No matter the subject, you are always smart to start at the beginning. vi is the beginning of almost everything. It is the text  editor you will use while configuring your system during almost every administrative task. It mainly edits ASCII files which are configuration files. Without a  text editor you may as well power down the box.

A Short History

vi is the descendant of qed, the very first Unix editor written in 1965. From qed came ed (short for editor). From ed came ex, which later begat vi. Today, the old testament ends here. It should be adequate to say that vi has been around for a long while and, as such, it is on every *nix platform developed throughout all history, unless it has specifically been removed for security purposes. There are others, yes; emacs, pico, and nano, and the list goes on without end. This is not to say they are not good tools, they are. But, if you have to know just one – vi is it.

It’s Everywhere *nux Is

Given the prevalence of the Linux OS, vi becomes more and more valid argument. You can find Linux on your DSL modem, in newer Cisco equipment, in Tadiran phone systems, in cash registers and, lest we forget, that thing in your pocket that rings when your friends call. vi is resident on everything and, if it’s not today – it soon will be.

When Will You Need It?

Always – period. Here are some phrases that indicate your going to be using vi; When someone says you’ll have to edit that configuration file. EG:

• Dude, that’s in smb.conf. Change the workgroup value to WHATEVER.
• Dude, you’ll need to set an MX record for that new email server.
• Dude, your command is too long. Write a script.
• Dude, get your hands outta your pants.

The difference between vi and vim

Lots really. vi is old school and vim is the, updated and improved, cool new kid at school. If you ever really ran into vi, I would be kinda surprised. It will exist on older systems but, generally, all you new guys are going to be using vim-minimal; this package includes a minimal version of VIM (vi IMproved), which is installed into /bin/vi – but it’s still not really vi.

Red Hat systems have these packages:
$ rpm -qa vim-*
vim-minimal-7.0.109-7.el5
vim-common-7.0.109-7.el5
vim-enhanced-7.0.109-7.el5

Debian-based systems (Ubuntu/Mint) have these packages:
$ dpkg -l | grep “^ii” | grep ‘vim-*’
ii  vim                    2:7.2.330-1ubuntu4   Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor
ii  vim-common    2:7.2.330-1ubuntu4   Vi IMproved – Common files
ii  vim-runtime     2:7.2.330-1ubuntu4   Vi IMproved – Runtime files
ii  vim-tiny           2:7.2.330-1ubuntu4   Vi IMproved – enhanced vi editor – compact version

The vim-common package contains files which every VIM binary will need in order to run. The vim-enhanced package contains a version of VIM with extra, recently-introduced features like Python and Perl interpreters so you can write scripts in these languages as well as bash and awk. If you don’t have the more feature-rich packages, get them:

Red Hat:
$ sudo yum -y install vim-enhanced

Debian-based systems (Ubuntu/Mint) have these packages:
$ sudo apt-get install vim vim-runtime

The Jelly

I WISH someone had shared these videos with me when I started out even though they probably didn’t exist then but still. And just to cover all bases, there are those types that only read their information, pulp snobs; for those people you can trudge through the official documentation. To be fair, there is a great deal of information not covered in these videos, you should read the docs when you run into trouble. But, just to get started, the videos are just fine.

• Here are some video tutorials to get you started.
• Official vi (vim) home.

VIM Addons

Once you have a handle on vim, there are only a few real paths: edit configuration files and writing scripts. Configuration files will take care of themselves but when you start scripting there are some add-ons that will make your life easier.

VAM – Vim Addon Manager: this little wonder will simplify your life – if you can get it installed. We’ll talk more in-depth about that in another post. VAM helps you to easily install some things to make your life easier. snipmate is a good example; it performs auto completion of easy to complex code structures; everything from loops to arrays. You could do the extra work but, unless there is a nuclear holocaust and we all have to start over again, why would you?

Pathogen – This does the same thing as VAM but in a different way. If I didn’t start a “vi vs emacs” fight earlier, that last statement should do the trick.

Personally, I use VAM; I’ve chatted with Marc Weber and he’s a mad man willing to fight and die for his cause. This is the only type of person that should be writing software. Marc makes tools that make his coding life easier. If it’s a pain in the ass for Marc to code something, he updates his tools (like VAM) to reduce the pain in his ass. Due to his nature, he makes these tools available to us for free. No pain in Marc’s ass = no pain in your ass. Strangely, he has great patience for supporting his software as well. What more could you ask of a person?

So, vim – learn it, know it, love it – because you can’t live without it.

In the beginning there was vi, find, grep, sed, awk, and bash

When I was thinking of starting with Linux, a guy told me to learn a few programs then, “you will go forth and be portable”. I had no idea what this meant. I was so enamored with all of the possibilities of being in a new place (Linux); finding intrigue, confusion and suspense almost all at the same time. The possibilities were literally endless. So, where to begin…

1. Install and tinker

   • Mac, Windows, and Linux are all their own separate universes with their own particular benefits and drawbacks. Discover your new universe and above all, have fun with it.
   • There are many “flavors” or “Distros” of Linux. They are all free so you can evaluate them at will. Since they cost nothing, you can delete the ones that don’t fit your personality, sensibilities, or mood and it will cost you nothing but time.
   • When selecting an operating system it is important to understand that you will need help at some point. The most popular flavors, distributions (distros) of Linux will have the greatest amount of freely available support. The least-used will have less support. Select wisely. I tried Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and Fedora but stuck with Fedora because it is formed in the image of its parent Red Hat. Red Hat has been around since the beginning and therefore has zillions of help and how-to articles. But, the same could be said of Ubuntu. It is based on Debian.
   • If Jason Statham was a Linux Admin, he would probably use Debian but John Wayne would use Slackware. What’s important is that you select one for you and have fun with it. You can start browsing for yours here.

