Thanks for your note! I like getting these sort of Unix and Linux questions, actually, since Iv'e been working in that environment for twenty-six years now! Sheesh.
The first step is to ensure that you're running the Bash shell, which you can do by typing this in:
ps -p $$
When I run that, for example, I see this:
$ ps -p $$
PID TT STAT TIME COMMAND
958 p1 S 0:00.03 -bash
I'm running Bash. Good. (the '-' means it's a login shell, by the way).
What you want is "vi mode" in the Readline function. Readline is the module in Bash that processes input typing and command entry. Check the man page for Bash (which is incredibly long) and you'll find that you're talking about the readline keymapping, which is described thusly:
keymap (emacs)
Set the current readline keymap. The set of valid keymap names
is emacs, emacs-standard, emacs-meta, emacs-ctlx, vi, vi-com-
mand, and vi-insert. vi is equivalent to vi-command; emacs is
equivalent to emacs-standard. The default value is emacs; the
value of editing-mode also affects the default keymap.
That's what you want. To set it once you've logged in, simply type:
set keymap vi
To set it permanently for all future shells, add that line to your .bashrc in your home directory. That's all there is to it!
Update: In some situations that doesn't seem to work. My theory is that it's to do with it not overriding shell environment variables (esp. SHELLOPTS). If that doesn't work for you, try this command instead:
set -o vi and I bet you'll have some joy.
One more helpful tip: if you want to dig around in a Unix man page, here's a very helpful command to remember:
man bash | col -b > ~/bash.man ; vi ~/bash.man ; rm ~/bash.man
This gives you an version of the specified man page that you can explore and read at your leisure that's conveniently deleted once you're done reading it. I find it far more pleasant than just scrolling through with the "man" command.
And say "Hi" to those Unix old-timers. We probably know each other. :-)
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Your last tidbit about man pages seems to boil down to using vim (which we have on OSX in lieu of vi) as a man page viewer. It's much easier than that.
In bash:
export PAGER="col -b | vim -R -c 'set ft=man nomod nolist' -"
In tcsh:
setenv PAGER="col -b | vim -R -c 'set ft=man nomod nolist' -"
Now, just type "man bash" or whatever you want the man page for. The man command will then use whatever is in $PAGER to show you the money. Syntax-highlighted (in a good terminal) vim command friendly manpage viewer. Some people have reported weirdness with vim as their PAGER, I've never had the slightest issue. The highlights are so stinkin' handy too. If you're not seeing colored highlighting and you're using a decent terminal (xterm, dtterm, etc), make a .vimrc in your home folder ($ vi ~/.vimrc) and add this:
syntax on
You should now have color. You know, if the planets aligned properly.