Why do most sysadmins prefer Vim over Nano?

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Keljian52@reddit

Vim is faster than nano for anything but the simplest of tasks. That said, there is a big learning curve and that is not for everyone

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It’s funny to think of vi having a steep learning curve, when I feel like I stumble around when I find myself in nano trying to figure out how to do basic crap lol. But I get it, there’s no contextual UI elements to guide you, where there is in nano.

I like to encourage people to put together a cheat sheet for the common functions of vi, then force themselves to use it for a week or two, and pretty quickly you get used to it, might even find you prefer it. That was how I learned (though I didn’t even know of the existence of nano, otherwise I probably would have taken the easy route).

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SXKHQSHF@reddit

I stick with vi (I predate vim) simply because I don't need to move hands off the home keys.

I use sed when I need to reformat a bunch of text, often to convert a table of data into the body of a shell script, or to standardize field delimiters to pipe into an awk script.

If you're likely to lay hands on older, non-Linux UNIX™ systems, get accustomed to working with Bourne shell rather than bash or ksh. Your scripting will be more portable.

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Sea-Oven-7560@reddit

I'm on a lot of different systems from HPUX to Solaris to Redhat -these aren't my boxes I just need to work on them, and I know vi will be available and I know how to use it. The same cannot be said about nano or even vim so I just don't use them. Recently I was forced to use nano and thought it was slow compared to vi. I'm never going to die on any OS or editor hill, they are just tools and which ever tool works best is great but for shear comfort vi is the winner for everyone with more than a decade of time in the trenches.

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SXKHQSHF@reddit

This.

Do not die on any hill.

My career was long and generally good, but it ended 9 months ago in part because I didn't keep on top of newer ways to do things.

Yeah, it's nice to be able to deploy/redeploy systems with a pocket full of custom shell scripts... But one of the last places I worked had standardized everything to the point that nearly every routine admin task was automated. It's kind of nice when monthly system patching for a group of servers can be handled with a click...

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HayabusaJack@reddit

Heh, this is me. Solaris admin way back in the 2.5.1 days :) But I do tend to go with ksh as that’s been everywhere I’ve had to admin and only in the past couple of jobs have they been Linux only.

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SXKHQSHF@reddit

Hah! SunOS 2.0. 👴

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HayabusaJack@reddit

I was on a Vax at Johns Hopkins several years before that, and I have programming credits in Nethack from when I worked there (I also created a DOS based News Reader when I was there).

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SXKHQSHF@reddit

I had about a year working with Lucasfilm UNIX, in a small university lab...

Once SUN became a commercial product, the Droidworks decided they didn't need to support their own OS.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

AIX 2.3. On actual R6000 chips, no Power.

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Sudden_Office8710@reddit

Back in the day I had to take old SGI indy boxes and load squid cache on them for a now highly prominent CDN before CDN was a thing. That was back in the ‘90s when people would laugh at you for saying Linux. It had to be DEC Alpha, Sun, SGI, HPUX or AIX and look at them now all gone 🤣 Crays run Linux now

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

AIX is still kicking.

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goobernawt@reddit

My first IT job was as a computer operator on an OpenVMS system running on DEC Alpha. So much of what I did was just repeating the incantations passed down to me by the sysadmins. The 2nd shift operator (I was 3rd) was an old Russian dude who could probably have run circles around the admins but for his modest grasp of English. He started to really show me how things worked, and it was fascinating.

I left to take a job in a shop that was looking to rip out Netware and adopt Linux, the staff thought I was nuts. The times, they were a changing.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

VMS is a thing of beauty. Pity people went with cheap shit.

VMS clustered. Solaris, NT, etc were clumps.

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4dogs2catscrazy@reddit

Came here to say all this but you all beat me to it. Aix, ksh, vi, SP nodes. Ran TSM for 15 years. Sharks. Never down.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Ah.. SP2 nodes. MICROCHANNEL. With SSA drives... and SCON to the Mainframe.

First job. Good times.

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brianozm@reddit

All scripting should be in bash/sh - even in bash, there are few enhancements to sh that are essential - $RANDOM and (( )) being my favourites, plus the variable editing.

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Xzenor@reddit

It’s funny to think of vi having a steep learning curve, when I feel like I stumble around when I find myself in nano trying to figure out how to do basic crap lol.

Well yeah but you probably can't remember the struggle from when you first had to use it. nano is easier if you don't know anything yet. It's like notepad. Basic text and 0 features but at least it makes sense..

But yeah, once you do get vi, it's lightening fast and feature rich.

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temotodochi@reddit

Yes but basic tasks like navigate to row 2411 and replace "text block" with "other block" is more difficult.

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brianozm@reddit

True, though blocks aren’t hard in vi once you learn about using marks. You can literally replace a block of text in about 6 keystrokes, not including movement.

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temotodochi@reddit

Ah i should've referenced correctly. I think Nano controls for text changes like that are more convoluted than in Vi(m).

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FrancescoFortuna@reddit

Exactly I remember using vi at first and it was confusing. It didnt take too long, though… after using it 3-4 times I grasped the basics and decades later I have no problem even when I havent launched it in a year. No interest in using something else when vi works. If I had to start over, I’d probably pick nano only because I see it mentioned more.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Nano was not around when I started. I have 30 years of vi muscle memory. So vi is the easiest for me.

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beren12@reddit

Pico was however.

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pdp10@reddit

There was a 13 year period where vi existed and pico did not. Not surprising, as Vi was the first full-screen editor for Unix.

Vi was also part of the standard distributions, while pico was bundled with the pine mail client. Pine was very popular at many sites, but it was hardly ubiquitous like a program bundled with the base operating system.

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beren12@reddit

Pico existed 30 years ago, which is the comment I replied to

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NecroAssssin@reddit

PC Mag Red Hat CD? That was my start.

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beren12@reddit

Dialup. Redhat and mklinux. Learned my lifelong hatred of RPM, learned about Debian and been there ever since.

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fourpotatoes@reddit

I changed jobs to a Red Hat shop and was disappointed at how little the RPM had improved in the decades since I'd last used it. It's worlds better than it was in the 90s, but especially when authoring packages I miss things I took for granted in the apt/dpkg world.

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lerian@reddit

Both have the UX of a migraine simulator. Why not just design a text editing app that uses usual commands for usual operations - like Cmd/Ctrl+C / V / X? No, why would they, when they can just feel superior instead.

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JohnnyricoMC@reddit

Because Ctrl+C/V/X in a GUI do very different things than what they do in a CLI. The latter came first.

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lerian@reddit

Point missed successfully.

The candle came first too. And we are using leds. Also we have modifiers today, like ctrl+shift+c.

Thank Linus we have alternatives and we're not forced to use these 2.

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pdp10@reddit

The candle came first too.

Who made who? You're literally complaining that vi didn't adopt something that didn't exist yet.

Thank Linus

Of all the things for which to thank Torvalds, he never created a text editor. Somewhat famously so, in fact, as he's known for using a super niche editor.

You can curse Linus for making Bash the cultural Linux default for a long time, instead of Bourne/Almquist. Linux quirks led to a lot of compatibility problems with headers at that time, as well.

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Delta-9-@reddit

TIL Emacs is "super niche."

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JohnnyricoMC@reddit

Linus uses and maintains a fork of MicroEMACS, not regular Emacs. https://github.com/torvalds/uemacs

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Delta-9-@reddit

Ah, I stand only half right.

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Ohrgasmus1@reddit

ctrl +c also doesnt work in windows cmd or PS

ctrl + c only works in gui

there is litterally no difference on this between linux and windows

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Thotaz@reddit

ctrl +c also doesnt work in windows cmd or PS

Not true. If you press Ctrl+c with no text selected it will cancel whatever you are doing. If you have selected text it will copy that text into the clipboard. There is no real reason why VI/VIM/Nano can't do the same.

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Ohrgasmus1@reddit

ah, apparently starting with the antique Windows Version nr. 11
didnt work in 10 or before

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Thotaz@reddit

Not true. It was introduced in Windows 10: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2014/10/07/console-improvements-in-the-windows-10-technical-preview/ so just a little over a decade ago.

As I mentioned above you can now copy and paste text with the keyboard. When copying text, don’t worry that CTRL + C has always been the BREAK command. It will still send the break signal to the running application when no text is selected. The first CTRL-C copies the text and clears the selection, and the second one signals the break.

In the case of PowerShell you could get the same feature by installing the PSReadLine module. The module itself was released in 2013/2014, but it could be used with any version of Windows with PowerShell 3.0 or newer installed.

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JohnnyricoMC@reddit

First, have a point at all. Use those other editors that aren't vi, vim or nano then and don't make such nonsense claims about "feeling superior".

Do you realize whenever behavior is changed from longstanding defaults it causes user impact? Vi has been around sinds 1976 and its behavior is set in stone by an actual standard for maintaining compatibility, IEEE 1003. Pico, which nano emulates, exists since 1989. Your "usual commands for usual operations" are ironically the ones that were being different.

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lerian@reddit

The point is there, just not for those who will be replaced by AI for their lack of vision.

Time is scarce, especially in the age of AI - therefore not following basic UX guidelines and using excuses like 'who was first' will leave many in the dust while the world moves forward.

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Delta-9-@reddit

Oh, shut up 🙄

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JohnnyricoMC@reddit

At first you just came across as a clickops by complaining about perceived elitism because of a core utility's set-in-standards operation being different from what they are familiar with.

Going off-topic with a poorly veiled "AI will replace you dinosaurs who can work with these things" attack due to an apparent absence of real arguments... that's just digging oneself deeper. AI is a tool, not a crutch.

Ask your LLM of choice to generate you an explanation of POSIX, it's an actual IEEE controlled standard (IEEE-1003) unlike your "basic UX guidelines". One AI tooling needs to adhere to when interfacing with or generating for POSIX-compliant and POSIX-adjacent systems like most *nix operating systems.

Nobody's obligated to work exclusively with the core utilities, there are always going to be newer and easier tools. Being able to work with the old tools and methods in case the new ones aren't available (as can happen when troubleshooting restricted systems or in airgapped environments) is however what makes for a better admin.

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God_Hates_Frags@reddit

Bad bot

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pdp10@reddit

vi was the first full-screen text editor for (at least) Unix, written to use the brand-new capabilities of the Lear ADM-3A terminal being installed at Berkeley. That hardware had no arrow keys, hence hjkl for navigation in vi and on games at least up to the Commodore 64.

Actually, lower case ASCII was an optional feature on the Lear ADM-3A. Unix and typesetting applications pretty much required lower case, but mainstream computing normally did not, and the whole point of the ADM terminals was to bring the TCO down lower than teletypes.

And vitally, Control-C is never used to copy inside of a Unix terminal, because Control-C sends SIGINT, Signal Interrupt. Native X11 copy and paste uses mouse-highlight to copy and middle-mouse-button to paste, which also has the advantage of requiring just one hand and mouse operations, as opposed to two hands and both mouse and keyboard operations. Unix/Linux also supports ^C^V^X in other places where it's compatible, i.e. elsewhere than a terminal.

No, why would they, when they can just feel superior instead.

And now you know.... the rest of the story.

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lerian@reddit

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it.

I know I was flaming but my point was that way too many times people in this space think of bad ux as a virtue. It is not. But ofc, that opinion will not win any popularity contest since feeling special is still part of the aura attracting people to IT.

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pdp10@reddit

way too many times people in this space think of bad ux as a virtue.

I've long suspected that the average person thinks of anything they don't like currently or don't like immediately, is "bad UX".

One mouse button, two mouse buttons, or three mouse buttons?
Focused window always on top?
Modifier/chording keys: how many and which labels?
WIMP GUI: better or worse than other GUIs?
WIMP GUI: "galactically easier" than a menu, or not? From my experience doing enterprise migrations, not easier. Probably better in a lot of ways, but not easier.

To pick on you just a little bit, you didn't know that Control-C has always been the command to send an ignorable interrupt to a terminal program, so it can't be re-used to copy text in a terminal program without causing more trouble than it solves. You wanted (backward) compatibility with something, and didn't yet know that it was impossible while maintaining (backward) compatibility with something else.

I've made a bit of a habit of looking for scientifically-valid studies about UI and UX, and there are really quite few of them, at least in the public domain. Far, far, fewer than you probably think, and even then far fewer covering matters you'd find relevant.

I even participated in someone's UI/UX study once. I didn't know it going in, but it turned out to be 90% about mobile apps. When I find a modern UI/UX study that's not about the web, it's always about touchscreens, which doesn't give us any objective data about desktop computers.

But ofc, that opinion will not win any popularity contest since feeling special

There's a learned skill in not projecting feelings onto the motivations of others.

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Delta-9-@reddit

You've clearly never had a migraine before.

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brianozm@reddit

Because vi commands were developed years before Ctrl-C for copy etc were invented.

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lerian@reddit

True, without things stuck in the past would be no innovation. Without adaptation would be no extinct species.

My point is: adapt or die. Especially in the age of AI.

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FlatwormAltruistic@reddit

Why should nano and vi change their shortcuts to something that was made on much later date and ruin experience for those who grew up with nano/vim for sake of people who come from windows shortcuts?

Nano with its shortcuts to cut and paste was much earlier than windows with its GUI shortcuts. Linux GUI tools have even picked up on Windows shortcuts.

In the console some of the usual commands have a long history of sending certain signals. CMD/Ctrl+C for example SIGINT or as I take it C as in Cancel.

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DeifniteProfessional@reddit

Whenever something defaults to editing with Nano I slightly panic because I'm never sure how to leave. And then when I figure out the right key combination it's asking me questions about saving a temporary file when I haven't even made any changes

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

when i first learned vi almost 40 years ago, i crashed the server with all the dead vi processes i left hanging around because i didn’t know how to quit the program and hadn’t yet found the vi-learn program

now? its all in muscle memory and i cannot imagine another editor that allows me to edit text as fast as i can with vi/vim.

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wvraven@reddit

That’s what my ancient Vi coffee mug is for.

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tauisgod@reddit

I'm going to date myself a bit. In the early 2000s my college was still using pine for email. In my CS courses we were taught emacs and vi. To this day I still use vi for more complicated things. It's powerful, quick, and full featured. When I want to get stuff done, vi is where it's at. I've more or less given up on emacs; I haven't used it in years. Now nano, I love it. It's quicker and easier for the most simplest of jobs. You need some good search and replace using regex? Vi all the way.

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Cormacolinde@reddit

I also used pine but pine had its own text editor: pico. Pine and pico were under its own weird license and someone rewrote pico it and licensed it as GPL to include in GNU, and that was nano.

That’s how I learned to use pico and then switched to nano.

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Sudden_Office8710@reddit

They were from the University of Washington that held the copyright on it. That was back in the day when USENET ruled and there was no PC police it was just utter mayhem and I loved it. “Nihilistic feelings are moving, if I try really hard, I’ll see right through them Nihilism! Nihilism!

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Temporary_Pie2733@reddit

I also used Pine for email in college and used pico as my editor when I first started programming in a Unix environment. That lasted about one term until my roommate convinced me to learn vi. (Emacs, of course, was at various times for Usenet and e-mail, never for actually editing text.)

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mkmrproper@reddit

Same. Pico -> Nano

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heavinglory@reddit

pico all day

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plazman30@reddit

Pine has been replaced by the open source Alpine mail client.

https://alpineapp.email/

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kenfury@reddit

Pine, qmail, and vi. My first threesome.

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Justin_Passing_7465@reddit

If you had been invited, it would have been a foursome. Sad.

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reginwillis@reddit

Don't fret- They like to watch

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vogelke@reddit

Straight into my quotes file. If I'd been drinking anything when I read this, it would have been all over the screen.

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rhubear@reddit

nvim, thankfully commands are same from vi, all the way to nvim.

Actually, nvim inside tmux.

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weaver_of_cloth@reddit

I've got a Mac laptop, so I use iTerm2 locally, ssh to my admin machine with the tmux connector thing running, and I get local windows all connected in the same tmux session. Then of course I have nvim running in several of those native windows, all with multiple tabs and panes in them.

Typing all that out makes me realize how nerdy I am.

But the real answer is that nvim has tabs and windows and a billion plugins. And a steep learning curve.

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beren12@reddit

Sorry screen > tmux

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pdp10@reddit

tmux is better than screen, and tmux has a permissive license, meaning it can be found more places.

However, screen can act as a serial terminal client, which tmux cannot. Not that a special serial client is required.

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beren12@reddit

The screen commands also seem more intuitive and yes it can do more.

The license really doesn’t matter as it’s available on pretty much everything, more than tmux I’d imagine.

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rhubear@reddit

Maybe. I've heard otherwise.

What makes screen better?

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PolarityInversion@reddit

I still use emacs and prefer it over vi, but that's just stubbornness. I've never been involved in the whole vi vs emacs debate. I just learned emacs first by chance, and now know it inside and out.

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ASK_ME_AB0UT_L00M@reddit

There's no single superior solution.

https://i.imgur.com/vnadz4n.gif

The superior solution is always vi.

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trekologer@reddit

Same; my college had Solaris servers and our email used pine but I struggled with text editors. I likely spent more effort getting a remote X session on my Windows PC to use XEmacs than if I just learned the cli commands for emacs or vi. Eventually I would get the cli down and ended up preferring vi.

But at the end of the day, it is a text editor. Use whatever one you are comfortable with.

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plazman30@reddit

I tried to use emacs, but it just doesn't work for me. And people tell me to install evil mode. If I am going to just add vim keybinding to emacs, why not just use vim and be done with it?

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lerian@reddit

"is not for everyone" hopefully will disappear soon. Why not just use some basic UX like a normal text editor? No, because "is not for everyone". Well, this type of high horse attitude is what is making 'normies' hate IT.

