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Accepted
Juergen
Asked: 2018-08-18 04:47:43 +0800 CST

less calls nano instead of vi

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In the default configuration of Ubuntu 18 LTS server, pressing the V key in less calls the nano editor instead of vi while none of the environment variables $LESSEDIT, $VISUAL or $EDITOR are set.

I was able to restore the correct behavior as documented in man less with update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.basic but this proves less executes editor instead of vi.

Is this a documentation bug (Ubuntu behavior intentionally differing from default upstream less behavior) or a bug in less or is it my fault (did I miss something) ?

vim command-line less

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    It's a documentation bug in the man page, the behavior is documented in /usr/share/doc/less/README.Debian).

    In Debian and its derivatives (like Ubuntu) programs must use editor as standard editor if neither $VISUIAL nor $EDITOR is set, see the Debian policy manual.

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