Sometimes, programs that need to start up an editor will honour the $EDITOR environment variable, which should contain the name of, or full path to, a user’s preferred editor.
It’s not set by default though, and a lot of things will naturally default to vi or even ed. Something to be set in a .profile, .bashrc or similar.
$VISUAL is another variable that is used for similar purposes.
The resemblance to certain two letter commands is not entirely a coincidence.
Sometimes, programs that need to start up an editor will honour the
$EDITORenvironment variable, which should contain the name of, or full path to, a user’s preferred editor.It’s not set by default though, and a lot of things will naturally default to
vior evened. Something to be set in a.profile,.bashrcor similar.$VISUALis another variable that is used for similar purposes.The resemblance to certain two letter commands is not entirely a coincidence.