You can find vim or at least vi on almost every unix like systems. It may be not installed by default, but can usually be installed very quickly.
Many system tools like less have a kind of vim navigation implemented. Other tools like the file manager ranger have vi key bindings.
Before we extend vim, let's take a look at some functionalities that are valid for all vim installations.
First of all press ESC to get in command mode, enter :qa and you're out.
It sounds a bit funny, but jokes about how to exit vim have been around for decades for a reason.
The command mode let you execute command like undo, redo, find and so on. The insert mode let you enter text. When you are in visual mode you can select select text and do operations on the selection.
You can use the arrow keys for movement, but I suggest, to use the vim navigation keys
h - left j - down k - up l - right It feels a little bit exhausting the fist time you do it, but when its getting into your mechanical brain, you won't want to miss it.
CTRL-D - scroll down half of the screen CTRL-U - scroll up half of the screen i - insert text before the cursor a - insert text after the cursor I - insert text before the first non-blank in the line A - insert text at the end of the line
Press ESC.
J - join n lines and remove the indent :[range]s[ubstitude]/{pattern}/{string}/[flags] - replace text in buffer :w[rite] - write buffer to file :x - write buffer to file and close buffer x - delete char under cursor :qa - exit vim if all buffers have been saved :qa! - exit vim and discard changes
There are more commands to checkout. You can use the :h commmand pattern to find out more about every command available in vim.