Re: [help-a-newb] Why nano (or was it pico) instead of vi for visudo? (was question about adduser)

[Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com>]

erk. Sorry, Doug.

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Joel Rees <joel.rees@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for responding to the subject instead of the content, Tom.
>
> I swear, I must be getting too old for this. Or maybe I just have too
> many questions to remember which one I'm asking. Oh. Either way, I'll
> be lazy and blame it on my age.
>
> ;->
>
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 1:18 PM, Doug <dmcgarrett@optonline.net> wrote:
>> On 03/20/2011 10:15 PM, Tom H wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 8:30 PM, Joel Rees<joel.rees@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>
>>> It's nano and the reason that nano's called by visudo (paradoxically)
>>> is that visudo calls "/usr/bin/editor" and the alternatives system
>>> maps it to "/usr/bin/nano".
>>>
>>> You can run visudo with "EDITOR=vi visudo" if you just want vi in this
>>> instance.
>
> I tried that, and it didn't work.
>
> :-(
>
> Maybe I got the variable name wrong, I'll try it again.
>
>>> Or you can run "update-alternatives --config editor" to point
>>> "/usr/bin/editor" to "/usr/bin/vi".
>
> Thanks for pointing me to the alternatives system, too.
>
> (I must say, I'm really not happy about having a distro essentially
> apply a translation to my entire coordinate system, in the command
> line tools, for pete sake. I can see Debian is going to be something
> of a wild ride for me. I don't need to know the reasons, I already do.
> No need for off-topic threads, here. I'll survive. :-/ )
>
>> That's interesting.  In my distro (PCLOS) I had to modify visudo to add
>> myself, and I had not
>> configured any editor.  It seems that the _vi_ part of "visudo" means the vi
>> editor,
>
> Yeah, Doug, vi.
>
> 8-o
>
> That's part of why I felt a little queasy when I saw the function
> labels on the bottom of the screen.
>
>> because that's
>> how it opened.  I had to go and look up the vi commands to save and exit.
>>  Now if I ever need to
>> do it again, I'll know I can use something more user-friendly.
>
> Not going to argue the user-friendly -- different strokes, etc.
>
> But, FWIW, I had already hit i-for-insert and started typing before I
> realized I wasn't in OZ any more. (Heh.) I didn't recognize an undo
> key in the labels, so I undid from memory, just in case, then guessed
> which of the (terse) labels was quit-without-save. It was nice that
> there were enough clues (and my memories of ancient text-mode word
> processors helped) that I was able to close without saving and start
> over.
>
> Once I knew it was nano, not vi, no big deal, just the initial false
> step and the feelings of confusion as I backed out.
>
>> Thanx for
>> the heads-up.
>
> I think this was my heads-up, too. I'm finding Debian isn't quite as
> different from Fedora as either is from openbsd, but I'm finding it a
> little slow going anyway. Lot's of things that don't work quite the
> way I expect.
>
> Fun and games again.
>
> Joel
>