Neil Cherry wrote:
Chris Jones wrote:
On Saturday 1 September 2007 4:55:55 pm Tim wrote:
On Sat, 2007-09-01 at 16:50 +0200, Bo Berglund wrote:
Detailed instructions on how to start a command line editor for this
file would be appreciated as well as how to save and exit from it.
And to provide a third alternative... ;-) Which might be necessary,
if joe or emacs aren't already installed, and if you can't manage to
install either of them. vi is probably installed by default. You'd
start it with the vi command and the filepath/filename.
e.g. vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Hit the insert key to start inserting text wherever the cursor is (it
starts up in a reading mode). Type what you want to do to the file.
Hit escape to get out of the editing mode. Then colon w q <enter> to
write (w) your changes, and (q) quit the program. e.g. :wq
Editors are one of those things where it is really each to their own.
For the record, I would not recommend vi/vim as the first editor to
try, if they are new to linux. Yes, it might be the only one
installed by default, but that can be fixed with a simple
> yum install emacs joe nano
(assuming you have network)
I say this since personally, I have never understood the vi
distinction between reading mode and editting mode, and in my
experiences its a concept quite confusing to a lot of people..
Chris
I'm not sure I'd put emacs on a first editor either. Trying to
explain the keystroke confuses most people. BTW, it's META-1
Ctrl-X Ctrl-C to save on typing or ESC-X save-buffers-kill-emacs
(for the more adventurous). ;-)
That of course is a little tongue-in-cheek humor, I'm an emacs
user since 1978.
Since I'm a confirmed joe user I should say that to edit a file in a
terminal window type joe file where file is the file name. All the usual
things happen like backspace erases the letter to the left. And just
type what you want to add.
Study what you see and make sure it is what you want. Then to save
the changed file type Ctl-k and then x. If you do not want to save it
use ctl-k q. If this is confusing, while working on a file you can type
ctl-k h, and a panel comes down with all the things you can do. I use
ctl-y a lot because it deletes the whole line.
--
Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
Linux User
#450462 http://counter.li.org.
