Comments on: Change the Default Editor From Nano on Ubuntu Linux

By: tomm174

tomm174 — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:47:24 +0000

alternatives seem like a really poor idea.
It gives you the command line ease of changing a very unimportant configuration issue, – the name you type to invoke an editor – which each user would be likely to do very infrequently, if ever.
The cost is making it quite obscure and complicated what is actually happening, and breaking what people out there already understand.
I suppose Stallman, Cox, Tovalds, Tridgell have all had to waste their time getting their heads around it – unless they just go on using the same install they’ve had for the last five years
There is a standard environment variable $EDITOR which is supposed to deal with this issue
I just tried to trace down where emacs directs to on my ubuntu 8. I think it goes through SIX levels of links. I don’t want this kind of (’scuse me) CRAP on my system. I want to be able to find an executable if there is a problem.
If it aint broke don’t fix it
Simpler is bettttttttttteeeeeerrrrrrrrrr – And don’t get me started about upstart
If I want to use emacs I’ll type ‘emacs’ and maybe alias it to ‘e’

By: blu

blu — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:28:16 +0000

can i add gedit as default ?

By: Gustaf

Gustaf — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:16:42 +0000

Ubuntu: As discussed above – use two hyphens in “- -config”.

By: Ubuntu

Ubuntu — Mon, 26 May 2008 07:18:44 +0000

user@Linux:~$ sudo update-alternatives –config editor
[sudo] password for user:
update-alternatives: unknown argument `–config’
user@Linux:~$ sudo “update-alternatives –config editor”
sudo: update-alternatives –config editor: command not found
user@Linux:~$ “update-alternatives –config editor”
bash: update-alternatives –config editor: command not found
user@Linux:~$ sudo ‘update-alternatives –config editor’
sudo: update-alternatives –config editor: command not found
user@Linux:~$

Ps:
user@Linux:~$ uname -a
Linux Linux 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

By: Gustaf

Gustaf — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:30:20 +0000

vim.basic = vim, so that’s what to choose. Before the installation there was only vim.tiny available.

By: Bauche

Bauche — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:49:06 +0000

I have installed vim but it does not appears as an alternative. (It appears vim.basic and vim.tiny, but not vim). What con I do?

By: Micah

Micah — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:28:25 +0000

oh yeah – I’ve been using VIM ever since install. In fact, I didn’t know about this and set up VIM as the edior in my .bashrc.

Thanks

By: Gustaf

Gustaf — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:12:49 +0000

ronald:
Hehe. No, seriously not. “-” is generally a syntax for stdin/stout, can cause trouble..

Micah:
A first dumb question then: Have you even installed vim or any other alternatives? I think a full installation of e.g. vim or emacs is not bundled by default.

By: Micah

Micah — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 14:12:14 +0000

When I run update-alternaitives, it only shows ed and nano. Is there anything I can do to to get it to show the other choices?

Thanks!

By: ronald

ronald — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:17:10 +0000

maybe write is as ‘update-alternatives – -config editor’

greetz all