Linux.com continues their Command Line Interface series with an introduction to text editors available in GNU/Linux.
At some point in your GNU/Linux or BSD adventures, you're going to have to use a command-line text editor. Some of them are pretty easy to use but have few features. Others are powerful but require a study session with the tutorial file to learn how to operate them. Most often you just need a text editor to edit a couple of config files and don't want to spend 45 minutes working through a tutorial. How about a crash course to get you going?
All text editors share two common qualities: they will open a file if you type its path and name in after the program name, and they will reserve changing the file until you tell it to. So to edit your /etc/shells file with any of the editors in this article, you'd type something like this:
nano /etc/shells
or if you're already in the /etc directory, you can forgo the path:
nano shells
Once in the editor, none of your changes will be applied until you save the file. If you try to quit before you've saved the file, the editor will usually ask you if you want to save it first.
