system wide default editor

[Siggy Brentrup]

On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 17:19 -0400, Jay Daniels wrote:
> When I create a cron job with crontab -e, a pico looking ( nano whatever
> name ) pops up as my editor.
> 
> How do I change the default editor in Ubuntu Hardy to vi or emacs -nw.

% sudo update-alternatives --config editor

I choose jed as a small emacs lookalike that supports utf-8.

> Why in the world would anyone want to use this 1st grade dos looking
> text editor if they installed Linux?

Don't ask me for Debian's bogus defaults, there are more than this
one.

HTH
  Siggy
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