Change the Default Terminal Editor in Debian
Debian comes with a very handy utility called update-alternatives that helps to set default tools for various tasks.
It is possible for several programs fulfilling the same or similar functions to be installed on a single system at the same time. For example, many systems have several text editors installed at once. This gives choice to the users of a system, allowing each to use a different editor, if desired, but makes it difficult for a program to make a good choice for an editor to invoke if the user has not specified a particular preference.On Linode, it seems that the default editor is nano, I prefer to use vim for editing git commits, visudo, and other things that use the default editor which is symbolically linked through
/usr/bin/editor. The update-alternatives package basically changes the symbolic links for you. In order to change your default editor, you simply need to run the following command:sudo update-alternatives --config editor
There are 3 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).Selection Path Priority Status
0 /bin/nano 40 auto mode 1 /bin/nano 40 manual mode 2 /usr/bin/vim.basic 30 manual mode
- 3 /usr/bin/vim.tiny 10 manual mode
Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:
levlaz@dev:~$ ls -al /usr/bin/editor lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24 Feb 10 20:49 /usr/bin/editor -> /etc/alternatives/editor levlaz@dev:~$ ls -al /etc/alternatives/editor lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 Apr 28 18:56 /etc/alternatives/editor -> /usr/bin/vim.tiny
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- Lev Lazinskiy
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- Convert Markdown to PDF in Sublime Text
- Making cgit Pretty
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- The social contract of writing from jola.dev
- My Running Tips from Kevin Bell's Blog
- tweet from Derek Sivers blog
- Rewrote my blog with Zine from Drew DeVault's blog
- A eulogy for Vim from Drew DeVault's blog
- Pluralistic: AI "journalists" prove that media bosses don't give a shit (11 Mar 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Offline 23 hours a day from Derek Sivers blog
- Pluralistic: California can stop Larry Ellison from buying Warners (28 Feb 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Zig's anti-LLM contribution policy
As shared by on Simon Willison’s blog, Zig has an interesting anti-LLM policy for contributions in their code of conduct. Zig values contributors over their contributions. Each contributor represents an investment by the Zig core team - the primary goal of...
via Information Overload June 11, 2026Stormdancer (Lotus Wars 1)
Author: Jay Kristoff Rating: ★★★★★ Description: Arashitoras are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shōgun, they fear that their lives are over – everyone knows what happens to those who fail...
via Home on Søren's Blog June 11, 2026“This is my favorite news from all of WWDC this week.”
John Gruber on Daring Fireball: Perhaps the worst UI crime in MacOS 26 Tahoe was the inexplicable decision to add inscrutable, distracting icons next to every item in the menu bar. You will recall Jim Nielsen writing about it, rightly describing it as exac...
via Unsung June 11, 2026Generated by openring