Text editor
A text editor is Article description::a program to create and edit of text files. Although it is not impossible to edit files without using one, text editors make it easy to edit configuration files. The Gentoo @system set contains the virtual/editor package to make sure at least one editor is installed.
Software
| Program | Skill level | Features | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| nano | Easy | Advanced | Gentoo default |
| Emacs | Advanced | Huge | |
| Vim | Advanced | Huge |
More text editor options can be found online in the app-editors category or by running:
user $eix "app-editors/*"Vim and Vi
If Vim is installed the vi and vim commands become synonymous due to the following link:
user $ls -al /usr/bin/vilrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 3 Nov 25 19:59 /usr/bin/vi -> vim
The synonymous use also holds for setting editor defaults.
Sudo editor
sudo does not preserve the user's environment variables and therefore may have a different default editor.
Visudo editor
Due to the sensitive nature of /etc/sudoers it may only edited via the visudo command which in turn is limited to a predefined selection of editors. Type man visudo for more information.
Setting system default
The system wide default text editor can be defined in the /etc/env.d/99editor file. To change the Gentoo system default from nano to Vim add the path to Vim's executable:
/etc/env.d/99editorChanging system wide text editor default<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">EDITOR="/usr/bin/vim"</syntaxhighlight>
The system default editor can also be set with the eselect utility. Replace <NUMBER> in the following command with a number corresponding to the text editor of choice:
root #eselect editor listAvailable targets for the EDITOR variable: [1] /bin/nano [2] /bin/ed [3] /usr/bin/emacs [4] /usr/bin/ex [5] /usr/bin/vi [ ] (free form)
root #eselect editor set <NUMBER>Actually eselect modifies the file above.
The old method of setting the EDITOR variable in /etc/rc.conf is no longer supported. See this article for details.