Setting vim as default editor

Ubuntu:

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

There are 4 choices for the alternative editor (providing /usr/bin/editor).

  Selection    Path                Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /bin/nano            40        auto mode
  1            /bin/ed             -100       manual mode
  2            /bin/nano            40        manual mode
  3            /usr/bin/vim.basic   30        manual mode
  4            /usr/bin/vim.tiny    10        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:

Non-interactive solution for setting vim as default editor:

sudo update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.basic

CentOS:

On CentOS, you can change this value by adding the following line to your ~/.bashrc:

$ export EDITOR=`which name_of_editor`

Source the file to implement the changes:

$ source ~/.bashrc

sudo update-alternatives --set editor /usr/bin/vim.basic