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Keljian52@reddit

Nothing is for everyone, this is why we have things like eMacs, and sublime text, and visual studio code.

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lerian@reddit

Point missed successfully.

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Keljian52@reddit

The design for a standard ring spanner has been around for a long time - does that mean it is not the right tool for undoing bolts?

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weirdbarandgrill@reddit

In one of my first sysadmin jobs I was looking after a SCO Unix system (somewhere around '97) and we had this weird corruption of data inside a text file for a specific 3rd party application. Company Internet was not a thing yet with us, so no remote telnet or ssh. Most of the support went over the phone (voice). The application support person I spoke with at the other end knew of the file corruption issue and told me to 'do exactly as I say'. He got me to start up vi, find all offending lines, save a selection to another file for later review, replace some characters and fix the issue. All while just TALKING me through it (press colon, press escape, type this, type that..). Of course he was mimicking the same on his computer at the time, but to me it felt like wizardry. To be able to manipulate a text file with such granularity using commands that could just be spoken over the phone was very impressive to young me. This made me realize that vi was a powerhouse. Also seeing vi installed on pretty much any Linux system meant that I never had to learn anything else. Decades later, it's still my goto editor for modifying stuff in /etc, or hacking up a quick html page, bash or python script.

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jspears357@reddit

Vi is clearly better, as WordPerfect was better than Word for DOS, but Word was easier and good enough. Anyway, for me I used QBASIC a lot on Apple II, and Nano appears to be exactly the same, so I use Nano and the only Vi command I know is :q! or something like that. But seriously Vi is better, it’s not fair to even compare them. If you’re going to use it for years, use Vi exclusively and learn it.

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nightraven3141592@reddit

Yes, steep learning curve but extremely powerful. Things like regex search and replace, pipe selection (or whole document) to a shell command among other things. I feel caged if I am forced to use nano, but I am a old fart that grew up on vim (I still remember using pico, part of an mail client if I remember correctly).

With Vim, sed, awk and xargs you can do many cool things. Sometimes I use cut instead of awk because the thing I want to do is simple enough.

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Careful-Criticism645@reddit

99% of what I do with a text editor are "the simplest tasks".

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jose_can_u_c@reddit

For me, it was doing regex substitutions in bulk, or on specified lines, and making my own commands to speed up repetitive operations. And, because the UI is rather unique, once you get used to it, it's hard to use any other editor.

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MaxBroome@reddit

You know regex without having to look it up every time?

gif

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P00351@reddit

Back in the day, we used perl instead of python. Then learning regex was ... not an option.

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Superb_Raccoon@reddit

Perl is awesome. You could code simple things fast. It was the duct tape of the computer world.

It was not as scalable when the code became large, which is why I think it fell out of favor.

Too bad, things like <=> made life so easy.

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Sudden_Office8710@reddit

🤣 I still use Nagios so there’s that. How many people still use Nagios?

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kenfury@reddit

Shit I wrote a fair number of cacti plugins. To this day its that BSD code and zsh in my dreams

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gangaskan@reddit

I used a version of opsview, the one before the sensor limits for years before I cutover to zabbix.

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badtux99@reddit

I finally got our last Nagios server out of our infrastructure last year when we transitioned to Kubernetes with Prometheus. The Nagios server was dynamically configured by a Perl script that monitored AWS looking for ec2 instances created by an auto scaling group and generated a new configuration and updated Nagios every time it scaled. It was clunky but worked for monitoring production for a decade.

Everything else had been Zabbix for a while because Nagios was pain.

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P00351@reddit

I thought it was superseded by icinga ?

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P00351@reddit

Yeah, its reputation as a Write Only language did it dirty.

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SnooChipmunks2079@reddit

It seems somewhat deserved though. I had to figure out what too many Perl scripts were doing that were all twenty lines of setup, twenty lines of saving the result, and one line of seemingly random punctuation that did all of the work.

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badtux99@reddit

I still use Perl for sometime complex things. You can write readable Perl. You just avoid “trick” code and go for clarity instead, and comment the bleep out of it. That said too many of my peers have become button clickers and wouldn’t know Perl from Pig.

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P00351@reddit

"you can write FORTRAN in any language"

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badtux99@reddit

But you can't write Perl in Fortran :). The regular expressions alone render it extremely useful when, e.g., parsing a list of virtual machines generated out of the AWS module to figure out which ones match the pattern that you're interested in and then plunking those into a generated file for further analysis.

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P00351@reddit

That was a more generic observation, well known since decades: you can write ugly code in any language.

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8fingerlouie@reddit

A colleague of mine was shoulder surfing while I was writing a regex in Perl, and he asked if it was encrypting it in “real time”.

Sadly people don’t really learn regex anymore, which is a shame since it’s so useful for just about any text related task.

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

/laugh/. someone once said, that a sufficiently complex regex was indistinguishable from line noise.

if you used a modem and a terminal, you’d get that immediately.

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CaptainZippi@reddit

I see your regex and raise you raw sendmail.cf (None of your namby-pamby m4 enabled rubbish)

One of the Eric’s (Allman I think?) said “sendmail.cf looks like someone banging their head on the keyboard, and after trying to write one I can see why”

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P00351@reddit

I did try, when I was young. I failed for 3 weeks, then did it in 15mn in M4. Sendmail is really the only server where I had to compile the config file.😱

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CaptainZippi@reddit

Back When I was a Lad (early 90’s or so) the UK Academic Network had decided to Be different - no TCP/IP connectivity, just using X.25 and packet switching using the Coloured Books Protocols (‘cos the different levels of protocol were of different coloured covers.)

Name resolution was covered by something named the Name Registration System )NRS) =- analagous to DNS, but with the order reversed. So (as it was back then) the email domain of @st-andrews.ac.uk (DNS) was @uk.ac.st-andrews. Subdomains also existed so the Computing Science department was cs.st-and renews.ac.uk And… it kinda worked. Connectivity was not the global phenomenon that we expect these days and sendmail could be used/abused to send email over these links, using these names.

Then, about 1991 IIRC, the juggernaut that was The Internet become impossible to ignore and IP connectivity was trialed, and adopted PDQ because dealing with TCP/IP and services on your campus network, and then using the same tech over the WAN made a lot of sense.

Except when the CS dept wanted to send mail to an institution in Czechoslovakia. We had to maintain a number of ‘rewrite this domain, don’t rewrite that domain’ lists, and it was still a crapshoot.

I feel a little bit like Roy Battie here - soon these memories will be lost, like tears in the rain. Who will maintain the lesson of “don’t make things easier for the program, make it easier for the human” - which explains the sendmail.cf file, and the NRS.

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CaptainZippi@reddit

And as if by magic I’ve found a printout dated Jan 1991 with additional rules for NRS names and internal/external mailers.

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CaptainZippi@reddit

Oh $DIETY_OF_CHOICE, I’ve found the rest of the printout… here’s a sample page

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P00351@reddit

Something you haven't mentioned is security. In my time (mid 90's👴) there were still grad students remembering how you could "debug" sendmail.😅

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

i used to speak fluent sendmail.cf. m4 made all the sysadmins soft.

it’s been about 30 years since i last configured sendmai.cf for a uucp enabled mail host.

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P00351@reddit

The bat book was 1200+ pages of sendmail.cf documentation, that was too much for me.

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

Hahahaa... I still have mine on my bookshelf. Perhaps I should open it and see what I can remember/have forgotten.

Also, O'Reilly was my goto source for all technical books, the Bat book being one of them.

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P00351@reddit

The camel book, about Perl, was great, Larry Wall has a nice sense of humour. Having worked at the JPL, I still remember his explanation that, if you're programming a missile, that infinite loop will eventually terminate...

[-]

P00351@reddit

NNCPNET is somewhat of a revival of UUCP. I've seen it last year on LWN and I don't think it caught on.

[-]

Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

Interesting.

In an increasing age of censorship, this kind of network would be useful to implement as a parallel system.

Combine that with Lora radios and other long range radio systems and you have something interesting that says out of the control of the increasingly oppressive governments and companies.

[-]

hfsh@reddit

a sufficiently complex regex was indistinguishable from line noise.

Turns out, 93% of Paint Splatters ar Valid Perl Programs too.

[-]

gramathy@reddit

I really want the perl developers to indroduce 'gggijgziifiiffif' as a reserved word now

[-]

teddybrr@reddit

I like regex crosswords like this one https://regexcrossword.com/

[-]

fatboy93@reddit

You might as well be lol

That's not LOL, I'm just throwing hands up

[-]

P00351@reddit

TBH regex and vi are remnants of the 70's

https://mirko-ddd.medium.com/regex-are-not-the-problem-strings-are-6e8bf2b9d2db

[-]

8fingerlouie@reddit

Not everything old is by definition broken and needs replacement, and both Vim and regex are still well alive.

As for the API proposed in the link, that would be an absolute horror to work with, but I guess with AI doing more and more of the actual coding it wouldn’t matter how horrible I feel it would be.

Not all problems are meant to be solved by using regex, and the more complex a problem becomes, the regex also becomes much harder to read, but for simple text parsing operations it’s hard to beat.

[-]

kenfury@reddit

I had an interview a few years ago that was a more devops role, and the question was roughly "when did you start automating stuff and how so".

I answered perl and regex. The fellow greybeard smiled and nodded. I didn't get the position for reasons, but the look I got was worth it. It was one of respect and we connected for 30 seconds that felt like a lifetime.

[-]

Superb_Raccoon@reddit

REXX.

[-]

vogelke@reddit

That plus XEDIT was the finest tool combination I've ever used.

[-]

CaptainZippi@reddit

gif

I have “health with” Rex on Linux. It Sas Wrong.

[-]

Stosstrupphase@reddit

My mother still speaks regex fluently because of that.

[-]

chrisalbo@reddit

I started 25 years ago and regex was widely used and I had to learn it. So it’s the same for me, it’s in my system. Much younger colleagues see me as possessor of a black magic force, when it’s really not that hard to train. But as a developer perhaps it’s not as important to know nowadays but feel like it’s a must for sysadmin and occasional sql.

[-]

Lammy@reddit

I hate to be That Person but they're really not that hard lol

https://regex101.com/ is your friend!

[-]

throw0101a@reddit

https://regex101.com/ is your friend!

If you want to go Old School, O'Reilly has a book:

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-regular-expressions/0596528124/
https://regex.info/book.html

[-]

feldrim@reddit

It is not 100% spec-compliant though. You can get different results if you use regex101 and pcre2 or grep -E commands.

[-]

Thotaz@reddit

Exactly. I don't even do much primitive text manipulation (I mainly work in PowerShell after all), but even I know the basics of regex. It's only like 12 different characters/character pairs that you have to learn:

^ - Start of line
$ - End of line
\d - Digits
\w - Words (normal a-z characters + numbers + underscore for some reason)
\s - whitespace
Shift - Reverses the meaning of the previous items (so \D means non-digits, \W means non-words, and so on)
. - Any character
() - Capture group
* - Match previous item zero or more times
- - Match previous item one or more times
{X} - Match previous item exactly X times
\ - Escape character

This covers like 90% of my regex use cases.

[-]

not-my-walrus@reddit

Where it gets complicated is when using sed, and -E (or maybe -e?) changes capture groups from being  to (), and also dealing with shell escaping in some cases ($)...

Like, it's not that complicated, but I use it just infrequently enough to forget the details

[-]

goobernawt@reddit

I do hate that \w includes underscore. That's a common text separator in my organization, which means I pretty much can't use \w for parsing out text groups. It's just a little inconvenience but it comes up so often for me.

[-]

Nesman64@reddit

Chess isn't hard, until it is.

[-]

guareber@reddit

Honestly, use it enough times and you do the learn the basics pretty quickly.

:%s/quickly/painfully/gi

[-]

larryseltzer@reddit

There's no need to learn it anymore. Just ask ChatGPT, it's great at it.

[-]

kevin_k@reddit

hahaha yes!

[-]

NorthernMatt@reddit

Tell me about it. You know how many times I've hit escape after editing something in VSCode? Damn muscle memory.

[-]

arensb@reddit

Does VSCode not allow you to rebind keys to your liking or something?

[-]

NorthernMatt@reddit

It does. I've never been bothered enough to do it - it doesn't take too long to reprogram the finger macros

[-]

the_headcrash@reddit

You know how many times I've hit escape after editing something in VSCode?

I can guess, but there is an easy fix for that.There is a vim plugin for VSCode.

[-]

bubba_love@reddit

I love that plugin until they recently forced the copilot tab complete and now i have to press escape like 5 times before it finally takes me out of insert mode bc it cancels the loading auto complete. super annoying.

[-]

herecomethewolfman@reddit

Why would anyone ever open vscode if you know vim?

[-]

woofiewilly@reddit

For a full IDE and not just a text editor.

You can obviously add a bunch of plugins to Vim, or use Neovim and one of the various custom config frameworks that do a lot of the legwork for you, but it's not the most friendly when you just want to feel like you have all the tools one should normally have in an IDE without doing a bunch of research and config tweaking to get things working.

When you need support for a different language or you want a plugin to get a feature you want, you search in the VS Code UI and click install. In Vim / Neovim, you have to look up a plugin and figure out the correct way to install it into your config.

It's not for everyone.

[-]

Nesman64@reddit

Typing a reddit comment and want to backspace a word? Ctrl+w

[-]

Lucky__Flamingo@reddit

That's it. I have a few decades of muscle memory programmed in.

I initially used emacs, but never looked back after switching.

And I still fumble when I want to use the old WordPerfect keyboard shortcuts, but that's a story for another day.

[-]

qdivya1@reddit

To me this is THE major reason for VI over Nano.

Though I teach my junior sysadmins Nano first. When they are fixing broken systems, nano makes more sense as it is less error prone to them.

But in non-sysadmin tasks VIM rules. Luckily I haven't had to break out sed or awk in a while.

[-]

KapperClapper@reddit

My old boss use to say when I was a PFY "vim is for admins and nano is for helmet wearers" I was using nano of course.

[-]

tj818@reddit

dang I still just use regular vi. Started using it way back in the day and just never moved on I guess. Just so used to it

[-]

Unique-Squirrel-464@reddit

On most distros vi is vim just symlinked and available under both names. But I’m with you, I use vi/vim almost everyday. It’s just muscle memory at this point.

Nano is so slow because I keep finding myself using vi commands and then having to fix text.

[-]

theonewhowhelms@reddit

I do this cool thing where I use both, and that means I use neither one well. I constantly find myself typing dd in nano to try to delete a line, and then I’ll try CTRL + x to save changes in vi. It’s great, but at least I’ve only been fighting with it for years 🤦‍♂️

[-]

Michael2A@reddit

If I get eyeballs deep in Unix/Linux for awhile, I'll sometimes find a :wq! in my Word Docs... 🙄🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤪

[-]

theonewhowhelms@reddit

Hahaha that's one I've not done.... yet 😂

[-]

rvbjohn@reddit

I do this with the terminal and command prompt

[-]

theonewhowhelms@reddit

I don't use as many Windows systems now, but yeah same with cmd and powershell lol

[-]

orev@reddit

When vim is started from a vi symlink, it will act like original vi, so even though it's the same binary, the behavior is different depending on how you start it.

[-]

Unique-Squirrel-464@reddit

That’s true

[-]

smileymattj@reddit

In the BSDs, vi is actual vi, separate from vim.

[-]

wimpunk@reddit

Same here. On my first job we only had vim so I learned it and I'm still preferring it.

[-]

Sea-Oven-7560@reddit

it's amazing how many people in our industry do not. I think it's part of the basics, like understanding subnetting. It's going to die when we retire and everyone will use notepad+ and wonder why things don't work quiet as well.

[-]

vgullotta@reddit

Vi user too

[-]

vontrapp42@reddit

If you mean move in to vim, you should try learning it.

I'm fluent in enough of the advanced features in vim that I will hit a wall almost immediately if I find myself in true actual vi.

Change/select/delete inner/outer Block select/insert/replace/delete Change to Hell even just visual select then change iirc.

[-]

tj818@reddit

I’ll get to it at some point 🤣

[-]

wpyoga@reddit

This. I grew up using elvis. But it's not maintained anymore, and newer distros have vim, so.

[-]

Bob_Spud@reddit

Fun fact : vi is probably a symbolic link to vim.tiny that is the way it is in ubuntu and its children.

[-]

BarracudaDefiant4702@reddit

I wouldn't count using nano as moving on... it's more like editing with training wheels when using nano until you can move on to vim. vi is over 20 years older than nano, and nano is 25 years old...

[-]

ArcOfADream@reddit

Same. Years of muscle memory invested and refined.

[-]

skotman01@reddit

Same here. Keep forgetting vim exists. To answer OPs question though, bc vi is on almost every distro without having to specifically install it.

[-]

cheesy123456789@reddit

On most distros, vi actually invokes vim in compatibility mode

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Only_Worldliness3870@reddit

Vim or tiny.vim seems to be on every system that I have used, nano isn't always installed. So at least having some knowledge about vim and how to do some things would be good.

[-]

NoAlcoholWasted@reddit

I don't even know what VIM or NANO is and I've been doing IT for 25 years. Is it some Linux command.

Never used or tried to use Linux.

[-]

TraditionalShape666@reddit

I totally agree with you but there are a few tasks that are quicker and can be automated in a script in a text editor. 60 percent of day is in a gui on windows or Linux. Then about 25 percent of my day is in a CLI and text editor. The rest is other bits.

[-]

recoveringasshole0@reddit

Not a single joke about "They opened it once and couldn't close it so that's what they use"?

