To enable Vi-mode, edit (or create) the file ~/.inputrc or /etc/inputrc and add the following lines: set editing-mode vi set keymap vi-command Restart your terminal and you'll have Vi keybindings. By default, you're in insert mode; press Esc to enter command mode. You may want to keep a cheat sheet of default keymappings handy, since they do differ from Vi/Vim occasionally. A reference to adjusting the options and mappings of the readline library most shells use for text editing can be found in the readline man page, or in the GNU bash man page.