Q. I find vi hard to use. How do I change my default text editor from vim / vi to Pico under Debian Linux?
A. To use and change an editor to edit your text message, set the variable EDITOR to the pathname of the vi / vim binary file. You need to use export or set command for the same purpose.
Many Linux / UNIX command read shell EDITOR environment variable to determine which editor to use for editing a text file.
Set default text editor to pico
Type the command as follows:
$ which pico
Output:
/usr/bin/pico
Now setup a new text editor:
export EDITOR=/usr/bin/pico
OR
export EDITOR=pico
Add above line to ~/.bashrc file:
$ vi ~/.bashrc
Append text as follows:
export EDITOR=pico
Close and save the file. There is no no need to reboot system.
Also you can add alias if you want:
alias vi=/usr/bin/pico