[-]

Michael2A@reddit

Nah... If I started some application that I didn't know how to exit, I'd just kill -9 🤪

[-]

gregory92024@reddit

o Funny! :wq

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SmasherOfDaButtons@reddit

My greybeard mentor said that vi/vim is always part of a default install. Nano is installed after the fact.

I still prefer nano, much to his chagrin and much heckling

[-]

OptimusPower92@reddit

I'm pretty sure I've had Nano preinstalled on every Linux machine I've used recently

[-]

greyfox199@reddit

old school unix installs only had vi

[-]

matt_604@reddit

This is correct and what I came here to say. WAAAY back, when I maintained Sun, AIX, Linux and HPUX machines, it was available across them all. It won as the default and I believe, partially because of this, the tradition has continued.

[-]

knowsomeofit@reddit

HPUX. That's a name I've not heard in a long time.

[-]

Michael2A@reddit

I still don't "get" why they used "bdf"... 🙄

Guess it's the same mentality as why Aix used mkuser... With different switches, that it seemed like nobody else used, if you wanted to define the usual parameters at the command line instead of using smit... 🤷‍♂️🤪

[-]

pdp10@reddit

Some high-end HP instruments ran/run HP-UX. I think the SoC, and maybe the motherboard, on those 16000-series units is the same as the entry-level HP 712 workstations. Rather nice little machines; I owned a /80 and upgraded to a /100.

Then quite a few instruments started running x86 Windows. LeCroy was well known for this, but there were others.

And yet more recently, both low-end and high-end scopes are running Linux when they aren't refreshes of older products.

These are all reasons why a site should be happy to run isolated LANs with HP-UX 10.20 from twenty five years ago, and Windows 7 from seventeen years ago. Unless you want all those $50k oscilloscopes to come out of your computing budget.

[-]

brianozm@reddit

I used to teach HP-UX!

[-]

r4x@reddit

🤢🤢🤢🤢

[-]

JodyBro@reddit

Yep 100%. A caveat to this though is that it was only universal across commercial platforms. Can't remember the reason why this was though. Something something POSIX something would be my guess as to the reason.

If someone knows the actual reason why I would love to know!

[-]

arvidsem@reddit

Vi was the full screen text editor that shipped with BSD Unix in 1978. So it has seniority over everything else. And a basic version of vi is tiny, so it was easy to include on systems that had limited storage. Those two things ensured that vi made it into basically everything.

[-]

Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

i used to use vi over a 300 baud connection. vi was extremely efficient at updating only the parts of the screen that needed updating. it was so efficient that 300 baud full screen editing was actually possible.

and then there was/is ed mode

[-]

rasteri@reddit

Yeah even relatively recently I had to do maintenance over Iridium, ed was a godsend

[-]

pdp10@reddit

POSIX requires vi for certain categories of compliance.

But it's also the oldest visual (full-screen, not line-mode) text editor, and always been BSD (permissively) licensed, which are why it was specified in POSIX in the first place.

[-]

brianozm@reddit

Vi was universal across non-commercial uno es. It was developed by Bill Joy working for UCB so was in the earliest BSD (Berkeley Standard Distribution) versions though it probably wasn’t in V6 and some of the Bell versions (they were commercial). I remember my university gave out listings of one of the commercial unixes for teaching about Unix/Linux internal structure in an OS class, then had to recall all the copies due to copyright issues.

The author, Bill Joy, was a genius and wrote the main part of Vi in a few days I think, and finished the rest of it in a short period (can’t recall exactly).

The text editor at the time on the commercial systems was “ed(1)” - a very simple minded editor that was not at all visual.

[-]

greyfox199@reddit

yup, so that, plus c shell with vi editing mode, and baby, you has a vi stew going!

[-]

psiphre@reddit

motherfuckers don't know about emacs

[-]

TU4AR@reddit

The church of emacs has entered the chat.

[-]

djchateau@reddit

[-]

Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

emacs gave me tunnel carpal syndrome because my body wasn’t that of 10 year old, female Chinese contortionist.

[-]

vogelke@reddit

Take my upvote. Straight into my quotes file.

[-]

GodCoderImposter@reddit

Emacs is dead. Long live emacs!

[-]

knowsomeofit@reddit

Escape Meta Alt Ctrl Shift. Because your text editor should also be a full-featured lisp compiler.

[-]

nextyoyoma@reddit

And lots of minimal distros like Alpine for container images. Lots don’t even have bash, let alone nano.

[-]

BitRunner64@reddit

Yeah I still encounter installs with only Vim so it's useful to at least know the basics of it.

[-]

dustojnikhummer@reddit

How to edit basic text, save and exit. It isn't that hard to memorize the 3 steps. I guess for many people the whole command and edit mode will take getting used to.

[-]

DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

I still occasionally come across systems that have vi but not nano. If you're ever doing anything at the console level of ESXi or Synology DSM, neither of them have nano.

[-]

Justin_Passing_7465@reddit

This is why I first learned vi - it was the only editor guaranteed to be available on whatever Linux, UNIX, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, HP-UX, BSD, etc. machine that I sat down at our telnetted into. I had one ticket that required working on a Microsoft Xenix machine and I think even that had vi.

[-]

HayabusaJack@reddit

You just have to add Tru64 and you’ve listed all the systems I’ve admin’d. :)

[-]

thischildslife@reddit

Mine still only have vim because I explicitly remove nano from our corporate build images. ;)

[-]

buzz-a@reddit

Have to say, I'm not a fan of how much utter crap no one ever uses is being bundled in base images these days.

Strongly prefer "just enough to run the package system"

But then, I'm getting gray hairs in my beard and spend a lot of time fixing security issues Devs cause and don't understand, so my opinion is highly likely to be non-standard.

[-]

Frothyleet@reddit

I don't think anyone can win. You include a package - "ugh, bloat!" from everyone who doesn't use it. Exclude a package? "Ugh, why wouldn't that basic utility be in there?"

I tend to lean towards including some more than the bare necessities since, hey, if you're a real purist, why aren't you forking and maintaining your own distribution?!

[-]

dustojnikhummer@reddit

Desktops yes, but servers and containers no.

[-]

skidleydee@reddit

Lots of "appliance" VMs don't have nano. Basically any ova/ ovf would be a good example.

[-]

nuttertools@reddit

It’s very rare to find nano as part of a default install on a server, appliance, or embedded distribution. Desktop pretty likely.

[-]

Ssakaa@reddit

While even busybox has had a solid vi implementation for... ages. I like having functional tools in an initramfs when crap hits the fan.

[-]

vemundveien@reddit

Embedded I agree but it's been on every debian based server I have used

[-]

KingDaveRa@reddit

Ubuntu comes with it in the base install, and I think Debian too.

But everything else has it as an optional package. I use it because I get on with it far better than vim. But I'll use vim if I really have to

[-]

chrisalbo@reddit

I really get nervous when I end up in nano. No yy dd dw and also like for many others with vi I don’t know have to exit haha, have to do a kill -9 of the nano process

[-]

PacNPal@reddit

ctrl+o save, ctrl+x quit

[-]

pick_up_chair@reddit

Now that's what I call intuitive! /s

[-]

NoDoze-@reddit

As if its that difficult or a lengthy process to type: apt -y install nano But this was a thing of the past, nano is default installed now.

[-]

punkwalrus@reddit

That was the case. Nano, which is a fork from Pico, was only part of PINE, the mail program that was not free. Vi, later vim, was on everything. Emacs was only available on "high end, high memory" machines for so long, a lot of people didn't bother. Of course, those older needs are pittance now, bit it's what I'm used to.

[-]

PraetorianOfficial@reddit

emacs = eight megabytes and continuous swap.

You know, from back when a megabyte was a metric butt load of memory and a VAX 11/780 running BSD was lucky to have 1MB.

[-]

pdp10@reddit

EMACS: Eight megs and constantly swapping.

Eight megs was physmem on your median Sun 3/60 workstation in the late eighties, when the phrase implied that you had eight megs and it still paged hard.

[-]

PraetorianOfficial@reddit

I had a 3/60 on my desk in the late eighties with 4M, the big monochrome monitor, a teeny disk, and a tape drive (required to install the OS). I must say, it was a step up from IBM 3270 terminals accessing the mainframe, or the ascii terminals I needed to connect to a BSD 11/780 or VMS 11/750.

[-]

pdp10@reddit

8M+ and the 19-inch shallow-tube grayscale, plus a smaller color tube, was the way to go if budgets allowed. Tape drive was detached after installs. I think the QIC-120 was in use by then. Definitely not yet 8mm helical.

The workstation could take the place of multiple terminals, but tn3270 was not available then as far as I know, so you'd need a hardware 3270 board and to attach via their coax. Since the 3/60 was a single VME board, I don't know how that would have to work.

A few years later was when most of the mainframes got TCP/IP and you could go over LAN. 1992 seemed like the peak of TCP/IP implementations on IBM mainframes.

[-]

PraetorianOfficial@reddit

All very familiar. I worked at a research university so we were on NSFnet early, at the end of 1987. It was because of that I hit up our Director with the "I need better tools to manage and monitor the network and they're all written for Unix--Can I get a Sun 3/60?"

We did get the mainframe used by the majority of campus computer users connected very quickly using 5798-FAL VM software from IBM and a 3rd party Ethernet to Channel controller. And yes, tn3270 was around in the late '80s--multiple 43x80 tn3270 connections were wonderful compared to a single 24x80 3270.

[-]

pdp10@reddit

We did get the mainframe used by the majority of campus computer users connected very quickly using 5798-FAL VM software from IBM and a 3rd party Ethernet to Channel controller. And yes, tn3270 was around in the late '80s--multiple 43x80 tn3270 connections were wonderful compared to a single 24x80 3270.

These specifics are new to me, save the channel controller. I now very much wish we had that 5798-FAL on our air-cooled 4381 running VM!

Alas, it was one of the times and places where my dinosaur herders refused to use their time and budget on OPP: other people's protocols. You'd think their KPIs were directly tied to the height of the stacks of greenbar printouts.

In 2000 or 2001, when I needed better tools to monitor and manage the network, I asked for a $4500 Sun LCD display and got declined. Come to think of it, I think that was list price. I should have gotten a quote with discount, and then submitted it as a P.O.

[-]

hymie0@reddit

Escape Meta Alt Control Shift

[-]

TheDarthSnarf@reddit

I was in the weird boat in starting with both Emacs and Pine on SunOS. Which led me to using Nano for most things when I converted to Linux as it just felt more familiar.

It's not that I can't use vi/vim it's just that I find it clumsy for anything that doesn't require complex editing. 95% of the time I'm simply doing a single line edit in a config.

These days anything complex I'm probably doing on a workstation then using ansible or some other sort of automation anyway.

[-]

sea_5455@reddit

Emacs was only available on "high end, high memory" machines for so long, a lot of people didn't bother.

That probably fed into the old quip: "Emacs is a wonderful operating system. If only it had a better text editor.".

[-]

pdp10@reddit

Considering that modern Emacs is basically a Lisp interpreter, these statements are just about literally true.

[-]

hung-games@reddit

I like the line from the vi/emacs debates of my youth: “emacs is fine, but I prefer Unix as my operating system”

[-]

dwhite21787@reddit

My favorite feature of emacs (when I used it in the 80’s) was that you could open a shell and play adventure or nethack and the game name wouldn’t be shown in a ps or top.

[-]

DrStalker@reddit

I like my text editor to be smaller than my operating system, so I never got into Emacs.

[-]

Mikealcl@reddit

This is my answer. Unless I go back to VAX/Alpha VMS etc, I've always had VI everywhere but Windows. Plus it's amazing.

Asking for help in public while using nano was even something people got crap for on mailing list in decades past.

[-]

DaftPump@reddit

Yup. I prefer nano but can vi if needed. Knowledge is power. :P

[-]

dalgeek@reddit

I worked for an ISP where the sysadmin threatened bodily harm to anyone who used Pico to edit sendmail alias files. At the time, Pico had a hard limit of 255 character lines and it would silently truncate anything longer than that, and since some of the alias lines were long than that it would break sendmail. So I started using vi/vim in 1999 and got so accustomed to it that pico/nano just seem limited.

[-]

andyr354@reddit

I haven't use vi much since college in the mid 90s, but I can still remember how to use it by muscle memory.

The last time I had to use it was on an esxi host.

[-]

kenfury@reddit

100%. I broke in to this profession in the mid 90s, and was breaking in stuff much earlier. Vi was always there, you could count on it. The other packages, not so much.

[-]

MarquisDePique@reddit

Once upon a time this was a decent argument, however it's dated to the point of irrelevancy. Now if you're doing serious text editing in a terminal, you probably bypassed a pipeline somewhere and you're not compliant with change control.

The exception is the new breed of AI driven coders who run up a gnome environment just to code in a terminal, weirdos.

[-]

854490@reddit

But I need it so I can run cool-retro-term

[-]

Phreakiture@reddit

Same. I tolerate vi.

[-]

Siphonay@reddit

I can work my way around vi/vim but I still prefer nano mostly out of habit than anything else, it’s just a reflex to use it at this point. Whenever an older sysadmin asks me "what will you do when you have to work an old unix workstation and only vi is there?" is a straight forward "well I’ll use vi then" lmao, never got what the big deal was

[-]

Alexandre_Man@reddit

Nah, at least on debian and Ubuntu vi and nano are installed by default and vim is not.

[-]

badaccount99@reddit

This. Even our basic Packer builds install VI. Not only install it, just don't ask it to not be installed because it's needed. VIM not so much. Nano not even a bit.

But Nano? It was a part of an email program that I'm pretty sure doesn't support Outlook with two factor or Gmail stuff either.

[-]

anonpf@reddit

Prefer vi since that is what I was brought up on.

[-]

Michael2A@reddit

Because... When a server is down at 03:00...

...You don't want to be bothered installing Nano just to update a configuration file so you can get it back online. (*Every* Server has vi/vim installed by default.)

Context: I started out doing SysAdmin work on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX. Then switched to RHEL/CentOS/Amazon Linux and Debian/Ubuntu.

Yes, everything's containers now. We don't connect at 03:00 to troubleshoot as often anymore. That whole Cattle vs Pets thing. But there's nothing really to be gained by switching now. 😂😂😂

(Oh... And technically, there was one server I connected to once that vi wasn't working on. Ended up using cat/echo to update the files. No, I don't remember the specifics of what was broken.) 🤪

[-]

AfterCockroach7804@reddit

Because they know not everyone knows how to exit vim and it strokes their ego.

[-]

Charming-Medium4248@reddit

I used to prefer nano. Then I started working in environments where I couldn't just install stuff. Now I'm too comfy with vim to go back.

[-]

butter_lover@reddit

vi is always there so if you know those commands you can use it anywhere. anything else is a risk of not having it when you need it.

[-]

TheDevauto@reddit

The ability to quickly find and change things in a file for one.

1,$ s/Old/New/

Things like that. Its also fast and insanely configurable.

[-]

Hotshot55@reddit

1,$ s/Old/New/

Too many keys, I prefer a nice %s/Old/New/

[-]

TheDevauto@reddit

Lol. Mine was from many years ago with vi. That shortcut may have existed then too, but I usually edited specific lines vs whole file.

[-]

a60v@reddit

vi. It is installed everywhere by default, works well, doesn't mangle long lines, and is efficient and quick to use.

[-]

DanTheManK@reddit

In 1995, when I was in your shoes, my then-boss said, you learn vi because nothing else is on the system recovery disk, and you will need to edit the fstab. Period. Since then, vi, sed, grep, diff, serious regex in general, Perl, maybe awk… are the only ways to diagnose and solve difficult problems, especially at scale, on the system/host itself.

[-]

ektat_sgurd@reddit

I'm asking myself the exact inverse question.

I'm using vim/nvim because of the speed but also the plugins system , buffers, splits , available 98% of time, and probably a lot of stuff I didnt think about.

[-]

srbmfodder@reddit

git gud, that's why. It isn't that hard.

[-]

Hot-Meat-11@reddit

Named buffers for starters. And Once you learn even the basics of vi/vim, you'll find that it's so much faster than nano for almost anything,

[-]

Cyberspew@reddit

I know how to use both, but I prefer nano. If it's anything more than basic text editing I'm more than likely going to SCP the file over to my Windows box and edit it in VSCode anyway.

[-]

ZombieJesus9001@reddit

Elitism

[-]

pakman82@reddit

Here I am missing Pico.. worked at a BSD shop many moons ago, and my trainee, disliked vi and installed pico on everything. I can't remember when the nano change occured.

[-]

NP_equals_P@reddit

Ed Is The Standard Text Editor

[-]

dml997@reddit

cat is fine.

[-]

Eulerious@reddit

Because it says so in the bible

For text editing, we strongly recommend learning vi (now seen more commonly in its enhanced form, vim), which is standard on all systems. It is simple, powerful, and efficient. Mastering vim is perhaps the single best productivity enhancement available to administrators. Use the vimtutor command for an excellent, interactive introduction.
Alternatively, GNU’s nano is a simple and low-impact “starter editor” that has on-screen prompts. Use it discreetly; professional administrators may be visibly distressed if they witness a peer running nano.

[-]

bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit

Vim is great, it's the default, everyone should learn it.

Nano is still a better editor because it's less learning to get a proper WYSIWYG that doesn't require a tutorial.

I say that because you should never be logging in to a server and editing config files directly. Everything you do as a sysadmin should be done through proper pre-deployment channels that are tested before they go live to prod. Most people I know aren't going to be using a commandline text editor, and will instead be using something like NP++, Sublime, VSCode, or any of the million other options. If you're relying on a terminal-based editor you're either doing something you're not supposed to, or you're a masochist that prefers to intentionally limit themselves.

[-]

nestersan@reddit

Can't help but preach ehh?

