vi on a macbook

[rizwankhalid]

Hi everyone,

I am a first time user of ubuntu. And also a first time user of linux on a mac.

I am quite used to vi for writing source and doing some editing. But vi is behaving very strangely on this machine. I have installed ubuntu 8.04 on a macbook C2D. I selected the US Apple Mac keyboard layout. Here is precisely what happens,

When I start vi, and press i to get into the text mode, I can type, but the arrow keys seem to take a life of their own typing A, B C and D. Also, my backspace (delete) is not working. This has made vi unusable. Can you please suggest a fix?

[DGortze380]

Hi everyone,

I am a first time user of ubuntu. And also a first time user of linux on a mac.

I am quite used to vi for writing source and doing some editing. But vi is behaving very strangely on this machine. I have installed ubuntu 8.04 on a macbook C2D. I selected the US Apple Mac keyboard layout. Here is precisely what happens,

When I start vi, and press i to get into the text mode, I can type, but the arrow keys seem to take a life of their own typing A, B C and D. Also, my backspace (delete) is not working. This has made vi unusable. Can you please suggest a fix?

Try using vim instead of vi, this will fix the backspace problem. Arrow keys will not work in vi or vim, check this to learn how to move around: http://www.fprintf.net/vimCheatSheet.html

[rizwankhalid]

I just figured it out. Apparently vim works like a charm.

[rizwankhalid]

Thank you DGortze380. I posted a self-reply to my original post before seeing your suggestion. Sorry about that.

My self-reply now sounds like Black Adder's in season 1, repeating Baldrick and passing it off as his own idea.

[DGortze380]

Thank you DGortze380. I posted a self-reply to my original post before seeing your suggestion. Sorry about that.

My self-reply now sounds like Black Adder's in season 1, repeating Baldrick and passing it off as his own idea.

haha. not a problem, glad it's working. I generally write my code in vim, but if you're looking for a gui ap, I like Text Wrangler for OS X or Geany for Linux. XCode is OS X's built in IDE which also works like a charm.