[wtbob]

Emacs can be installed on any server (and can be used to edit files on any server, from a client …), and it has smooth fonts and scrolling (if you like that; I turn off the scrollbar). And of course it excels at mouseless editing, navigation & automation.

https://github.com/zk-phi/sublimity might be useful to you, too.

[hellofunk]

I use emacs with vim emulation (evil mode) and am addicted to it, partly because I can bind vim's leader key with emacs lisp functions that can be quite complex, to do great things with a single key press while editing.

[FT_intern]

and the war begins

[chme]

Emacs needs to be installed. Vi is already installed most of the time.

Especially on embedded devices there is often no real competition to vi.

[eyko]

The question is how much time you spend editing files on embedded devices versus how much time you spend editing files on your main development machine.

[seletskiy]

You can always setup automatic process of synchronization of files that you need to edit, so editing process will be most efficient.

[andreareina]

If you have ssh access to the remote machine (goes with most methods of automatic synchronization) then you can use TRAMP mode to directly edit the remote copy.

[chme]

I test different configurations on the target before syncing the right one into my build environment. If I mounted the RootFS via NFS then its possible to use ${EDITOR}, but thats not always the case.

[wtbob]

> Vi is already installed most of the time.

60% of the time, it works every time, eh? :-)

I use vi too, but less now than I used too. It's definitely a powerful little editor.

[pjmlp]

Interesting is logging into UNIX servers like HP-UX and friends and getting the real VI, not the improved ones.