[-]

urbanAdmin@reddit

Kinda surprised noone has mentioned it, the MAIN reason i still reach for vim is for when I try to save a file and it gives me an error i dont have permissions to write. in Vim you can do :w !sudo tee % and it will elevate to root and write the file. cant do that in nano as far as i know. nano is great for when you just need simple things though.

[-]

lendarker@reddit

micro can do that - if saving fails, it actually asks if you want to save as root/using sudo.

[-]

pick_up_chair@reddit

You know, vim is as great for quick and simple things as it is for more complicated things. Once you're comfortable editing files with vim, there is no need to launch nano, ever. Unless you want to confuse your muscle memory every now and then.

[-]

lendarker@reddit

I switched to micro. But then, I used mcedit for ages before. Maybe it's still that DOS "edit" legacy...

[-]

bloatmemes@reddit

Is vim the :x and nano the ^x?

[-]

Boolog@reddit

I was taught by an old school linux admin (big and cold "russian hacker" type). Actually I used Vim only when I was good enough. Before that I had to write full bash scripts from scratch using Vi (no syntax highlight, no help). Nano is just weird for me, all the strange macros

[-]

selfishjean5@reddit

Vim came out first, also it’s what I started on. Not going to go learn something else that does the same job.

[-]

GlitteringClaim5980@reddit

Nano is better for quick, simple edits and when you’re starting out. Vim is better for speed and efficiency once you’re comfortable with it. Most experienced people work with Vim but Nano is totally fine when you just need to get something done quickly.

[-]

simoncpu@reddit

I’m an old fart by tech world standards. I work across multiple operating systems and have learned that vi will always be available on a server when I SSH into it, regardless of whether it is FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or a flavor of Linux. In contrast, ee or nano usually need to be installed. vi has a steep learning curve, but it makes editing fast. I also remember trying to fix a server a decade ago over a 33.6kbps modem, and vi saved keystrokes. It conserved data on an already slow connection.

[-]

idontknowlikeapuma@reddit

Vim is so much faster and more configurable. Nano/pico is just notepad for CLI, like compare notepad to vscode.

I think I may evoke the emacs demons to crawl out of the rubble..: “Vim? What’s that weak shit?”

[-]

arensb@reddit

You rang?

[-]

idontknowlikeapuma@reddit

Vi you evil demon! Vi you straight to null!!!

[-]

inst-ed@reddit

Cos sysadmin are old now. I started on vi It was and still is everywhere, so if you are stuck in some weird system, vi is probably the saviour. But I like and use nano 98% these days

[-]

DheeradjS@reddit

Nano might not be there. Vim or Vi will always be there.

[-]

jajajajaj@reddit

My moment when I thought "I don't think I am going to get more comfortable than this," it was about navigating and reading code. I read so much more than I write, it makes the modal nature of vim make so much sense to me. I use "vim -R" a lot because I also get peace of mind avoiding unwanted changes. Reading a lot helps you write better, too.

Using regular keys for commands, and the way they are so consistently modifiable ( [ optional number ] [ letter [ repeat for "to this line" ] ] [ motion, if applicable ] ) just feels nicer than ctrl-commands. I don't mind using the Ctrl key combinations but doing so much without them just feels more natural to me.

It has me able to navigate to the exact parts of files that I want to read, about as fast as I can wish I was reading them.

hjkl for directions - they're already under my fingers. Everybody should learn to touch type until someone comes up with a better technology for expressing yourself in writing. They sure have NOT yet.

/whatever    search for whatever, as a regex. Regexes are their own great thing
n    next appearance, same search

*    next appearance of word under cursor
#    previous "..."

%    Jump between matched pairs of  []  {}  (), and more
gg   back to top
G    to end

"less" covers a lot of this same ground, but then if I decide that I do want to edit the file after all, I can :se noro or :w! at the end, anyway.

This all assumes you have a .vimrc and pull in $VIMRUNTIME/vimrc.example or whatever, so that things like "hlsearch" are on.

The trivial command line integration is great too, when I'm monkeying around, like with scratch data. :%!jq for JSON is really nice, as is :%!sort, etc. etc.

[-]

sebxjude@reddit

You need to know vi/vim, because they are the default text editors in most distributions. Since I have to learn them anyway, why bother learning and dealing with nano? That’s my thought on it…

[-]

virtualadept@reddit

Nano is an optional software package that never seems to be installed when you need it most (such as when a server has tanked).

If you have to perform surgery on a failed server, as long as the root partition hasn't been trashed there's an excellent chance that /bin/vi is present and functional. Otherwise, you're pretty well hosed and should get ready to reinstall everything.

[-]

mrsxypants@reddit

vim motions. once you learn them nothing comes close

[-]

IJustLoggedInToSay-@reddit

Advice from old person: Everyone should know vi, because it's going to be on the box when you remote in. Nano may or may not be available, but vi always will be.

Even if it's not your favorite, everyone should learn it.

Of course, once you've learned it, you will realize that it's great and probably keep using it (or vim, rather).

Or not. Either way.

[-]

therealmunchies@reddit

The shortcuts, built in features, and usually come packaged with fresh OS. This bled over into my IDE usage, and if I’m not editing in Vscode, I’m doing it in my terminal with vim.

[-]

jstar77@reddit

Team Nano here, I didn’t have to learn Nano I just had to start using it. On the rare occasion when I have to use Vim I have to look up commands and syntax every single time I use it.

[-]

thischildslife@reddit

skill issue.

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thatpaulbloke@reddit

Very much a skill issue on behalf of the developers of Vim. If your app is such an arse to use that people have to look up basic operations in order to be able to exit the bastard thing then you are bad at writing applications. People could learn to drive a car that had four thousand buttons which had to be pressed in specific combinations, but fortunately car designers are (slightly) better at their jobs than that.

[-]

thischildslife@reddit

I wonder how people ever fly planes then my friend.

[-]

thatpaulbloke@reddit

An ironic choice of metaphor since I've flown three different planes and all three had instrumentation that was designed to be easy and reliable to use and whose designs are updated based upon feedback (particularly from air incidents). The indicator that tells you air speed is marked "Air Speed", not ":a-//v--"

[-]

thischildslife@reddit

Yes, yes. They're as simple as "Put it in H!"

Use whatever you're comfortable with dude, but don't get so defensive when someone makes fun of you for it. ;)

[-]

thatpaulbloke@reddit

You seem to have confused explaining why you are wrong with being defensive - if I was being defensive then I'd try to give excuses as to why I can't use Vim, as opposed to "I can use it, but it's one of the most dogshit pieces of software I've ever used, and I've used MCL". Maybe you should go and fly some planes and see if you can figure out that even if the interface for Vim was the best that could be done forty years ago there's no excuse for having never improved.

[-]

thischildslife@reddit

Sounds to me like you're defensive of your inability to use a simple, powerful, and exceptionally valuable tool used my many millions of people for a generation.

I guess the new fangled planes must be as simple as using a Pla-Skool laptop if someone like you can fly 'em. I've ridden in lots of planes & were never once confused by the controls so long as I spent a few minutes looking at the manual. You shoulda' seen the ones we had back in 'Nam.

It don't matter anyway before long you won't even have to use nano. You'll just tell Claude to do it for you if you aren't already.

[-]

thatpaulbloke@reddit

Sounds to me like you're defensive of your inability to use a simple, powerful, and exceptionally valuable tool used by many millions of people for a generation.

That's because you are a very silly person who can't read, particularly you didn't read "I can use it, but it's one of the most dogshit pieces of software I've ever used, and I've used MCL". Now why don't you go and annoy someone else, eh?

[-]

NW3T@reddit

100% it is a skill issue, but if they ain't doing anything too complicated - is it worth practicing the skill?

I'm team vim, my mentor when i was an intern gave me a choice of vim or emacs and I liked the fact that vi was preinstalled on our solaris boxes and our linux boxes. So i started learning it in highschool and typed out all my school essays with it to practice.

In comparison, nano is like using windows notepad to edit text.

Yes it works for basics, and if you just wanna jump to one place in a config file and change a FALSE into a TRUE or uncomment something, nano will work. Vim will technically be faster and in that really tiny scenario, sed would probably be fastest, but nano will get the job done and the tech will go about their day doing something else.

It'll just make us cringe, who know it can be done faster, to watch the person. Kinda like shoulder surfing your parents using the menu and mouse to copy + paste because they can't remember control + c and control + v, or if they can't remember which key is the windows key or where to find it.

But professionals choose what to spend their time getting good at, and we hardly have to edit files by hand anymore in a lot of scenarios, so when some people find themselves on the command line, they install the tool that works like the notepad they're used to. Kind of a shame, but hopefully they've done something that's even more cool than learning vim bindings with the time they've saved by not practicing :D

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thischildslife@reddit

Yes. Yes it's worth practicing the skill. :) I understand that my view is skewed from 35 years in the industry & working on a bunch of different *nixes in that time, but I view a linux admin who: A. Doesn't touch-type & B. Can't use vi/vim. In the same light as I would view an auto mechanic that couldn't use a screwdriver.

I'm team VIM because I prefer to make my edits and move around the file without taking my hands off the keyboard to move a mouse. I get so impatient to cram the code into the keyboard that it was worth taking the time to learn how to get the most out of the tools I had. Hell, back when I started with UNIX, we didn't even HAVE a mouse at the console.

Also, if I'm changing something simple like FALSE to TRUE I'm going to use sed, but there are also other tools like crudini & augtool depending on the task.

[-]

ConsistentPicture583@reddit

Vi is the second most powerful tool in the box.

EMACS is more powerful, but the learning curve and the performance per unit learning isn’t as much

Search for .vimrc or just DM me, and I’ll send you a copy of the one I use. It does a lot of things you wouldn’t necessarily expect an editor to do.

[-]

jameson71@reddit

Because Unix didn’t have nano.

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spitecho@reddit

To instantly erase useless IPv6 lines in a firewall log in Vim all at once, you type :g/::/d

To erase them in nano... ctrl+k every line by hand, I guess?

If you need a numbered list in Vim from 1 to 100, you type :put =range(1,100)

In Nano, you type the numbers by hand.

I dunno, that's just a couple small example. It gets crazier with regex, macros, executing external programs within the current file, etc. Vim feels like driving the Batmobile and Nano feels like scooting across the floor in a cardboard box and going "Vroom vroom!"

[-]

pdp10@reddit

To instantly erase useless IPv6 lines in a firewall log in Vim all at once

Right to jail. Right away. Go tell ::ffff:127.0.0.1 what you've done. And use grep -v next time.

[-]

spitecho@reddit

Email digest logs required by government regulation standards on an IPv4 exclusive network, pasted into Vim, buddypal. Use cases may vary.

[-]

Hotshot55@reddit

To instantly erase useless IPv6 lines in a firewall log in Vim all at once, you type :g/::/d

Sure, but you could also just do that with sed instead. Or even just grep -v '::' | less so you're not overwriting live log files.

[-]

kentrak@reddit

I guess, if you're careful and know specifically what that firewall does and doesn't log? :: is how IPv6 condenses empty octets, so it will condense an empty string to just that, but you'll also see it in completely valid and useful IPv6 addresses if what's showing them condense them.

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LesbianDykeEtc@reddit

This is exactly why I use vi/vim. I can accomplish basically anything in a few keystrokes, without ever having to consciously think about what I'm doing. It's automatic at this point.

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EmmaRoidz@reddit

Me with micro just using my mouse to select the text and hitting delete

Or using the standard desktop environment shortcuts because I don't need another damned syntax

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

do that on a million line log file and get back to me.

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alfamale73@reddit

I’m still on vi after 30 years, and I hate anything that involves colours. Also, fuck developers 😂

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Junior-Tourist3480@reddit

Good Ole reliable. Not even Vim but just Vi.

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ilyas-inthe-cloud@reddit

honestly you don't need to go full vim power user to get value from it. learn i, esc, :wq, / for search, and dd to delete lines. that covers like 90% of what you'll do on a remote server. the real reason experienced people prefer it is just that vim is on every single linux box you'll ever touch. nano sometimes isn't installed. also editing large files and doing search/replace is way faster in vim once you know the basics. i've been doing this 20 years and my vimrc is like 15 lines, nothing fancy. just start using it for simple stuff and you'll pick up more naturally.

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csjc2023@reddit

I have been using vi for over 40 years. Muscle memory has taken over.

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0xDEADFA1@reddit

Nah, screw that, I’m installing nano if it’s not already there

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illiteratebeef@reddit

Shared trauma.

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crankbird@reddit

Ok .. I’m old, but vi (not vim but whatever) was the first editor I used for editing system files and shell scripts etc

After using it for a while I realised the commands I used for thing like find and replace were sed commands

I then started using sed directly at the cli to batch edit scripts and c programs

Combined with find grep and awk they give you a family of tools you come to both love and hate and they epitomise for me “the Unix way” … that began my love of automating all the things

I taught this mindset to my “juniors” back in the late 80s and early 90s … some of them became apostates and converted to EMACS and the cult of functional systems administrators.. beware the lisp

[-]

macgruff@reddit

Even though my first foray was in the use of pico, Vi quickly became my standard. I spent my late twenties switching careers from Physical Therapy to IT, and I built many different distros for my own home lab.

By time I got to a corporate job, I was well prepared to settle into AIX and RHEL standardized configuration builds based on Vi as the main text editor (and of course bash and several Perl scripts up my sleeve, at the ready.

Keep on keeping on!

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atomicpowerrobot@reddit

Just b/c it took so long to learn to use vi/vim, that opening anything in nano causes all kinds of problems for me with muscle memory.

I'm fine using any gui based text editor, but if i'm on the CLI, my brain thinks I'm in vim.

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International_Tie855@reddit

Old school sysadmins are just used to do things in vim since the dawn of time. I've been using vim for about 15years, using nano to but whenever I want to modify a file, I'll just unintentionally type in 'vim xyz'. Tbh there is no real advantage to use anything else than vim

[-]

Kahless_2K@reddit

Rather than try to explain why vim is better, Ill invite you to discover it yourself.

There is a program called "vimtutor". Install it in your diatro, and run it. Its an interactive demonstration of many useful vim features. It should take you about half an hour to go through. It will give you a tip of the iceberg, but is enough to start to see how powerful of a tool Vim is.

[-]

JustinHoMi@reddit

Vim is just as powerful as any gui text editor. So if you want to do anything more than the basics, it’s a good option.

And honestly I use it in windows too. It’s great. But there is a significant learning curve.

[-]

biffbobfred@reddit

It’s whatever you start with. Vi is older than nano. Or pico
Pico didn’t have regular expressions for a long time. Only the nano fork had them.

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Syngin9@reddit

Possibly age but I've been using Nano for 20 years. Maybe just preference?

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NoMoreTapes@reddit

The key commands in VI are *very* quick.

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Nuke_Bloodaxe@reddit

Okay, let's say you are using a remote terminal window in a browser. Now, edit your doc, and start using the nano commands... The ctrl+ ones. Try the same in vim.

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johnyakuza0@reddit

Nano looks like a typical notepad slop when you're sharing your screen

Vim looks way cooler anyways

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bazkawa@reddit

Because you can find vi(m) on every Linux machine. Nano is optional and needs to be installed.

[-]

genericuser642@reddit

Because vim, or at least vi, has been on everything forever. Nano is rarely ever an installed editor. It may be way more user friendly, but you need to know vi still. vi is endlessly useful.

[-]

shadeland@reddit

• What makes Vim more powerful or efficient in real-world scenarios?

If you're editing files on a server often, it's a much quicker way to go about things. Back when I started in the 90s, every server was bespoke, artisanal, and hand crafted. We might throw together a small Perl script to automate some function, but we spent a lot of time in various configuration files.

So vi and then vim (syntax highlighting) was a crucial skillset. A smaller number of sysadmins learned Emacs, but I never found it as useful for my purposes.

Today, however, a lot of config files are auto-generated or manipulated by automation. Most servers aren't hand crafted, they're churned out cookie-cutter style. So the amount of time we spend working in configuration files is a lot less.

In that case, Nano is just fine. I don't want to discourage anyone from learning vi, but I wouldn't say it's a must-have skillset anymore (generally speaking, there's always exceptions).

• Is it just about speed, or are there specific features that make a big difference?

You can just do more, faster, and more accurately.

• At what stage should a beginner start learning Vim seriously?

Do you spend a lot of time editing files on server? Then yes. If you edit a config file once every two weeks, eh... Nano is probably better.

Most of us tend to spend a lot more time in VS code than we do vi.

• Do you still use Nano at all, or is Vim your default for everything?

Vi is my default, but sometimes a system I'm on will default to nano. Most of my stuff is automated or I use vscode, so I don't really care which. My vi skills have still persisted, but nano is sometimes more convenient.

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placated@reddit

You shouldn't be using either in 2026 unless for very simple tasks. Your configs should be in version control and deployed via automation. The automation should be written in an IDE

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TheEnterprise@reddit

But how will I let everyone know about how old school I am?

As someone who's been around awhile myself - the os / software tribalism gives such teen / high school clique vibes.

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Hotshot55@reddit

Your configs should be in version control and deployed via automation. The automation should be written in an IDE

You can still do that with vim, you don't need a million features in an IDE to write code.

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generic-d-engineer@reddit

There are god mode devs in Neovim and tmux flying through code like they are human AI tho. They have version control, folders, autocomplete, and AI built in too.

And all done on the keyboard with zero mouse usage.

It is a sight to behold and try mastery. Does not work for me but it can still be done.

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ByTheBeardOfZues@reddit

My super inefficient workflow is opening VS Code and using Vi in the terminal.

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Bob_the_gob_knobbler@reddit

Baffling how far I had to scroll down to see this sane take.

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Gronk0@reddit

Back in the day, unix systems didn't always include binaries for everything, so you often had to edit config files in order to compile things.

