vi is visual editor (improved) and it was wonderful as a replacement for ed where an arcane key combo wrote out part of a line so you could correct a typo on a later part of same line....
vi is light (relatively speaking) and loads fast. It is a useful editor and for some it is lovable. I have two partially numb fingers on my right hand and I have huge fingers and hands so I was never able to develop touch-typing, which is why I find vi unlovable. I think EVERYONE who is serious about linux or unix should learn the basic commands of vi, at least sufficient to edit text. That is really about 5 commands. i for insert, esc to get back to commands : to do the command line :w to save :wq to save and exit :q! to exit without saving, and the arrow keys the delete key (well that's 10 if you count the obvious ones). emacs is "everything but the kitchen sink" thought you can avoid parts of it. It even allows child processes such as shells. It is without a doubt a powerful desktop (AND I once made an xinit with full-screen emacs as THE desktop, just as a joke. Instead of the default scratch buffer message we had "welcome to emacs, the OS and desktop that needs a good text editor" :-) Seriously emacs is quite an acceptable editor, and if you use only the default loaded parts of it, you can successfully edit large files ( I have 3/4s of a novel I am working on in a plain text file and I use emacs on it). emacs is not as universally loaded as vi. So learn vi. Learn emacs if you want something that can do a lot for you, but don't neglect vi if you are going to be a sysadmin. I use emacs whenever I have some semblance of an excuse to do so, and I love emacs, but I know enough vi to get by with it in emergencies. (For that matter I know enough ed to get by) lessee i to insert, a to append and c to change ,s/old/new/g to replace old with new throughout the file, d deletes lines m moves lines . on a line by itself exits input mode... Guess you can tell I thought a lot of good things about vi when it appeared to replace ed :-) IF vi just isn't possible, there are some alternatives which will hit most systems. nano is a gnu program and is available on most gnu/linux systems. pico is a part of pine and is available on many or most unix systems. The look&feel of the two is identical They are VERY lightweight and very fast. http://www.sax.de/~adlibit/ will give you the editor e3. an older version had a 4.8k binary Yes K not M. e3 runs on ARM, on UNIX (a c-flavor version is availabel in source) and on linux (written in NASM, no less) where its size is truly minimal and its speed is utterly dazzling (except it is only a text editor). Civileme
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