Overview

When you run a command such as visudo on a newly installed Ubuntu system, it can be surprising to see nano start up. This is a note on how to change the default editor from nano to vi.

Test Environment

Windows 11 Pro
Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (WSL)

How to Change It

Temporarily Change It with an Environment Variable

Set the EDITOR environment variable, or run the command with env as shown below.

$ sudo env EDITOR=vi visudo

Change the System Default Setting (Permanent)

Use the update-alternatives command.

$ 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: 3
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/editor (editor) in manual mode

vim.tiny is too minimal, so unless you have a specific reason not to, vim.basic is the better choice.