To change the default text editor on a Linux or Unix system from vi to pico, you will need to edit the EDITOR environment variable.
The EDITOR environment variable is used to specify the default text editor for various command-line tools on a Linux or Unix system. By default, the EDITOR variable is usually set to vi, but you can change it to pico or any other text editor.
To change the EDITOR variable to pico, you can use the following command:
export EDITOR=pico
This will set the EDITOR variable to pico for the current terminal session. To make this change permanent, you will need to add the export command to your shell startup script.
For example, if you are using the bash shell, you can add the export command to the ~/.bashrc file. If you are using the zsh shell, you can add it to the ~/.zshrc file.
For example:
echo "export EDITOR=pico" >> ~/.bashrc
This will add the export command to the ~/.bashrc file, which will set the EDITOR variable to pico every time you start a new terminal session.
It's important to note that the EDITOR variable is used by many command-line tools, not just the vi editor. Changing the EDITOR variable to pico will change the default text editor for these tools as well.
You can also use the update-alternatives command to change the default text editor on a Linux system. For example:
sudo update-alternatives --config editor
This will display a list of available text editors.