It seems that the editor vi is missing from portage. Since Version 2004.3 it is not possible to emerge it anymore. It is possible to emerge vim or nvi but not vi itself. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. install gentoo 2004.3 2. emerge vi 3. Actual Results: emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "vi". Expected Results: it should have been emerged.
Indeed. It's gone, since it only works properly with termcap-compat, which we're trying to kill on the grounds that it's ancient, buggy, unmaintained, incomplete and only exists for compatability with a few ancient *BSD things.
*** Bug 103125 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***