How to Change the Default Editor for crontab -e from Vim to Nano

To change the default editor for crontab -e from Vim to Nano, you need to set the EDITOR environment variable to nano. There are a few ways to do this:

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1. Temporary Change (For Current Session Only) via exported variable

Open a terminal.
Enter the command: export EDITOR=nano

This command sets Nano as the editor for the duration of the terminal session. Once you close the terminal, the setting will revert.

2. Permanent Change via profile

To make Nano the default editor permanently, you need to add the setting to your shell's configuration file.

For the Bash shell, add export EDITOR=nano to your .bashrc or .bash_profile file in your home directory.
Save the file and reload it. You can reload by either closing and reopening the terminal or by running source ~/.bashrc.

This change will make Nano the default editor for all future terminal sessions. After applying one of these methods, Nano will be used as the default editor when you run crontab -e.

3. Using the select-editor Command (Debian-based Systems)

Some Linux distributions (especially Debian-based ones) include a utility called select-editor.

Run select-editor in your terminal.
This will present a list of available text editors from which you can choose. Select Nano from the list.
This change will update the default editor for your user profile.

4. Using the update-alternatives Command (Debian-based Systems)

On Debian-based systems, you can use update-alternatives to set the default editor for all users.

Run sudo update-alternatives --config editor in the terminal.
A list of installed editors will be displayed. Select the number corresponding to Nano.
This method requires administrative privileges and changes the default editor system-wide.

5. Setting the VISUAL Environment Variable

Similar to EDITOR, the VISUAL environment variable can also be set to your preferred editor.

In your .bashrc or .bash_profile, add export VISUAL=nano.
Some applications give precedence to VISUAL over EDITOR.

6. Configuring the Default Editor Directly for Cron (Cron Configuration File)

Some cron implementations allow setting the default editor directly in the cron configuration file. This is less common and depends on the specific cron daemon you are using.