2. Support & Help

   • There are lots of support options out there. So many that sifting through all of of the answers makes your life even more confusing. Regardless of the avenue, always keep this in mind: Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. These are the common options:
   • Online Articles: They are cheap and plentiful and then are great – generally. Even if someone uses the same Linux Distro you use, they may have differing environment variables, aliases, or condition x, that is beyond your default install.
   • IRC: Sometimes it’s nice to talk to a person. IRC is great for that. Download an IRC client (I use xchat), connect to the freenode network, and find the IRC channel with a focus on your problem (like grep, sed, awk, etc).
   • Mailing Lists: This is my least-favorite method. It’s like going back to the 70′s. But, far more people use mailing lists than use IRC. This increases the likelihood of finding a correct answer but it slows response time down greatly.
   • Regardless of which path you take, you’ll be communicating with people whose skills range from intermediate to expert. Since they have the key to your problem, you don’t want to annoy them with irrelevant details. Do the wise thing, research your problem and learn to ask questions the smart way.

3. Start with the basics

   Each Operating System (OS) has tools and utilities to make big jobs much easier; master them all. “Basics are the practice of genius“, Albert Einstein once said. This couldn’t be more true when discovering the Linux platform. Especially if you want to learn the right way first. Learning how to perform a task the right way is much easier than learning the wrong way, unlearning the wrong way, then learning the right way. Linux is an unforgiving mistress. Do yourself a favor and come into it with the mindset of correctness. You’ll both be much happier in the relationship.

4. Linux Tools & Utilities

   This is the butter, the jelly, the underlying truth. Learn these tools and you will become the master of your universe: vi (vim), find, find, grep, sed, awk, and bash. Using them individually turns small-to-medium sized jobs into very short work. Using them together can turn almost any complex job into a work of art. Tip: automation; using these tools, is the key to administrative happiness. The expansion of how to use these tools will be covered in subsequent postings.

   When you write your first solution you will likely save it in a file called a shell script. This will be the culmination of all you have learned. The first one will not be a work of art, but they will always get better the more you practice and write. Know now that this is a lifetime pursuit.

5. Computing Standards

   Linux is referred to as an Operating System, and it is – kinda. Linux is really only a kernel. The Linux kernel operates within an environment that is optimized for it.

   • The POSIX Standard: The kernel and the environment are kept as POSIX compliant as possible for the purposes of interoperability. POSIX is a standard. The latest version of this standard is: IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/1003.1-2008. For nearly every reader, this will never come into play but you should be aware of it. NOTE: It’s important to understand that Mac OS X is somewhat POSIX compliant, depending on who you ask. And, Windows does not claim, nor is it POSIX compliant unless by accident.
   • FHS: The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) defines a standardized directory layout on the Linux filesystem for the purposes of consistency between each of the distributions.
   • LSB: The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system. The LSB is based on the POSIX specification, the Single UNIX Specification, and several other open standards, but extends them in certain areas.
   • IEEE: This is a repository for most standards but, here I will only mention it. Digging into the IEEE could spiral us out of control and way off the path.

6. Portability

   Portability is an advanced topic and one that I have not yet mastered myself but, the fact will always remain that its importance will increase the more you begin shell scripting for different clients with different flavors of Linux. Since all Unixes and Linuxes are not created equal, despite the all the standardization, there are some more lofty concepts to keep in mind. Portability being one of them.

   • Different flavors of Linux do not always put important files in the same directory.
     Files like smb.conf for example, will sometimes be found in different directories on different Linux distros. Or at least this was true when I began evaluating different distros a few years ago. Alot can change in Linux over a few months. Over a few years, black could easily become white.
   • When you start down the road of mastering (bash) shell scripting you will become painfully aware of this. The first time you create a script on your own system, provide it to a client, then ruin their system because it’s just slightly different than the one you work on you will learn a lesson that was never taught to me.
   • Portability is an important long-term goal.

7. The Pay-Off

   The whole world does not run on Windows as they would have you believe. Some corporations run on Windows, and for good reason. But, the internet is held together by a few simple technologies that are amazingly flexible, resilient, and continuous: Linux and Cisco. Without these two core technologies the Internet would break-down and perform intermittently. Cisco is proprietary and has great competition. Linux though, is:

   • Used to keep Root DNS Servers working non-stop.
   • Smart ISPs use it to manage DNS and DHCP addresses for DSL users; it also keeps their mail servers going 24-hours a day.
   • Hosting companies (like Media Temple) use it to serve fault-tolerant web sites to the world.
   • Domain Registrars (like Network Solutions) use it to automate the buying, trading, and managing of domain names and DNS records.
   • Google uses it to help you find stuff.
   • Facebook uses it to keep family and friends connected.
   • Twitter does…whatever they do. And…
   • Small Business use Linux to replace thousands of dollars in VPN and Phone hardware for free.
   • Projects (like WordPress) develop software on Linux to keep costs down and reliability up so that we can do this!
   • And this is a very limited list….

In short, starting down this road is fun, cool, and sometimes scary but it will sharpen you as a technician and broaden you as a solution provider. When your skills are developed enough to work for a large company you will find that they will value your contributions more and more, because Linux makes you think.This can translate into a higher salary.

More importantly, after you’ve mastered the basics and built other skills on top of them, like IP Routing and PHP Programming, you’re free to create your own project; shelling out a minimum of cash and the only real cost is your time. Time to learn, design, test, implement, and follow it from there…

Linux isn’t just a technology, it’s a journey.