Does emacs have something like vi "set number"?

Question

Does emacs have something like vi "set number" so that each line starts with a line number?

Answer 1

Take a look at this article. It explains the different ways to add line numbers in emacs:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/LineNumbers

Answer 2

Try adding linum.el to the emacs dir / .emacs file.