I learned just enough vi to get emacs to compile.

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zero44@reddit

Vi/vim is on every install I've ever touched by default so I just learned to use it.

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beedunc@reddit

I learned VI 45 years ago. I still instinctively know all the commands, that’s why I use it.

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KB4MTO@reddit

I prefer nano.

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iheartrms@reddit

Vi has an expressive language with which to communicate with the editor. Nano does not. That makes all the difference.

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sysadminsavage@reddit

Text editors are one of those things that can cause a holy war among devs/engineers.

Vim is more efficient once you get used to the shortcuts and how to use it. The learning curve is high but you can learn it fast if need be. It's extremely unintuitive for the first time user.

I use nano. It just works and is more intuitive. The keyboard shortcuts allow for similar speed to vim (especially once you get used to the search/find shortcuts). I wish it was included as the default in more Linux distros as vim is always installed but nano isn't guaranteed.

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spinrut@reddit

I have a good friend who is a staunch Emacs guy lol

Ive been on vi/vim since I was forced to learn it in college and its simply stuck ever since

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Hotshot55@reddit

Solaris sparx machines

Do you mean SPARC?

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spinrut@reddit

Sorry yeah..its been over 20 years for me lol

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RavenWolf1@reddit

Your friend probably: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urcL86UpqZc

[-]

antiduh@reddit

Any chance you went to RIT? Lots of vim users and sparc machines there.

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mediaogre@reddit

This is spot on. And my goodness, ctrl + shiift - [enter line number] is my best friend.

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rhubear@reddit

For me, its [line no] "g" to of to where python tells me there's a problem....

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mediaogre@reddit

I owe you one.

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jaredearle@reddit

nano +123 filename opens nano at line 123

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Warm-Sleep-6942@reddit

works for vi since dang near the beginning of time.

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854490@reddit

:[linenum] also works

And I believe the other one is [linenum]gg or at least a single g isn't working for me. See also: 5gk / 5gj (move up/down by 5 display lines (for wrapped text)), 5j / 5k (move up/down by 5 file lines), 5+ / 5- (move up/down 5 lines to the line's first non-blank char (don't preserve column position)). (5gg and :5 should also move to the line's first non-blank char if ":set startofline" or preserve column position if ":set nostartofline")

[-]

brianozm@reddit

Goto line in old-style vi was nnG eg: 53G to go to like 5. Vim added many beautiful extras.

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FlatwormAltruistic@reddit

That is vi syntax. Others seemed to talk about nano here.

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854490@reddit

Oh, I see, must have skimmed past the top-level comment

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Tounage@reddit

My mentor forced me to use Vi and learn the shortcuts. It's one of the most useful skills he imparted.

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rasteri@reddit

I used to get made fun of because I didn't know how to use ed and always used vi. How times change.

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WarpGremlin@reddit

I've had my vim experience go sour from improperly-configured remote terminals/clients. And in those situations, usually one-shots, its faster to just invoke nano than fix the terminal client

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Man-e-questions@reddit

I was a *nix admin 20+ years ago and used vi daily and just got more used to it

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michaelpaoli@reddit

I highly prefer vi over vim, but regardless,

vi is damn powerful and efficient to use

vi is standard

At what stage should a beginner start learning Vim seriously?

Generally best to start with vi, and well (or at least reasonably) learn it. About the only case that makes more sense to first learn nano, if if they want to be a beginner forever, and will never more than quite rarely need or want to edit a text file.

And yes, with my highly experienced vi brain and fingers, not too atypical, I'll be wrangling vi on screen in front of a coworker, and they'll be like, "Wow! How'd you do that! Teach me!" Yeah, that ain't never gonna happen with nano.

[-]

Stonewalled9999@reddit

I prefer nano. Maybe I’m not a real Sysadmin 😋

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thatpaulbloke@reddit

I hate both Vim and Nano, so I assume that I'm a mere user.

[-]

nmsguru@reddit

True Ninjas use VI.

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courage_the_dog@reddit

I always had a harder time exiting nano than vi/vim. I never understood the whole "omg im stuck in vim 4ever" meme.

Also it was always pre installed and i just got used to it from the get go, about 20 years ago.

[-]

The-Jolly-Llama@reddit

10-year linux hobbyist here. I'm team Nano and I've never felt held back by it at all. if I need to do complex editing I just pop back to the terminal and `sed`, `awk`, `grep` to my heart's content.

[-]

karyhead@reddit

vim? vi? Harrumph. ed or die

[-]

Fr0gm4n@reddit

I love that mwl wrote a full, legitimate, book on using ed as an April Fool's joke: https://mwl.link/ed-mastery.html

[-]

SaintEyegor@reddit

Meh. cat > filename and close the file with a ^d

[-]

SexBobomb@reddit

a magentized needle and a steady hand

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Cyhawk@reddit

I use butterflies.

[-]

keijodputt@reddit

Meh. copy con program.exe and close the file with \^Z

/s (just in case)

[-]

ukulele87@reddit

Well, i remember when i was first starting with linux nano was the easy option too.
In my case its vi/vim because its preinstalled virtually in any linux server youll manage, and you wont be installing nano each and everytime you need a text editor.
Take the time do the jump now, you wont regret it.

[-]

chrisgreer@reddit

Once you tried to learn ed, vi was such an upgrade it didn’t matter the learning curve.
Now so many years later vi really is muscle memory. :wq

[-]

Javlin@reddit

Learn just 3+ shortcuts or commands and you will suddenly be faster in vim.

vimtutor

:help - Read this.

Searching for something? Type / and your search. e.g. /findme Press n for next.

Delete a whole line? Press dd.

$ end of line, 0 beginning of line

[-]

A_Nerdy_Dad@reddit

I use Nano for visuals and because I can manipulate it faster than anything.

For scripts and automation I use vi.

[-]

badtux99@reddit

Because vi is installed on every Unix/Linux system everywhere while nano is not. Why learn how to use a text editor that may not be installed on every system I touch? Plus if I am on Windows I can install vi on Windows using scoop or etc and have the same text editor in both Ubuntu WSL and Windows Terminal.

[-]

Knukun@reddit

historically, you'd be 100% sure you'd find vi or vim on all installation. Linux? Unix? A gasp Mac? Solaris? No matter what, you'd knew vim was there, so it made sense learning that. Then for some people it become second nature after a while.

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AudioHamsa@reddit

honestly it freaks me out when I get dumped into a default editor (thanks Fedora) that isn't vi(m). 25-30 years of command line life will do that to you.

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Dabnician@reddit

Doesnt fedora require a dist upgrade every 3 months?

[-]

dustojnikhummer@reddit

6 months for each major version. I find it interesting anyone runs Fedora Server.

[-]

thatsmyusersname@reddit

I prefer vscode. Because i can

[-]

Relevant_Candidate_4@reddit

How does that work in the terminal? Or does all your servers have a desktop?

[-]

thatsmyusersname@reddit

Some think it's a luxory to have a gui. I don't.

[-]

Relevant_Candidate_4@reddit

How do you connect to your hosts, if you dont mind me asking?

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thatsmyusersname@reddit

Vnc, but this sucks, and teamviewer. Because we already have it in the company, so there are no additional costs

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Relevant_Candidate_4@reddit

Ok, and why not ssh? Are these Windows Hosts?

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thatsmyusersname@reddit

Convenience. Same as the windows environment

[-]

shyouko@reddit

Newbies cant quit vim, I can't quit nano without looking.

You learn vim with muscle memory and it is so much more versatile.

[-]

QPC414@reddit

Had coworkers destroy critical config files by using nano, be cause it inserted careage returns and ither control characters in to the text config.

Have used ED on some old hosts when VI was not installed.

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DisMuhUserName@reddit

Experienced == old. We learned on vim.

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speedeep@reddit

It is always there.

[-]

Tai9ch@reddit

This is a classic tradeoff of learning time vs task efficiency.

Should you rename five files by hand, or should you learn to write a script to rename the files? How about if it's a thousand files?

Should you edit your youtube video with the built-in editor on the YouTube website / app or should you find and learn a stand-alone editing program?

Should you learn to touch type, or can you just finish today's typing task by looking at the keyboard and hitting keys with two fingers?

How to answer is always basically the same: If this task is rare for you, then it might be most efficient to do it the easy way today and skip learning. If the task is common, then investing several hours into learning now (and possibly taking a short term productivity hit adapting to the new method) will pay off over time.

As a sysadmin you'll spend a lot of time editing text files, including frequently needing to do moderately complicated edits. Learning vim should certainly be on your list (after learning touch typing if you haven't done that yet).

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f0gax@reddit

I prefer nano. But I maintain my vi skills just in case. At least enough to make simple edits.

[-]

dudeude@reddit

Oh, the old Nano vs Vim debate..

[-]

Imaginary-Pound-1353@reddit

Not me, still installing and using Joe

[-]

pdp10@reddit

Turns out to be extremely performant.

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WetMogwai@reddit

That was the editor I used before I discovered vim. It was so long ago that I can't remember why I chose it. I think I've run it once since 2001.

[-]

xSean93@reddit

I fucking hate Joe lol

[-]

Alexandre_Man@reddit

Joe Mama?

[-]

Zerc66@reddit

First experience with Linux was Slackware and have been using Joe ever since. I hope it never dies

[-]

ucemike@reddit

key commands as they were the same as in Turbo Pascal

SAME! Lol, crazy.

[-]

ucemike@reddit

Ok, there are two of us out there ;)

[-]

Delta-9-@reddit

As some have said, some version of Vi is always available on any *nix system (including macOS). For a sysadmin, that's useful because you have a good text editor available with zero configuration, or you have a familiar text editor even on a host you've never seen before.

Nano is widely available, also, granted. I think every major distro packages it by default for their desktop and server flavors. However, if you start from a minimal flavor or use a distro that prioritizes customizability (Arch, Gentoo), it likely won't be in the default packages. Even these will have Vi, though.

This alone is reason enough to at least be familiar with basic movements and commands.

Whether it's your primary editor or not will come down to how much you like the modal editing model (and how Vim implements it cf. Kakoune or Helix). If Vim doesn't end up your favorite and someone gives you shit for it, tell 'em to pound sand. One of the best sysadmins/developers I've ever worked with did everything in nano, and that dude could code circles around me with my Vim setup that included 500 lines of custom configuration and literal months of my life to put together.

[-]

discosoc@reddit

I just use vi. It’s on every and not that hard.

[-]

ocdtrekkie@reddit

As an only occasional user of CLI text editors I strongly prefer to use nano. But that's the cool thing, we can use the tools that best align to our use case.

[-]

EduRJBR@reddit

Without really knowing what I'm talking about, I always though Vim was intented for automation, even if the user is using it directly. For reading text that is inside a file while you edit it, like comments with instructions, you use Nano or something similar, although I guess some people may force themselves to practice with Vim.

[-]

IAmSnort@reddit

Muscle memory

[-]

RickRussellTX@reddit

Checks post for emacs. Emacs not found, disregard post.

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yayster@reddit

…wait until you learn about emacs.

[-]

iwasthefirstfish@reddit

Coming initially from windows, I prefer nano. That said I don't often edit things manually anymore so shrug

[-]

halon1301@reddit

It's the old editor wars, vim or emacs, now with nano in the mix.

I've been using vi/vim since I started using linux back in high school almost 25 years ago (holy shit that made me feel old). It's what my teachers recommended, it's what the very few online guides recommended, and so, it's what I learned. It's almost always there, unless it's an extremely trimmed down install, and now it's just second nature to type vi <file>, I've got the most command commands I use memorized, so now it's just the go to.

Nano really only became popular with Ubuntu's rise in popularity, it's been installed by default in every Ubuntu system for as long as I can remember.

[-]

Mandelvolt@reddit

I use vi because typing vim or nano is too many characters.

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johnnysoj@reddit

B/c when I learned unix, the only thing out there was vi. That being said, once you master it, its pretty easy to get around using nothing but quick shortcuts.

[-]

XTA@reddit

i use mc a lot so i ise mcedit from it...

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DontTakePeopleSrsly@reddit

The syntax highlighting is superior to nano. It really helps find errors in files like unterminated comments, unclosed quotes, etc. it’s good at string replacements, but I really prefer sed for that (unless it’s a one off).

[-]

Eug1@reddit

Don’t know if it has been mentioned yet but vi is available on nearly every Linux/Unix based system. I noticed it when I had to ssh into a Unifi access point to check something. So I think that it would be helpful to even just know the basics in case.

[-]

trimalchio-worktime@reddit

That one time nano decided to put a newline in an fstab because the line was long.

[-]

ohfuckcharles@reddit

🤷‍♂️ it was emacs or vi when I installed redhat 4.2 on my 486 dx4-100… I still hate emacs.

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sabre31@reddit

To show off. Nobody needs to use VIM anymore it had its place back in the day but not anymore.

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NotAMotivRep@reddit

Bullshit. The ecosystem is full of fantastic tools. It's just as capable of an editor as any IDE, and since it's a terminal-only program, it runs at a fraction of the memory requirements of VSCode or IntelliJ/IDEA

[-]

Ftmiranda@reddit

Because "This is the way"

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pdp10@reddit

Nano works fine if present, but vi is our SysAdmin editor:

Here is one of my little peculiarities: for all that I use it a lot, I don't really like vi. I use two or three editors on a routine basis (and at least one more every so often), and out of all of those, vi is my least favorite. But it is also the editor that I use the most, because over time it has become what I'll call my sysadmin editor.

Why I have drifted into using vi all the time is a roll call of its virtues as a sysadmin editor. First, it is ubiquitous; if I am on some random, un-customized system, I know that I can type vi and get something usable. Second, vi works in minimal environments, in that it doesn't need X, and will thus work fine over basic ssh connections and on the console (either normal or serial). Finally, vi starts fast.

whether learning Vim early is worth it

Knowing the basics will make you look good and serve you well. How to exit with or without saving; how to move between insert mode and command mode, how to delete a whole line (dd), and how to merge lines (J). Knowing how to search is also very useful, because the slash (/) method of searching is widely used elsewhere, like more.

[-]

nmincone@reddit

I use Micro won’t turn back.

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Frozen_Gecko@reddit

I just started out with Vim and never really had a reason to change, so I just kept using Vim.

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lmbrjck@reddit

Mostly because I can perform common operations using vi/vim faster than in any other tool. I use the nvim plugin in vscode. Anything else feels clunky to me. Once you get it, it's hard to use anything else.

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Lazy_Preparation6206@reddit

Because I'm forced to use Vim before then it became my another limb

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waces@reddit

That’s not true as “most”. Firts of all most of them prefer powershell :) there are some admins who started their career in the old days and then vi was the default. Times are changing as of now at least the same amount uses nano

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Pigbin-Josh@reddit

I used to use micrograms, because it was user friendly. Some consultant told me to learn vi, which seemed archaic by comparison. His argument was every system always has vi. It's the lowest common denominator. I took his advice, made the effort and still use it to this day. It's been an advantage many times over the years, to be able to quickly edit some config file on an unfamiliar system.

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-Bearish@reddit

Because vi/vim is always there. You don't always have the option of installing alternative editors like nano, etc., to do your work.

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dektol@reddit

I use nano like a pleb but I know how to do the basics in case I find myself somewhere I can't/shouldn't install nano.

i w or w! q

I think! 😂

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scriptiefiftie@reddit

Well everyone has mentioned all the benefits but one thing I like the most about vim is modes. I can do vim and even if I type gibberish, it won't work until I press "I". I love it.

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kdmclean@reddit

Pico then nano. This is the way.

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rire0001@reddit

Okay - decades of *nix experience/exposure here - but vi is muscle memory. I don't even have to think about the commands - my fingers just do shit. Nano doesn't add anything to my world. But again, I have been using it since mid-90's when I downloaded source from Usenet and built my first kernel - more to be able to say, 'I did a thing' than anything else.

[-]

Skyhound555@reddit

Learning how to search and navigate in vim was a gamechanger.

I still use nano, because I find it has less clunkiness when pasting from the notepad. So if I'm throwing together a simple file together like an authorized key file, I'll use nano. I just use Vim for big config file edits.

Though I am also a psychopath who occasionally will cat >> something together, so I feel like it's more of a "right tool, for the right job" kind of deal.

[-]

Strifebringer@reddit

:set paste! is your friend

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FlatwormAltruistic@reddit

Ive been using it without an exclamation mark.

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Strifebringer@reddit

the exclamation point just toggles from one to another. if it's on, it turns it off too. so I just always run it that way

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ewok251@reddit

Never knew about this! Thankyou. Going to be a game changer for me, especially with fussy python code

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Zealousideal-War6372@reddit

Vi is available everywhere, nano might need a network connection to get the package.

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IslandSno@reddit

Was told 35+ years ago, learn vi, every Unix and Linux system has and will have it forever…this was good advice…

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Charming_Raccoon_457@reddit

keyboard shortcuts. Lots of them. neovim is my go to, vim if neovim isn't installed or I'm just doing a one off on a remote system. neovim is based on vim, but has a deep plug in support system.

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i_like_people_like_u@reddit

The proposition that most admins prefer vim blows my mind.

I was taught vi first in the 90s and was not told that an easier option existed.

Apparently we have come around full circle or something.

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Sudden_Eye_1990@reddit

I think it’s culture also Linux users need to do things the hard way.

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crcerror@reddit

There used to be a time when there was no nano and you had to KNOW vi. Even while nano was available on some systems, inevitably, you’d end up logging into that one old server and you wouldn’t know how to function. Especially, in the Unix world.

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Creshal@reddit

Vim's plugin systems makes it a fully featured IDE, so that's why it tends to end up being more useful than nano as you get used to them. And on the primitive end, basic vi is available basically everywhere, so the basic key bindings are always useful.

