argument is removed. It's factually incorrect.
- but they do contains vi

201 comments