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Asked: 2017-12-05 01:04:30 +0800 CST

EDITOR environment variable changes after reboot

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While running the less command, pressing v opens the file inside the editor. I have set the EDITOR environment variable to vi by running the command export EDITOR=vi.

It works perfectly fine as expected. However when I reboot the computer, the editor is no longer Vi. How do I make it permanent?

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3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I usually configure this behaviour globally using update-alternatives:

    $ sudo update-alternatives --config editor
There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).

  Selection    Path                Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
  0            /bin/nano            40        auto mode
  1            /bin/ed             -100       manual mode
  2            /bin/nano            40        manual mode
* 3            /usr/bin/vim.basic   30        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/vim.tiny    15        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

    I've already selected Vim, but nano is the Ubuntu default. You would type 3 to select Vim in my example, if it weren't already selected.

    As well as less, any program that calls an editor (such as sudoedit) should now call the selected one.

    • 14

  2. To make it permanent simply do the following in terminal:

    echo "export EDITOR=vi" >> ~/.bashrc

    This will add the line to your .bashrc file which gets called every time you open a terminal window.

    To answer why this will work even if there has been a similar line before added to .bashrc is simple. .bashrc is a script with will be read and executed in a linear way, and this method is adding this line as the last below all others, so it gets executed/evaluated as last. So if there has been a line before the value of the EDITOR variable will be overwritten by the line you add.

    Alternatively, if you not want to create a mess you can as well using your favorite editor (vi, vim, nano, joe etc..) to do this change and add a line if none is present and if one is present edit it.

    • 8

  3. You will need to add it to your .bashrc file, open it with nano or vi and add the following line:

    export EDITOR=vi
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