Virtual Private Server User Guide

Internet and UNIX Basics

Note: 

Commands that are issued within the pico editor are not case 

sensitive.

While using pico, there are several key combinations that will help you view or edit 

a file. Some useful key combinations, along with their definitions, are:

Ctrl+G 

Take the pico tutorial 

Ctrl+V 

View next page 

Ctrl+Y 

View previous page 

Ctrl+A 

Go to the beginning of a line 

Ctrl+E 

Go to the end of a line 

Ctrl+C 

Display the line number that you are currently on 

Ctrl+W 

Search for a word or phrase 

Ctrl+O 

Save (write out) the file 

Ctrl+X 

Exit the pico editor 

You can learn more about pico by pressing Ctrl+G from within the pico program 

itself, or by typing the following from the command prompt: 

> man pico

Declaring a Default Text Editor

Sometimes you will run a command that requires you to edit some text and save it 

before the program can continue. Most of the time, such programs will check to 

see which text editor you have declared to be your preferred one by checking the 

value of your EDITOR environment variable. The chsh command discussed 

above is an example of one such program.

To see which editor is currently set as your preferred one, enter the following 

command at your shell prompt:

> echo $EDITOR

See the section on environment variables for information about how to change 

your preferred editor.

Finding Information

The following sections describe how to get information about various commands 

and programs that are installed on your server.

Technical Training Department

August 2004

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