That said, these days, you probably might as well get started with vscode and its SSH integration. End result is about the same, except you don't get a knot in your brain trying to get used to it.

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P00351@reddit

As a vi user, I once watched a colleague painfully go to the end of a long line, letter by letter in nano. So I ended up telling him: "I don't care which editor you're using, I just can't accept that you don't use enough keyboard shortcuts"

[-]

osdamv@reddit

In my case it was a moment where I understand vim, once you get the hang of the motions and the commands are dead simple and easier on environments without a mouse or clipboard. Try vimtutor

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Dabnician@reddit

I have so many hats i might understand vim for a month only to never touch it for a year and forget it all over again by the next time i use it.

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Infinitekork@reddit

+1 for vimtutor. Vim has a lot of options but I only bother to remember stuff that I actually use. Vimtutor gives you a solid base to start using vim over nano.

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andpassword@reddit

I'll tell you one other perspective: Vim will open and edit files that used to choke out Windows Notepad or bring it to a crawl, and search/replace (not to mention powered by regex!) is orders of magnitude faster.

That's not usually an issue with a powershell script or a few lines of code, but sometimes you're faced with a 184MB log file and you just have to open it up and start looking.

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Conscious_Cut_6144@reddit

I strongly prefer nano.

For me the case for vi is just that embedded systems are often built without nano.

At this point, if I’m doing something complex enough that nano doesn’t work… I’m just getting Claude code to do it…

[-]

websvc@reddit

It's powerful than nano. But for the day to day operations nano is more than enough, you can search and replace etc.. Unless you're actually developing in fucking console you really don't need Vim.

At the end is a matter of preference/show off I guess.

I didn't feel the urge of Vim for last 20 years.

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Infinite-Land-232@reddit

Not to be a 'NIX snob but real sysadmins use vi on a box with a proper OS.

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spin81@reddit

First of all, just an aside but I hear good things about Micro. You might check that out as another alternative to Nano.

At what stage should a beginner start learning Vim seriously?

There's no need to wait. What I did was learn the absolute basics first and then learn a small thing at a time. Delete a line. Replace a word. Replace something between a pair or parentheses. Now I have a decent skillset that serves me well for my day job.

If you do want an actual answer to your question though I'd say the stage at which you're finding yourself having to edit text files on a terminal fairty often.

Do you still use Nano at all, or is Vim your default for everything?

Being used to Vim, I find Nano to be clunky and much more difficult to use. So in a CLI envronment my go-to is Vim. If I can, though, I reach for VS Code.

Would love to hear your experience and whether learning Vim early is worth it 🙏

I think it can be worth it if you spend a lot of time editing text files on the CLI. If not I don't know that it's worth the effort, because of the learning curve.

It pays off if you stick with it and learn it the way I did: don't learn too much, and just keep using it. Like any skill, it atrophies if you like take a course or watch some videos and then not get your hands dirty with it. If you don't have to use a CLI text editor often, TBH you're fine just using nano and letting the haters hate. Or look into micro - I haven't yet but I hear it's good and very easy to use, and I bet it's in the repos of all the major distros.

[-]

Rob_W_@reddit

I started on Linux first (Slack 1.0) and used pico first, but ended up working on commercial UNIX (usually AIX) where pico/nano weren't installed.

That being said, I've been using vi(m) for quick edits almost daily for 30 years and I'm far from an expert at it.

[-]

Kurgan_IT@reddit

Vim is much more powerful, you really can do a lot of things in vim. Vim is also compatible with vi, the editor that was standard in older Unix systems since the 80s or so.

Nano came much later and indeed is simpler, but once you know how to use vi / vim, why use nano?

Every old sysadmin like me will tell the old sysadmins from the new ones by looking at 2 things:

Old sysadmins never specify "sudo" because they usually work directly as root (su - and then you go on as root, as opposed to sudo on every command)

Old sysadmins always use vi, vim or rarely emacs. No one would ever use nano or pico

So when I see someone write "sudo nano" in a tutorial, I know they are not old like me. (and I suppose they are not good enough, even if they actually are)

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DaRealBen@reddit

I even prefer vi because I don’t need more.

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jasondbk@reddit

How cold you want more? It does everything.

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Horror-Deer-3331@reddit

I use vi instead of nano because it is less letters to type.

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jasondbk@reddit

Yeah that’s like a 50% savings on time!

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Kamwind@reddit

With posts like this does it mean emacs is dead?

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brianozm@reddit

Pretty much yes, though emacs will probably never truly die. It was maybe the first ever IDE, if not first, close to it. Im sure there’s a group somewhere supporting it, and I think Stallman is still alive?

[-]

scotchtape22@reddit

Vim is fast enough, easy enough (especially if all you are doing is modifying .ini files), and is almost 100% garunteed to be on whatever you are mucking around with.
If you are a dev in a environment you have set up, spending time in nano is fine, but if you've already learned vim there isn't much reason to try and get adept in another editor.

[-]

charlyAtWork2@reddit

Team Joe's Editor

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packetheavy@reddit

Good lord did I have to scroll a long way to find a fellow joe user.

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VpowerZ@reddit

Nano is a notepad.exe for the terminal. Vim is power tool optimizing work and infinite features.

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aslihana@reddit

when you ssh into a server, like left from birth of christ, there is no nano. this can be my answer, one and only as solid.

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HayabusaJack@reddit

Been doing this since 81 or so and Unix and Linux since around 93 (a little Vax before that though). Drop me into nano and I’m looking for the exit and updating my .profile or .bashrc to add

export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi

Get yourself a vi coffee mug :)

[-]

Transmutagen@reddit

I add the VScode shortcut to my shell path and just use that now. The only exception is when I need to edit tge sudoers file, but nowadays I just add an entry to sudoers.d and call it a day.

Command-line editors have their uses, but I guess I don’t have those needs anymore.

[-]

DrCrayola@reddit

Because him is everywhere

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01011110101101010010@reddit

I usually use vscode or notepad++ or the like, then scp or sftp the file to the Linux or Unix system.

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Normal_Choice9322@reddit

I only ever use nano

I'd sooner do my editing outside, upload to home directory and move it than use vim

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likebike2@reddit

Because Nano is for babies.

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mkmrproper@reddit

I think I would use vi/vim more if I don’t have to dislocate my fingers every time I try to do something :)

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kevin_k@reddit

Twenty years ago the debate was emacs/vi. Moving to vi was painful.

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dagamore12@reddit

vi > vim > nano.

At least in my use cases, mostly because of 30 odd years for working in vi, and it is by default on almost every machine I work on, some systems you have to admin dont have other 'nicer' editors, like working esxi from the command line vi is there, nano is not, get in to the command lines on netapps same thing, same as with most(all?) cisco devices they just have vi/vim but not nano.

Some of the really light builds also dont have it, and as we get more and more in to containerization of systems/services you also have the same issues, specifically built containers that only have to do X and have to be as small as possible and fast as possible with the least amount of floating overhead, yeah they dont have it either.

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The_NorthernLight@reddit

Main reason for me, nano requires to be specifically installed on most *ix flavors, vi is native. Im not against nano or anything, i just use what is available and ready.

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5141121@reddit

For me, vi is just my default editor, and when I'm working it's even the default command-line editor (AIX ksh).

I'm more efficient with it because I know the shortcuts via muscle memory, and with nano I just don't have that.

I will say that :wq is faster than Ctrl+x then 1 for yes because it's 1 operation instead of 2-3.

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WindowsVistaWzMyIdea@reddit

As a manager said to me years ago while I was in Nano, "you still use the kid's editor?"

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shokk@reddit

vi for all

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kytosol@reddit

Vim.

Mostly because I'm old and refuse to change.

[-]

eastamerica@reddit

I grew up with Vi and love the Vim.

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MacMemo81@reddit

I went vi -> pico -> nano. Only time I do not use nano is on systems it is not installed.

[-]

Cley_Faye@reddit

Even for basic usage, vim is great. Moving around, searching, replacing, folding, common operations like replacing stuff in markers, multiple buffer for copy/paste, macro sequence repetition, etc. are all a lot of very basic tool at your fingertip.

One good feature is the ability to just run the current file/selection through another program. Need to edit a JSON file? Run %!jq . and it is formatted in the editor, for example. Pretty neat. And once you start using it, commands makes a lot of sense (downside: you'll never get the "how do I quit vim" meme posts afterward).

You don't even have to dig too deep in the arcane of vim; I've been using it for decades at this point and when I see what some coworkers do it feels like I've only scratched the surface, but even at that level, opening a file in a basic notepad (or nano, in this case) it feels extremely constrained.

[-]

Opening-Direction241@reddit

Starting out in Linux, began with nano b/c it was easier. Just _1_ experience of nano breaking something b/c it word-wrapped some text lines - never again (even after I found out about nano -w). I made the investment with vim (started by learning enough of what I needed to do and get out), have not regretted. It's basically muscle-memory now.

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divad1196@reddit

Vim is more powerful.

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nof@reddit

When I did my Solaris certification course there was only the vi editor on the system. Before that I used pico. I have no idea what happened between 1998 and now when pico seems to have been replaced with nano - despite them seeming to be identical.

Git off mah lawn!

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Marty_McFlay@reddit

Because I'm old enough that vi was what we used in college. I played with Nano in 2020, it didn't offer anything I couldn't already do, so I stuck with Vi. But I only ever seriously used RHEL and CentOS.

[-]

jailh@reddit

See other comments for more advanced détails.

For me the most important thing is the need to switch to edit mode to change anything in vim. You are sure you will not ad a random character by error while just browsing your file.

[-]

ekara@reddit

Why? because of "yank, put, gg and G"

vim is about 20x faster than using nano/pico, and the learning curve isn't that steep either, a dedicated afternoon and anyone can learn movement, yank/put and other basics

[-]

Ohrgasmus1@reddit

try micro text editor

[-]

rjchau@reddit

• What makes Vim more powerful or efficient in real-world scenarios?

Vim is more powerful - Nano is a fairly simple text editor that (last time I looked) had the basics in the same way that Notepad (at least in the earlier releases of Windows 10 and older versions) is a fairly simple text editor.

Vim has a lot of features - to be honest, a good portion of which I don't use.

The truly honest reason is that being able to use Vim is something of a badge of honour. There is a learning curve, but to be functional in it, you don't have to learn much beyond going in to insert or append mode, exiting back to command mode and :q! to exit, discarding any changes or :wq to save and exit.

• Is it just about speed, or are there specific features that make a big difference?

For me, Vim is pretty much just a quick and dirty editor. I was forced to learn it in the days when I was building and supporting Asterisk phone systems (back in the days of version 1.2 and 1.4) and have just kept using it ever since.

• At what stage should a beginner start learning Vim seriously?

Depends what you mean by "seriously". I've been using Vim on and off for the better part of 20 years, but still don't do much beyond basic editing.

• Do you still use Nano at all, or is Vim your default for everything?

Vim's the default. I found I actually preferred Vim once I got to know how to use it - though don't ask me why.

[-]

LemonMainwaring@reddit

I only use vim when I have to otherwise nano all the way!

[-]

MrElendig@reddit

nano used to default to hardwrap breaking anything newline sensitive...

[-]

03263@reddit

I always used nano and barely learned how to use vim. It's not a big deal, I don't edit a ton of stuff on the command line, easier to use an ssh mount and my local GUI editor (sublime text btw, still the GOAT)

[-]

ItyBityGreenieWeenie@reddit

vi/vim are much more powerful with a learning curve. Much like learning the command line to begin with. nano is quick and dirty, very intuitive, but if you use it professionally every day it is like having one arm tied behind your back. A really quick change is easier with nano at first, but once you learn vi, complex changes are much easier and simple edits are just as quick. But it does take awhile to get the hang of.

It is perfectly fine to use nano/pico at first, but if you use it often, you would likely benefit more from vi. Once you are comfortable with vi, nano won't matter to you. Put another way: nano makes you dependent, requiring many more key strokes, vi frees you... but it isn't easy to learn.

don't get me started with emacs :)

[-]

JohnnyricoMC@reddit

Nano is beginner friendly but it's not a core utility (neither is vim but more on that later), so you can't assume it's present on all *nix systems you may come into contact with.

Vi is a core utility and part of the POSIX standard. This means near-certainty it is available on most unix-like operating systems. Even on very restricted systems and even *nix based appliances that offer some form of shell access. So you have a command that's ubiquitous, and a user experience that's relatively consistent across most of these systems.

Vim is was originally a vi clone, but has gained functionalities far beyond it to earn it the name "vi improved". On several distros vi is just an alias or symlink to vim because of this (despite not being posix-compliant even in vim's compatibility mode). But if you can work with vim, you can work with the real vi as well, that's what matters.

[-]

Marakuhja@reddit

Two reasons. One: Vim is cooler, because it's harder. Two: Knowing how to use vim yields more benefit.

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evilneuro@reddit

I went from vi to elvis to vim. nano didn’t exist at any of those times. i fear change.

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smiba@reddit

Age, it's what was there when they started imo

I either use vi or nano, I prefer nano because that's what I've always used but sometimes systems don't have it and then vi will do.

I assume if you did a study on this that older generations are more likely to use vi or vim

[-]

rankinrez@reddit

Vim is just more powerful to use once you get used to it. You can be more precise.

It existed before pick/nano was on most systems, so many us were forced to learn it.

To me I think it’s something you get used to and then appreciate.

[-]

WorldsWorstSysadmin@reddit

vi filename +67
shift + g
dd
esc, esc, :q!
9dd
d$
dG

view filename

Honestly, if I need to make a TON of regex changes to a file, I just :

sed -i 's/string1/string2/g;' filename

If I want to READ a file, I use view.

I can truncate a file with dG, and if I truncated from the wrong spot, just esc, :q!

Nano is ok. If I'm doing git commit, I put in my commit message and ctrl +o , ctrl + x like any normal non-sysadmin.

VIM lets me make structural changes to a file quickly, safely, and forces me to pay attention to what I'm doing.

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It_Is1-24PM@reddit

Personally, I prefer nano, or even good old joe, but the thing about vim is that it’s usually available on every machine, regardless of the distro or how old it is.

[-]

haggur@reddit

We've always used vi and every Linux box has it, so why learn anything new?

[-]

Outrageous_Drink_533@reddit

This is the way

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IdealParking4462@reddit

Macros can make quick work of tedious tasks, and the power of the repeatability of the navigation and editing commands. Once you get your head around it and move past the basics, I think it's the most powerful editor out there.

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crimson-gh0st@reddit

I use vi/vim. Nano wasn't around when I started learning Linux. I'm not trying to learn a new text editor.

gif

[-]

854490@reddit

This is the ideal text editor. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like

[-]

kolpator@reddit

Decades ago, when I was still a junior engineer, I ran into a very practical limitation. Many enterprise systems like ibm aix or certain Linux distributions ( sles rhel) came with vi/vim preinstalled, but not nano. On top of that, most servers in the data center didn’t have internet access, so installing additional tools like nano wasn’t an option. (I admit installing anything to customer’s server also big hassle…)

That’s when I told myself: “I need to learn vi.” So….. vi/vim wasn't chosen because it was easier or better, but because it was always available. I know its such a dummy reason… but still. (;

[-]

RockNRollNBluesNJazz@reddit

You are not building strong Linux fundamentals if you don't know vi: what it is, why it's there, what its benefits over others are and most importantly, how to exit it smoothly and use ed instead.

[-]

Tsukurimashou@reddit

Its like comparing notepad with sublimetext in terms of features

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avipars@reddit

Cause they won't quit

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fdeyso@reddit

Mcedit, because someone couldn’t exit vim and restarted the vm via the hypervisor instead, so all my knowledge articles reference mcedit and i meticoulusly install it on every linux we have.

[-]

layyen@reddit

Dont get it to, whenever I mist use vi or vim, I am thinking about throwing the pc out of window

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ASDFGamer22@reddit

I like Vim because almost every GUI editor has a vim mode. So i don't habe to learn different keybindings, when im using vscode intellij vor eclipse

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sobrique@reddit

Habit. vi is part of POSIX thus is certain to be available even on cut down/minimal installs.

Nano isn't.

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GreenWoodDragon@reddit

Vim is OK but I much prefer nano.

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nlfn@reddit

/me in the corner still using pico.

[-]

jaredearle@reddit

My alias for sudo nano is sp because it used to be sudo pico. I’m old.

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EmmaRoidz@reddit

I'm using micro because sane short cuts like ctrl C actually copies etc

[-]

homepup@reddit

Ditto...

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LazyTech8315@reddit

Wow, that brought me back to the days of using pine in a dumb terminal I set up for fun. Lol

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Longjumping_Gap_9325@reddit

That's what I first stumbled into using back in the early Slackware days

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elatllat@reddit

vimdiff, LSP, etc

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_gneat@reddit

VIM is more efficient once you learn it.

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parasit@reddit

vi/vim/nvim (though they're different applications), despite their slightly higher entry barrier, offer far more features in their basic version than Nano ever did. And I'm not talking about things like syntax highlighting, spell checking, and thousands of others available through mods and third-party add-ons. I'm talking about the ability to edit text without touching the mouse. Using a few logical and self-explanatory shortcuts, editing is much faster. Here's an example I use almost constantly:

ci" - (change in "") lets you change text in quotation marks without selecting or searching for the beginning or end.

ct: (change to : ) changes the text from the current position to the : character, etc., etc.

Of course, the last character can be any character; you can change the contents of brackets or entire paragraphs with a single command.

There are many such shortcuts, so many that I don't even know them all, but I quickly learned that this is much faster than using the arrow keys or the mouse to position the cursor in the right place.

