Fedora Developers Restart Talk Over Using Nano As The Default Text Editor

Fedora developers are once again discussing a proposal on switching to Nano as the default text editor on Fedora systems.

A similar proposal was sent out last year while now the discussion is over defaulting to Nano rather than Vi as is currently used as the default editor in cases like git commit and other CLI-based text editing.

The proposal for using Nano as the default is on the basis of "having a default editor that doesn't require specialist knowledge to use...You need to spend time learning how to use it, for even basic editing tasks. This increases the barrier to entry for those who are switching to Fedora and don't know how to use vi. It also makes things hard for those who don't particularly want to learn how to use vi. (These arguments would apply just as well if git picked Vim. vi is like hard mode for Vim, with fewer features, missing syntax highlighting, and no indication of what mode you are in. Even Vim users may feel lost and bewildered when using vi.)"

Under the new proposal, Nano would be the default but Vi would still be provided on Fedora installations for those interested.

Details on this change proposal via the Fedora Wiki. There is also this mailing list thread where the proposal is currently being discussed before going through the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee process.