Hi i tried using Vi today for the first time and while the expected start page comes up i cant type anything not even ;q to quit.
Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks Geoff

What happens if you do the following:

Are you able to see the output in file1? Are you able to append and exit out?

What distro is this?

you can alway try to press ESC (several times) before :q!

In vi, you need to go to the editing mode. With a new file, hit i or a and you will be in edit mode. To get back to command mode, hit the escape key. To exit, you need to be in command mode. To exit vi, hit the : key and then enter one of the quit options. These options are; q if there have been no changes, q! if there are changes you do not want to keep, and wq to exit and save.

If you did not specify a file name when you started vi, you will be prompted for a file name. There is a tutorial file that is part of the vi package. Place a copy of this file in your home directory and work throug the tutorial. There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn vi, you will like it.

I use it on my windoze box.

ok thanks for the help guys think i have got it working now.

There are lots of choices for text editor besides vi, you may want to look at, vim came in first as text editor of the year.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...20#post5514620

Actually I like vi, but it's not the easiest to use.

Type vimtutor for a very nice introduction to Vi/Vim.

If you have vim installed (and, on Ubuntu, you will probably find the "vi" is aliased to "vim") try running this at the command line:

It will open a short tutorial.

Also, HPR has several podcasts available about vi and vim. You may find them and the associated shownotes useful.

Full disclosure: I did two of them.

try pressing the "insert" key once on the keyboard, then start typing.

Press "esc" key once and press ":q!" to quit.

Good luck!! Search the web there's quite a few tutorials.

Check out this link: Learn VI the easy way