[rmunn]

Never really learned emacs so didn't know TRAMP existed. When was it created? I was given that advice ("vi will always be available on the server") in the late 90's so I'm curious to know if TRAMP was an option my prof didn't know about (or didn't mention), or whether it was developed later and the advice was good at the time.

EDIT: Found http://www.fifi.org/doc/tramp/tramp-emacs.html which mentions that TRAMP started development in November 1998. I would have been getting that advice in late 1997 or early 1998, given when I started my Unix class at college. So the answer appears to be that the advice was actually correct at the time, but superseded sooner than I thought it was.

[scbrg]

Well, TRAMP was preceded by ange-ftp, which let you edit files remotely over ftp. I was using that in 1995, and I didn't get the impression then that it was brand new, so it had probably been around for a while already.

Of course, if your problem is "/usr won't mount", then it's likely that the ftp server isn't running either, so the advice still makes sense.