Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Administration Unleashed

112CHAPTER 4Understanding Linux ConceptsFIGURE 4.5Graphical View of Man PagesEditing Text FilesWhat if you want to make some quick notes without having to open a graphical wordprocessor program? Do you need to make a simple edit to a configuration file? Do youneed to edit a file from a remote terminal with limited bandwidth or with X forwardingdisabled? Sounds like you need a simple nongraphical text editor.There are too many text editors for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to discuss all of them in thisbrief chapter. Instead, this section discusses the two most popular ones: Vi and Emacs.They are both very different to use, and users of each are often very hesitant to use theother because of these differences. Ultimately, you must choose one that you feel themost comfortable with. Also consider that some systems might not have both installed, soit is a good idea to at least be familiar with the basics of both such as how to open a file,perform basic modifications, save the file, and exit. If you are in a critical situation inwhich you only have a text environment in rescue mode, knowing the text editor availablemight mean the difference between fixing the system quickly and struggling throughit. In minimal environments such as rescue mode, Vi is often available more than Emacsbecause it requires less disk space and system resources.