It's called vim flow and it's so powerful and popular that it's now available as a plugin in most popular editors, including Code and emacs (evil mode).

[-]

Stosstrupphase@reddit

I use nano for simple tasks, like editing a few parameters in a config file, emacs for more complex tasks.

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Happy_Macaron5197@reddit

Hey just a student here learning vim is important for what benifits

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ThatDistantStar@reddit

I use vim but I am aware nano is better.

I use vim because I'm not in the terminal enough anymore to see any real returns on learning nano.

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Tamath_@reddit

When I started as a Linux admin I had a colleague who preferred nano and one who preferred vim. (Perhaps unexpectedly, the nano user was the elder of the two by some 20 years.) I started with nano because I was sat next to the nano colleague and it seemed way less intimidating to get started with, but over time and witnessing some text editing wizardry from the vim colleague I began to dabble in vim, and now I don't think I'd use anything else. Steeper learning curve, but it can just do so much so efficiently once you get there.

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DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

Vim is orders of magnitude more powerful than nano. The universal rule however, is the more powerful a tool is, the less user-friendly its interface.

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Anxious-Library-964@reddit

vi/vim is simply far superior in several ways. I used nano back in college before I discovered vim and that was about it. vi being hard to learn claims are largely exaggerated. I have a fairly extensive career and have a hard time taking a "professional" who prefers nano over vim seriously.

[-]

binarypower@reddit

it's easy

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NexusOne99@reddit

The best feature of vim is watching it trap developers who can't figure out how to quit it.

[-]

420GB@reddit

Vim has all the text editor features you need and it is extensible via plugins. In your own Maine where you can install software, people use neovim but the basics still apply to vim or even vi so you're ready for any kind of Linux system no matter how old or minimal.

A colleague uses nano and it is my understanding it can't even cut a block of text (e.g. 6 consecutive lines) and paste them somewhere else. That's ridiculous. Meanwhile neovim has full LSP integration, it's absolutely nowhere near comparable.

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kerubi@reddit

VI does not add any extra chars when editing a file. It is installed basically everywhere. Basic editing is easy, for real. A system where the default editor is something else feels just broken.

[-]

Maelkothian@reddit

Mostly, it's what I grew up with and if you use it enough to remember the basic commands it allows you to manipulate files a lot faster using just the keyboard.

[-]

frac6969@reddit

When I started there was no Nano.

[-]

Yoshkoz@reddit

I prefer micro over nano, and kate over micro.

[-]

flurfdooker@reddit

These days it's "use the tool for the job" - so no one is going to troubleshoot a five page bash script in vi unless they really want to. For short edits, vi is great once you know it. It's incredibly efficient, both as an editor and as a program. Historically, it's always been there, and with a very small footprint it's almost always installed even on the slimmest of appliances, so knowing the rudimentary basics is worthwhile.

There's no reason these days to default to vi. The people you see using it default to it because they know it and that's what they know best, so they are very effective using it. You can become just as effective using Nano, as long as Nano is installed. There's no inherent advantage.

That said, there's every reason to avoid Emacs. Emacs is for emotionally stunted, technically-incompetent people who want to make a text-based world look like Microsoft Word. Furthermore, these people have no consideration for security risks or server demands their "plugins" put on the machine they install them on, because they usually don't understand what they're doing in the first place. However, they will insist they are the smartest people in the room. Emacs is very popular amongst old-school faculty and hated by old-school sysadmins.

[-]

ency@reddit

Its my go to because its usually there and dont have to think about it. Its also a nice way to review larger files without too much of a danger of accedentally editing it without intent.

If I am on my personal machine or servers its nano all day long.

[-]

spyingwind@reddit

sed and awk are all that you need. /s

I use nano when I just need to make one little change. Otherwise I use configuration management to do everything else.

[-]

50DuckSizedHorses@reddit

If you take a few minutes to set up your environment you can use whatever editor you want

[-]

KrakenOfLakeZurich@reddit

I‘m a developer with almost 20 years of experience on my belt.

I know just barely enough vi to 1. open a file 2. enter insert mode 3. navigate the cursor 4. make the change 5. exit insert mode 6. quit vi 1. with saving the file 2. or dismissing my change

Like a caveman. The only reason I even bothered to learn this little bit: vi is part of POSIX. It‘s guaranteed to be available on any Linux/Unix kind of machine.

But honestly, I rarely SSH into a box and edit files there directly. Most configuration management these days happens on my laptop in VSC and is then deployed through (test) stages via GitOps.

[-]

pnwal-junction@reddit

Maybe I'm a basic bitch, but color syntax highlighting is one of the main reasons, I prefer it. Maybe Nano can do that too, but I learned Vim first and now it's unintuitiveness is more intuitive for me than anything else.

[-]

nv1t@reddit

wow...what happened to the emacs guys. org mode is productivity in a nutshell. :)

but I think vim has a port for it now.

[-]

Advanced_Day8657@reddit

I just like the commands and motions

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BoringLime@reddit

I took a little time to learn it many moons ago. I do whole lot of Linux and formerly unix sysadmin. I use it frequently enough not to forget the basics. It's really crazy powerful editor. I have also never really use nano. I also prefer bash over the newer shells for the same reason. I know it well and there isn't many shortcomings.

[-]

TechMonkey13@reddit

Nano gang ✊

[-]

d33pnull@reddit

nano 4 life

[-]

Pandthor@reddit

It’s Vi that you should learn as that is available by default in almost all situations. Vim is similar but has its differences. You can use Nano for normal work, like modifying Docker files on your Linux laptop, but servers should only have ”necessary” tools installed.

[-]

Not_Rod@reddit

I used nano early in my career then once vi syntax’s clicked with me, there was no going back.

[-]

552eden@reddit

IMO it's 50-50 used to it VS larping

Nano gang

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Amazing-Q@reddit

After learning vim, I noticed that most terminal tools use the vim command keys for exiting and navigation. Some times even searching.

For example. How do you exit top?

Do you do Ctrl+c? Spoiler, the actual key is 'q'

[-]

onebitcpu@reddit

26 reasons: named cut and paste buffers :)

That and I know the keys for save quit next file etc. It's easier to set EDITOR=vim in my .bashrc than learn nano key commands. Yes they are on the screen but I have to stop and read them.

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LiveWeb7075@reddit

We had to use Vi at uni so for some it would have been used before we even knew about nano.

[-]

AverageDummy2@reddit

Experienced sys here. I hate vim and prefer nano. I know I'm in a minority. I do it partly because it's easier. Part of my reason also has to do with rebellion against vim elitists. "only real men use vim" fuck you go to hell.

[-]

nerobro@reddit

Nano, isn't on all systems. VI.. is. So is ed. But if you can write in ed, you're probally broken in the head. ed is mostly used by scripts/commands.

Vi also.. just.. feels faster to me. Nano can do all the things, but it's all "in" menus, while you can just hammer out commands in Vi.

[-]

LiveWeb7075@reddit

I've been on cut down systems that don't have vi, ed, nano, pico and had to use cat to view the file and echo to pipe some text into a file.

[-]

nerobro@reddit

... I had to do that once myself....

[-]

Alexandre_Man@reddit

Because all our documentation are with vi or vim Like :

Modify this file vim /this/file

And the history commands as well. When I do Ctrl+R and search the name of a file like /etc/crontab for instance, it's always "vi /etc/crontab" I find.

[-]

Admirable-Statement@reddit

First started using Linux in 2005ish and used nano at first and then started learning vim. I was at school/uni and using an old laptop as has a server for Java/python (Java was not my choice). Vim had some nice defaults and features for coding.

Back in the days of the portable apps on a USB, I just needed PuTTY and my private key.

[-]

pi8b42fkljhbqasd9@reddit

Vim is powerful, especially macros. If all you do is open a config file, change 1 value, save/close; then you won't see much improvement.

But once you learn macros, and vim-motions, and more it gets so much better.

Take this example:

You need to write a list of IPs, 192.168.1.1-254

Using nano, it's tedious. Using vim, there are several ways, and it's fast.

[-]

Admirable_Cry_3795@reddit

30+ years ago, when my title was Unix Systems Administrator, I was told to learn vi because it would be on every system.

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libertyprivate@reddit

Loaded question is loaded. I don't agree with the premise. Been using nano since it was pico and I had to install pine to get it.

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LiveWeb7075@reddit

It helps to be able to use whatever happens to be on the system you log into. Some don't even have an editor so you use whatever you can like cat and echo.

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Daphoid@reddit

Nano's fast for sure, but my boss 15 years ago made me learn vi, just enough to be speedy. Once you know how to open / save / quit withotu saving / edit / bulk delete a line or two / move around. You're good. Anything fancier is just nerds.

[-]

xenodezz@reddit

If you are serious about learning Linux, vi/vim is the standard. As you edit files you should look up the thing you want to do

Search? Look it up Indent? Look it up Goto line #? Look it up

There are vi cheat sheets you can use with all this info to print out and stick near the monitor.

Challenge yourself to do tasks - Change all instances of a word to uppercase - Remove all instances of that word your just made uppercase - Indent 7 lines below your current line to the right one level - Goto the bottom of the text file and insert # in front of 14 lines above

Once you feel you have the hang of things and you feel more comfortable doing things, complicate your life with neovim (I suggest AstroNVIM) and use community packs to start.

I tell all my network engineers to learn this stuff because it’s going to become more of their norm and it will behoove them to be ahead of the curve.

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exqueezemenow@reddit

neovim/vi here. Not sure I know how to use nano.

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PrincipleExciting457@reddit

Back on the day that’s all there was. It’s still technically faster than nano if you become a god with it.

I just use nano though. Let’s me jump right into it and all the commands are just listed at the bottom.

Most of what I work on is from my dev machine anyway. Pop it in GitHub and clone as needed.

[-]

boli99@reddit

just learn vim. get some basics and you'll be fine

insert
overwrite
saving, saving as new file
how to quit (with or without saving)

if you have those down, then everything else can come later.

[-]

JodyBro@reddit

The thing that makes vim (not even mentioning neovim) so powerful is vim motions.

The only way I can really describe it for myself is that if you keep at using vim there's a moment when it just "clicks" after using it in your actual job for a while. Never really clicked for me when I was just typing for the sake of typing.

The best youtuber I know of for starting your vim journey is ThePrimeagen and specifically this series: YouTube Link

I'm just over a 10yr vet of the vim life and I'm even at the point of using vimium. Its a browser extension that allows you to use vim keybindings. So I barely even need to leave my keyboard when in my browser lol

[-]

monsieurR0b0@reddit

vi was just the first one I used. It’s comfort food at this point.

[-]

TaosMesaRat@reddit

Some standard sysadmin tools are built around vi such as vipw and visudo.

I make new sysadmins learn vi because of these tools. You want to use nano on the daily? Fine. You still must be proficient with vi.

[-]

systemic-void@reddit

Vi is almost always installed with a basic distro similar to notepad is for windows. Some times you just need to edit a file and you don’t have nano installed. Also most of my Linux machines have zero or limited network access so getting access to a nano repo is hard than just vi file.name esc : wq!

[-]

spermcell@reddit

Cuz it’s very good. That’s why.

[-]

poleethman@reddit

Because you can just press d then G to delete the entire file, and then press I and paste the file rewrite that Claude made for you.

[-]

uberduck@reddit

vi is available as default in 99% of distros

vi maybe 90%

nano maybe 10%

Learn to vi = no need to faff with getting the package / binary in

[-]

wezelboy@reddit

I guess the main thing for me is vi/vim uses the same search and replace syntax as sed, which is nice.

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Mrhiddenlotus@reddit

vi is always there and the shortcuts, macros, plugins are better

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Simple-Kaleidoscope4@reddit

Because its always installed.

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FearIsStrongerDanluv@reddit

Really?? I prefer Nano…I’m probably an outlier then

[-]

szayl@reddit

Because you're essentially guaranteed that vi will be in every system. One can't assume that nano will be available.

[-]

braliao@reddit

I learned VI from the time when I managed Sun Solaris running on Sparq. Even tho I hardly use it now, when I do need to exit files on Linux, it's what I am very used to and just knows what to do muscle memory.

Same with screen, and even tho I use tmux now, i still map it to screen keys.

[-]

teknic111@reddit

I prefer Nano.

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Sigseg-v@reddit

In my very first job we had Solaris, Debian and RHEL machines. Vi was the only editor available everywhere. Plus no matter how hard you f-up your config: you can use vi only with default keys. Before ssh2 it was not uncommon that arrows or Fx keys didn‘t work in remote sessions.

[-]

Cromagmadon@reddit

Busybox and Toybox have a variation of vi. That wouldn't make me prefer Vim over nano, but would make me have to know vi and would make calling it a habit when using a command line.

[-]

g3n3@reddit

It is modular editing that is king. Above all other skills this is the best. Text is king in unix so even more important.

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mikeismug@reddit

I used Pine so my first editor was pico (now nano). Also a proud UW alum. When I started scripting I discovered vi/vim and switched to that because it has way more features that let you work smarter. Over the years I've plateaued in vim, there's still a lot I don't know but it's great.

[-]

ghjm@reddit

I used pico/nano as my main CLI editor throughout the 90s. I even contributed some features to nano. Even back then I took a lot of heckling from other sysadmins for it. But in the 90s I was moving back and forth between Linux and MS-DOS a lot, and SemWare QEdit on MS-DOS was really my main editor, so I didn't feel like putting in the effort to learn another editor. The big benefit of pico/nano is that the commands are all right there and you don't have to learn anything.

As Linux became more of my primary environment, my use of nano started to include quite a lot of exiting the editor to a bash prompt and running grep, awk, etc., to do things a little more complex than nano's built in commands could handle. At some point, maybe after the 1000th time of being sneered at for using nano, I decided to force myself to learn vi. Once I got over the initial hump, I found myself leaving the editor far less often. I've been using it ever since.

At this point I never use nano at all, and on the distros that want to make nano the default, I always reconfigure them for vim. There's no way in nano to do things like :g/^#/d (delete all comments), or the control-V column select mode, or comment out a large block, or etc etc. And if you install neovim or the ALE plugins for regular vim, you can get syntax highlighting and static code analysis, which can be useful.

As to when to learn it, honestly, just do it as soon as you form the intention to be a regular Linux command line user. You'll want to print out a vim cheat sheet and spend a painful week having to look at it for everything. By the end of the week you'll be able to do everything you could in nano, and after a month or two you'll throw the cheat sheet away. It's not really any more complicated than that, and it's perfectly do-able by a beginner.

[-]

NatKJ88@reddit

There's nothing nano can't do that vi can. The advantage of vi is efficiency. As an admin and dev for 30+ years, vi saved me a lot of time. It's muscle memory, I can't tell what's the command to do what but it comes naturally when my fingers are at the keyboard. Keyboard needs to have the Ctrl key at the correct place though with a physical Esc key :D

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MavZA@reddit

It’s basically what you learned when you were coming up. My mentor taught me eMacs so I still find myself using that, but I’ve got functional understanding of vim/nano because you never know what’s on the box you have in front of you. When you see people foaming at the mouth over these things it’s usually performative, if they’re serious then they need to go find something to get busy with 🤣

[-]

meest@reddit

I worked in SCO Unix for years at a helpdesk.

vi was what was available. I learned that.

I can't say i've used Nano yet. But I don't manage Unix/Linux anymore

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1esproc@reddit

vi/vim can do things nano simply can't. those come up for me regularly.

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anotherkeebler@reddit

One is a toy and one is a tool. Both can be used productively, but after much use one will appreciate the difference between the two.

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Icy_Friend_2263@reddit

I started using nano for precisely the same reasons. I hated vim. But some guy with a moustache on YouTube got me curious. So I slowly learned vim.

Turns out it is the superior way to edit text. To the point that I'm mad when I can't use it to edit text.

But the thing is, you have to learn it to know this. You have to feel it. And it takes a while.

[-]

Pupusas_Man@reddit

Quick and easy to understand? Nano

Anyone else saying otherwise is a legacy user

:wq

[-]

daaaaave_k@reddit

I use Pico (Nano) since it was the message composition editor when I used Pine for email on HP/UX at University.

[-]

billyalt@reddit

Its mostly old heads

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Tx_Drewdad@reddit

Because it's installed by default.

Usually you're not doing much, anyway.

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cwk9@reddit

I like vi/vim for config files. I find I'm less likely to make syntax mistakes with a modal editor.

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Historical_Score_842@reddit

I like nano. Vim is if you are older than 50

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FouLouGaroux@reddit

Vi/vim are on pretty much any Linux system, ever. Knowing how to use it well gives you what you need on pretty much any situation

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facesnorth@reddit

nano sucks

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eagle6705@reddit

Lol actually ask this when we were looking for a Linux engineer. I smiled and say why to throw them off since they know im a windows admin. The guy answered nano and he says because if I did windows it be closest to notepad.

But vi or vim from my knowledge is very similar. l not everything has nano but vi is almost always installed. What vi and vim can do is very very good. Ive seen what admins can do and im impressed.

[-]

ucemike@reddit

Don't use either, I use joe.

Yeah im probably the last one.

[-]

kkirchoff@reddit

30 yeah Unix expert. I never learned nano and when it pops up, I panic a bit.

[-]

fletch101e@reddit

Always used pico then later nano. Vim was never my style and seemed to just make things difficult for no good reason.

[-]

tajetaje@reddit

Allow me to introduce you all to micro! Like nano but with sane keybinds, and a ton more functionality from basic language support to mouse controls (my favorite is that its clipboard works over SSH if your terminal supports it)

[-]

jks@reddit

Micro is the TUI editor I recommend to newbies, although personally I'm too used to vi to switch.

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Many_One1260@reddit

No idea, I use emacs

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peace991@reddit

I’m just so used to it. Muscle memory that when I use Nano I just freeze and don’t know what to do.

