After all my complaining, I have embraced Ubuntu

[gamblor01]

All I know is when I try to type text into vi, nothing appears on the screen. It doesn't get a hell of a lot more user unfriendly than that!

Yeah you need to press either "I" to enter into insert mode, or "A" to enter into after? (append?) mode. Basically if you press "I" it inserts text before the cursor's position and if you press "A" it moves one character to the right and inserts information there.

Very confusing when you don't know how to use it though. I completely agree.

[IsaacKuo]

The only commands you really need to know to use vi are:

i - enter insert mode
esc - exit insert mode

x - delete one character
dd - delete a line

:qw - quit and write (everyone uses ZZ, though)
:q! - quit without saving

The main benefit of vi is that it's the only really usable editor when for whatever reasons the arrow keys don't work or don't exist. But this is not much of concern in this day and age.

[gamblor01]

everyone uses ZZ, though

Call me crazy, but I always use :wq!

[blackbelt_jones]

Call me crazy, but I always use :wq!

YOU MADMAN!

Well, thanks for the tips. I know that Vi has its devotees, and if the last six years has taught me anything, I know that there are always good reasons for that kind of devotion.

Still I'm not going to learn vi until I get a stronger background in emacs. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and stop using kwrite.

[gamblor01]

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and stop using kwrite.

Just use whatever editor works for you. There's no need to change to something else if your current editor allows you to accomplish all of the tasks that you need to. I switch between many editors. The only reason I'm familiar with vim is because it is often one of the only editors installed by default on Linux machines. I used them quite often at work, mostly over ssh sessions where I didn't have a GUI.

[blackbelt_jones]

Just use whatever editor works for you. There's no need to change to something else if your current editor allows you to accomplish all of the tasks that you need to. I switch between many editors. The only reason I'm familiar with vim is because it is often one of the only editors installed by default on Linux machines. I used them quite often at work, mostly over ssh sessions where I didn't have a GUI.

Most users aren't going to need anything beyond kwrite or gedit, which is exactly why this visudo thing annoys me. I recently learned about this command:

export EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano

but for some reason, when I installed Hardy on my other computer, it didn't work. The "export" command wasn't recognized.

It may be significant that this wasn't the official release of Hardy. It's a release candidate, albeit a late one, downloaded and installed just two days before the official launch, and I'd always assumed that after upgrading, it was about the same, but that may not be true in this case. If anyone is running a version of Hardy downloaded and installed after the official release (was it last Thursday? Or was it the Thursday before? ) maybe you could do me a favor and open visudo and find out if the default is nano (which has long been the default for Debian and Ubuntu) or if some reason Ubuntu has reverted to Vim. That would seem out of character for Ubuntu, and maybe this is a non-existent issue.

Myself, I do want to learn more about emacs, and something about vim. I'd like to get myself an old laptop and use it for writing, just run emacs from the console. I have an *****ion to contribute to Linux education, so I need a broad, general knowledge. and a little curiosity can be a great thing. I used to think that Windows did "everything I need it to do". I was wrong!

PS: Since when is *****ion a dirty word??

Incidentally, is the whole idea of visudo kind of crazy? You can directly edit the sudoers file using emacs as root. Most distros provide a a series of commented template items for the sudoers file. Edit them carefully, and you're golden. I'm sure you could use vim or nano or any number of command line editors just as easily, and if you're worried about screwing up your sudoers file, just back it up!

[bosox79]

Black belt,

i'm glad you have found a home with Ubuntu

I am going to stick with Sid myself because it is the perfect mix of stability and bleeding edge tech for me. and it has served me will as my primary OS for the last year

[blackbelt_jones]

Black belt,

i'm glad you have found a home with Ubuntu

I am going to stick with Sid myself because it is the perfect mix of stability and bleeding edge tech for me. and it has served me will as my primary OS for the last year

Thanks, but I still consider Debian to be my true home. Sid is the ultimate, imho, but I can't quite handle it yet, and as someone who is interested in linux education, I've decided that familiarity with Ubuntu is essential.

[bosox79]

Thanks, but I still consider Debian to be my true home. Sid is the ultimate, imho, but I can't quite handle it yet, and as someone who is interested in linux education, I've decided that familiarity with Ubuntu is essential.

when you think your ready for sid garb a sidux ISO and dive in.

[gamblor01]

I recently learned about this command:

export EDITOR=/usr/bin/nano

but for some reason, when I installed Hardy on my other computer, it didn't work. The "export" command wasn't recognized.

Yeah export can be quite useful. Interesting that it wasn't recognized on Hardy. The export command is part of BASH if I remember correctly. You are running BASH right ("echo $SHELL" to find out)? It is used to setup environment variables. If export isn't working then you might not be using BASH (though it's the default on my Gutsy install. export $SHELL returned /bin/bash as I expected), or something could be wrong. If you can't export environment variables, then it's going to be difficult add directories to your PATH (export PATH=$PATH:/some/other/directory). Hmm...

[jamesbandido]

i have tried gOS and i dont like it all ...

[blackbelt_jones]

i have tried gOS and i dont like it all ...

I tried the previous version, which wassupposed to be comepletely different. I didn't like it, either. You could install kubuntu-desktop, and then it would be fine,. but it would also be Kubuntu, and there was no getting back to the old interface.

Yeah, dumb and icky.