Instead of putting the user into an edit mode where he or she starts typing upon loading the file to be modified, vi starts out with the user vi does nothing but take commands, such as ‘i’ to insert a new line at the current insertion point of the file or ‘w!’ to forcefully save the current file. It’s not very intuitive.

In addition to vi, there are a number of other popular editors available for Linux. Available on many Linux distributions, Pico is an excellent editor for quickly editing configuration files and is very easy to learn. It’s my editor of choice as it is very intuitive. Emacs is another very popular editor available for Linux. It includes online documentation, a number of extensions, and support for many languages.

3.

Between Windows and Linux, there are some variations to get used to when using files in Linux. First, filenames are case-sensitive in Linux. This means that a file named “readme” is different than a file named “README”. This is not the case in Windows. In addition, Linux uses a slash (/) character to traverse directories, while Windows uses the backslash (\). For example, the hosts file in Windows NT/2000/XP is located in ,/etc. Note the lack of a drive letter in the second path. instead it uses the concept of partitions. For my test lab, I have only one partition named /. However, a common configuration option is to place users’ home directories in their own partition named /home.

4.

you will have to use the command line at some point, probably sooner than you think. When that time comes, knowing a few key system commands will go a long way toward helping you to administer