[-]

SexBobomb@reddit

Its faster, easier, and literally everywhere

Hilariously the adage of 'its everywhere' doesnt apply to my favourite linux distro's default load out (gentoo)

[-]

badaccount99@reddit

Because Nano is crap.

Lets start the better war. Vi vs Emacs!.

I'm, I'm Unix now for more many years than most of you have been alive.

Vi, not vim, exist on nearly every Unix system. I did OSX, Unicos, Irix, FreeBSD and like a bunch of others. VI was always there.

Nano is just a subsystem of a failed email program.

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badaccount99@reddit

:wq! is better than ctrl-x cntrl-c. If you know you know.

[-]

BelugaBilliam@reddit

For me I'm more efficient and easier to move/navigate. Better than arrow key movement.

[-]

aelmsu@reddit

I was curious because I heard the memes and wanted to learn the new hard thing. Then I just kept using it...

[-]

Sudden_Office8710@reddit

Well, if your on windows serve core I prefer nvim over nano because windows doesn’t have a native text editor since Windows 98 🤣 you should learn vi because it’s the default editor for a lot of platforms. You could easily add nano to any Linux box but with Ubuntu specifically their data files could get fouled up by using nano. I’ve had many a netplan stop working because I used nano even with the -w

[-]

Sorry-Climate-7982@reddit

If you want to build Linux sysadmin skills, it might be a good idea to learn how to use the tools that sysadmins prefer.

Vim is quite powerful and customizable. But it also works and usually on the root partition and available in single user mode for dealing with the inevitable oopsies.

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Xibby@reddit

Other than I learned Vi and Vim’s keyboard shortcuts… Vi lets you toggle between view mode and edit mode. Since you have to use some key-fu to toggle modes, Vi is a nice safe way to edit config files and hopefully only make the changes you intend to make.

View mode, find the config line that needs changing, toggle to edit mode, make the change, save…

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dloseke@reddit

Because I was raised on Vi and have never really used Nano. I used to write ColdFusion site edits in Vim. Until my boss finally get me Dreamweaver.

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shimoheihei2@reddit

Vim has lots of shortcuts and can be heavily customized so you'll find most advanced users preferring it. With that said however, I've been using Linux since the Slackware days in the late 90s, back in the Pico days (what eventually became nano) and I've always preferred using it. Now I bring my heavily customized nanorc with me everywhere.

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NukedDuke@reddit

vim is always there, and if you know how to use vi then you still have a text editor you can use if libc is fucked and all you've got is busybox. :)

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Diligent-Union-8814@reddit

Once you get in vim, you can't get out. Even with vscode/idea, vim keybinding is a must.

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naosuke@reddit

vi/vim is on everything. Once you learn the shortcuts it’s much faster and more efficient. Also lots of tons can have the boom shortcuts imported into them, so it ends up being used in lots of places that aren’t just vim. Nano is just different enough to be annoying

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LekoLi@reddit

Vi is the standard on everything. If you aren't going into old or elbedded systems nano is fine.

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mghnyc@reddit

vim is so friggin bloated nowadays. Who ever got the idea to add mouse support and enable it by default, for example? Anyway, I've been doing Unix sysadmin stuff for decades now and using vi is just a thing that we do. When I was young and fresh I was on team emacs. But I shed that habit quickly when I had to edit a file in single user mode on a Sun console with only miniroot available.

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earth2baz@reddit

If you learn Nano, you will still need to know Vi. In which case, why not just learn one editor that is common to all Unix systems.

Vi will always burn you if you only know it as a secondary editor.

Also, you can turn on interactive shell edit mode and use Vi shortcuts on the command prompt. This is a very useful feature!

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rabell3@reddit

I use vi because I'm old.

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orphantech@reddit

Vi/vim - it's just what I learned to use 20-ish years ago. However, I'm no expert in it's more powerful commands.

I use nano on occasion, but I always find I have to undo my edits because I'm so used to vi/vim.

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tirini@reddit

Vim ftw! Mostly its just what i was shown first and learned from there. Vi is native so that helps

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VengaBusdriver37@reddit

Learnt vi at uni. I remember fucking hating learning it, tbh surprised that newer devs still use it. But now I’m used to it I do love it.

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ImightHaveMissed@reddit

If it ain’t emacs it ain’t shit

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MtnBikeLover@reddit

I was taught on vi. Too lazy to learn nano

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bigreddittimejim@reddit

If you use vi/vim/neovim ... You'll be much faster eventually. It's easy to do find, replace, regex, go to a specific line, copy a block of text and paste, and a shitton more... All without touching your mouse. Put in the time while you're learning now and you'll be happy you did.

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groupwhere@reddit

Vi is on several unices, which is why I learned it. I was a pico guy but forced myself to learn. Many years later, I discovered ctrl-v, select with arrows and shift I, etc., and my life was forever changed. Basically, useful for commenting lines, inserting or deleting text on multiple lines at once, and so on.

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cruising_backroads@reddit

Been using vi/vim since early 1980s on Vax/VMS. My hands have it memorized….

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ElectroHiker@reddit

Vim/vi is superior because of command mode mostly imo. I regularly have to use it on config files and scripts at home and at work. It makes things like replacing matched lines across hundreds/thousands of lines super easy, which is what I primarily use it for.

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CjKing2k@reddit

vi is installed just about everywhere and, once I mastered it, there was really no reason to use Nano or any of the others. My sysadmin background includes working on ancient Solaris 7 builds which only had vi (not even vim).

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os2mac@reddit

As others have said, it's generally because if you work with a lot of distros, it's always part of the base install.
once you get used to the movement commands and some basic sed commands for search and replace it's MUCH faster.

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ApricotPenguin@reddit

~~I presume it's Job security. Don't gotta worry about being replaced if the next guy can't even save their changes in the file.~~

It's probably out of a necessity of knowing the tool that's available on all distributions (not all have nano pre-installed). And then at some point it turns into begrudging acceptance of the tool.

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Bob_Spud@reddit

vi is guaranteed on all unix/linix machines nano is not. Sysadmin avoid installing stuff that means additional work in commercial production environments. Vi skills are transferrable to Vim. Vi/Vin as actually powerful and efficient when you know how to drive it.

In Ubuntu flavoured Linuxes vi under the hood is actually vim.tiny

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whitoreo@reddit

Vi is installed by default on most systems, nano isn't.

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Tall-Introduction414@reddit

What makes Vim more powerful or efficient in real-world scenarios?

1: Regular expression search/replace

2: Syntax highlighting

3: Faster navigation with vim motions

4: Ubiquity. You can't always install your editor of choice on the machine you're working on.

Do you still use Nano at all, or is Vim your default for everything?

I moved from Pico (predecessor to nano) to Vim after a few years of using Linux, in like 1998. No, I don't use nano unless I have to.

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d47@reddit

I haven't used nano since first learning Linux 20 years ago. Vim is quicker and far more capable with the right knowledge.

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ski-dad@reddit

Vi is traditionally considered the more powerful, spartan tool for experts. Nano (Pico) derived from menu-driven Pine email client out of University of Washington. It was built to be user-friendly. Its user-friendliness is actually what turns certain people off.

Originally, it probably came down to California vs Washington roots.

I've been using pico/nano for 30yr+. Pretty sure its fine.

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ZealousidealFudge851@reddit

If nano is installed on the box you'd better believe that's what I'm using lol but vims always installed and I'll use it if I need.

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sudonem@reddit

I started learning vi back in the day because it was the default (and I’m old enough that nano hadn’t yet been released) so not learning it wasn’t really an option and emacs didn’t really speak to me.

Even today, there is quite a good chance that when I remote into a system it won’t have anything other than vim installed and due to compliance reasons I might not even be allowed to install nano even if I wanted to.

Once you’re over the hump of learning vim motions, things start to click and your efficiency skyrockets. Especially once you add tmux into the mix.

I spend most of my time working in the terminal and these days I use tmux & neovim daily. I’ve taken the time to build that combo out into a full blown development environment for myself - and I’m really fast with it.

Not having to take your hands off of the keyboard is much more of a force multiplier than you might guess.

Having said all of that, I’m no kind of purist about it. I don’t care what anyone else runs and I would argue that if you only spend a small part of your time working in Linux systems (unlike myself) I don’t know that I wouldn’t bother learning anything other than the most basics of vim.

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Kamwind@reddit

use vi because of the built in commands primarily, substitution.

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Etrigone@reddit

Well it's not like I'm using ed or edit...

Seriously though it's what the others say. Been using it for a long time, and no need to change.

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mouringcat@reddit

I started with emacs in college, but at one of my jobs I was installing and configuring SCO Unixes. They didn't have emacs, but had vi. This was long before Nano existed, but Pico did (which was part of Pine).

So I had to learn vi, and even worse if the SCO install failed to install right (which happened more than I care to say due to the floppy media we had) I was stuck using ed, sed, cat, and awk to get it back on track.

Thus I became use to vi and its cryptic commands, and it became second nature. Heck, there are times when I'm using a word process that my finger natively type vi commands. =). I get on call with vendors and they are floored that I'm using vi and how quickly I navigate and change configuration files with it.

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BrokenPickle7@reddit

NeoVim is the shizznit. So customizable and flexible. I love all the bindings, I can delete whole lines. Just words, skip to lines, search, all kinds of good stuff.

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Snowmobile2004@reddit

Vis often the default editor on many systems, and I don’t want to need to install nano every time I ssh into one of the hundreds of VMs at work

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Bi_Count@reddit

Evers since I dived into Linux years ago most of the guides created using Nano.

It was easy to use, I just used it as a basic text editor(which was sufficient at the time) and stuck with it for years.

Only in the past couple months I've started learning how to use Vim. It's a lot more powerful, especially for transforming text, it's more than just a text editor.

As intimidating as vim is, I reckon if you can master the basics you'll be good.

TaggartInstitute has some great resources for all levels, including intro to RegEx and Vim.

Might be a bit biased though, I've known Taggart(as a content creator) for nearly 4 years in the security space.

I do find myself firing up nano out of pure muscle memory but I'm trying to use vim more, even if it's just basic stuff and I've forgotten a lot, just to stay familiar with it so I know I can fire it up - edit the file I want, save it and move on. I hope this helps!

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TheCudder@reddit

I prefer nano, but I'm also a Windows Systems Admin....but when I'm forced to do something in Linux, I use nano.

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Known_Experience_794@reddit

Vi/vim are really powerful. But only if you learned it because nothing else close really existed at the time. So really, it seems most people learned because it was included and they basically had to. Once they became comfortable in it, they really see no reason to move on from there old ways because, it works well for them. OTH, if you’re newer to Linux and instead cut your teeth on nano, vi/vim seem like an antiquated, unfriendly, piece of the past. I suppose both things are true. Bottom line, use the one you like the most and ignore the haters from the other side.

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zebulun78@reddit

I have always used nano

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GreatMyUsernamesFree@reddit

Nano isn't available on every box you run across in the wild. Maining nano as a Linux sysadmin is a weird way to unnecessarily gimp your skill set. You can't admin a box because you don't have your favorite editor?!?! That sounds kinda crazy right?

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Hashrunr@reddit

Learn how to use vi because sometimes that's all you have. Knowing how to use it will save your ass. I also prefer nano when it's available for editing config files.

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Zealousideal_Ad642@reddit

When I was studying IT in the mid 90's, vi was what I was taught to use. It just continued on into my first few jobs all of which had a mix of windows and unix. In those jobs I really learnt a lot of the shortcuts which still come in handy \~20 years later.

I don't recall ever using nano to be honest. In the rare times I end up on a unix command line nowdays I'll still just run vi if i need to edit some file.

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cmhamm@reddit

I started using vi/m because I’ve never come across any version of *NIX or BSD variant that didn’t have it. While Nano is on most Linux systems now, it’s still not 100% universal like vi is. The shortcuts are weird and unintuitive at first, but one you get the hang of them, they’re quick and easy, and it’s actually much easier to edit text with it. Nano is fine. I’m not one of those anti-nano nutbags. But any serious Linux admin should learn vi just because it’s ubiquitous. The extra speed and power is a bonus.

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Altusbc@reddit

Way back in the early /mid 1990's I learned on vim. When nano was released in 1999, it was not a very good at that time. However, by early 2000's I started using nano more. And to this day, it is my preferred editor, but I will occasionally use vi when I feel a need to.

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sko0led@reddit

Because vim or vi is installed on everything. Nano or pico isn’t.

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PawnF4@reddit

I don’t cause I’m a casual I guess lol. I dunno I’m not spending a crazy amount of time in editors, just usually modifying conf files.

Probably makes sense if you do a lot more but I think it’s more of just another way of people to look down on others for no real reason. Some people live life like they’re in an Xbox Live lobby 🤷‍♂️ what a miserable way to live.

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everfixsolaris@reddit

I have worked on a large number of Unix and Linux OS versions. Some form of VI is installed on all of them.

Also it is useful for really unusual text editing like deleting a column of text from a document.

Once certain tricks are learned it is faster than using a mouse, for example delete to character is faster than highlighting and deleting text.

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colenski999@reddit

Team Nano

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davy_crockett_slayer@reddit

Vi is the default text editor on most Linux distros. Vi is the default in Kubernetes, for example.

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CraftyCat3@reddit

You can safely assume vi/vim will already be present on any system you ever touch. No need to install it (assuming you even can install additional packages easily). It's also very effective once you learn how to use it.

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thefunrun@reddit

I remember preferring nano but vi is already there by default so had to just get with it.

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nitroman89@reddit

I use nano but vim is usually installed on everything so once in a while I will need to use it like in containers.

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hamburgler26@reddit

Knowing how to use vi or vim means you're in your element on just about any 'NIX server you could ever run into. I have to force myself to use Codium or VsCode or whatever for more complex projects sometimes just because once you know vim and add a few simple extensions to it, it is extremely powerful and efficient.

If you want to do actual linux server admin stuff, knowing vim well is important because unless you're in a situation where everything is deployed as code via git repos and ansible or terraform, being comfortable with vim on a server is a big skill I've found. Logging into an old Solaris instance and knowing how to use an ancient versoin of vi makes you look like a real badass.

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HKChad@reddit

Vi is always installed, so you learn to use what’s available

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RouteReflectorCLT@reddit

For me Vim has sick plugins.

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CarnivalCassidy@reddit

Emacs

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exitparadise@reddit

with vi vs. other editors its that i don't ever have to move my hands to far from "home row", especially on older keyboards (and my current setup with key mapping) where CTRL key is where caps lock is.

so for me it flows seamlessly from typing commands on commandline to editing... no awkward repositioning of any hand to save files, navigate around the file, copy/paste, etc.

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sryan2k1@reddit

Always nano here if it's available.

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Colossus-of-Roads@reddit

Mostly elitism. There's a certain superiority that comes with knowing how to drive vi.

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redcat242@reddit

I’m not sure about vim but vi will be available on almost every (if not every) linux and unix system out there whereas nano/pico/pine/etc isn’t.

I would recommend learning how to do the basics with vi (open, exit, copy/paste, save, etc) so you’ll always be able to access and use a text editor no matter what distro or version. That being said, when i’m on a system that has nano, i’m using nano.

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SaintEyegor@reddit

Vi is everywhere by default. I can use vi editing mode in bash and search/edit command history in a very efficient manner.

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exedore6@reddit

I learned vi, because I had little choice at the time.

There's always a vi like editor aliased to vi. Maybe not with something else.

At this point, I'm not only fast with vim, I can talk to it well enough to surprise people watching me edit.

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thebeardofawesomenes@reddit

Because I made my start wth UNIX and have always used vi.

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Envelope_Torture@reddit

I started my career working on barebones RHEL installs. Learned vim, works well enough, no desire to learn anything else.

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jnwatson@reddit

Simply put, vim is more powerful, scriptable, and ubiquitous. You won't find Nano default installed on *BSD boxes for example.

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Biglig@reddit

As a baby sysadmin I was taught that you should learn at least the basics of vi because it’s always there. I suspect some people either get to like it or just don’t want to have to learn more than one tool.

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3rdeyedroplets@reddit

Vim is by far preferable. There is no comparison.

Nano is a simple text editor aimed at being accessible for newbies. Vim is for power users, admins, and coders. The power is great. Everything is much faster, linting support, etc. etc.

I forced myself to only use vim (it was tough at first, lots of "i" + "arrow key" nav) and I'm now very glad I did. I do all my coding in Vim with ALE now.

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BarracudaDefiant4702@reddit

The learning curve for vi/vim is steeper, but vim is touring complete (totally programable) and nano is not. Also there is a ton of short-cut commands the are not intuitive, but once you learn them you can combine them and they stack making it very powerful to do complex things with just a few key stokes. If you don't know what you are doing and only making small edits, nano is easier to pick up and get the job done. If you do a lot of edits from the terminal and not using a GUI editor, then vim is well worth the time to learn.

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peakdecline@reddit

First, I don't care what you use. I'm not going to think less of you because you edit a file with nano or vi(m) or emacs or whatever.

I do prefer vi(m) but that's because I started with it. I started my career on Unix systems (primarily AIX) and vi was the default and always available. I'm not even particularly good with it. I know enough to get what I need done.

And to be honest unless you're also going to choose to use Vim (though I usually see Neovim used) as your main text editor on your workstation... I'm just not sure it matters. At least for me editing config files directly on systems is just not nearly as common as it once was. These days I usually edit/create configuration files on my workstation and they're distributed to systems via Ansible and a CI/CD pipeline of some sort. And locally I choose to use various VSCode clones.

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aoteoroa@reddit

20 years ago I used vi.
Now I use nano.

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angry_cucumber@reddit

self loathing would be my best guess.