Changing your default editor FAQ

Note: Because UNIX is a case sensitive language, when commands are given in these FAQs, please type them as is. For example, the word 'pine' would be typed all lower case.

Also, to show that something is a command, it will be surrounded by quotes, i.e. 'pine' but when you type the command, do not type the quotes, only what is inside of them.

When you first get your shell account, the default editor is almost always set as 'vi.' 'vi' is a real pain in the gadoobers, so I suggest changing the default to the much easier 'pico.'

To do this:

At your main unix prompt type 'pico .profile'

You now need to look for something like: EDITOR=vi ;

Note: you may wish to read my faq on pico first:

Hit crtl+w (hold down the ctrl key while you hit 'w').

You will see: Search :

Type 'vi' and hit enter.

When you get to what you were searching for, hit ctrl+d (hold down the ctrl key while you hit 'd') twice to erase the word 'vi.'

Note: the 'vi' we are looking for is a word of its own, not part of another word such as 'visual' for example)

Type 'pico'

Hit ctrl+w and then the enter key again to see if the word 'vi' is anyplace else and if so, replace the 'vi' with 'pico' as we did above.

When you are done, hit ctrl+x (hold down the ctrl key and hit 'x') to save the changes.

You will see: Save modified buffer (ANSWERING "No" WILL DESTROY CHANGES) ?

Hit 'y'

You will see: File Name to write : .profile

Hit enter

That's it!

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