Hello all!

I'm having trouble figuring out how to save changes inside files opened in the terminal.

Specifically, I am trying to add "ServerName localhost" to my apache2.conf file, but I don't know how to save things in the terminal.

I found a solution on this site that said to hit escape then type :wq then hit enter, but that did not work. It gave me an error message that said the command was not recognized, and my wq showed up as text in the file alongside "localhost" indicating that it was not actually executing it as a command.

Anything I am missing here? Thanks for any help! I am using Linux for the first time to make a website using html/css/php/sql/java for my senior project (I am in highschool) so any bit of information would be much appreciated!

Which editor are you using to modify the file? ":wq" is specifically for vi/vim, so if you're using a different editor, that won't work.

I'm not actually sure, I am using whatever the default is when I run the command "$ sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf" in the terminal. The terminal then changes into a new terminal window, with some information on it. The top says: GNU nano 2.2.6 File: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf -that is all I know.

It means you are using nano console text editor. For saving you have to press keys CTRL-x simultaneouly or one after another quickly. It will show dialog for filename or path with filename to save there.

It worked, thank you so much for helping me!

Now I also know what sudo means and that it is a console text editor. I will use this as a learning experience so I won't need to ask a question like this again.

Cheers to both of you who helped!

No. Nano is the text editor. sudo is used to give you elevated privileges - with your regular user account, you can't edit files in /etc, so you use sudo to let you run nano with privileges that allow you to modify the file.