To be honest I've seen very few linux machines with emacs preinstalled, nano seems to be part of the ubuntu default install (maybe debian too?) but isn't on any

To be honest I've seen very few linux machines with emacs preinstalled, nano seems to be part of the ubuntu default install (maybe debian too?) but isn't on any fedora box I have immediate access too (it is available in the repos). This might be because I mainly deal in servers with smaller installs than most desktops. I would entirely agree that a lot of vims popularity lies in it being part of the default install on pretty much every unix box ever though. That and it actually being a decent editor once you get over that initial insert mode/command mode learning curve.