In these articles I have showed you how to change the default text editor in Linux and Unix in all the important shells: bash, zsh, ksh, csh and tcsh.
Having your favourite editor as the default one is usefull when you use crontab or visudo, commands which use the default editor.
Now I will show you how to change the default text editor in Ubuntu, with the update-alternatives –config editor tool, used as root:
$ sudo update-alternatives --config editor
There are 5 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).
Selection Path Priority Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0 /bin/nano 40 auto mode
1 /bin/ed -100 manual mode
2 /bin/nano 40 manual mode
3 /usr/bin/emacs23 0 manual mode
4 /usr/bin/vim.basic 30 manual mode
5 /usr/bin/vim.tiny 10 manual mode
Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 4
Hit the number representating the editor you want as default and press Enter, to apply the changes.