Does emacs have something like vi's “set number”?

Question

Does emacs have something like vi's “set number”, so that each line starts with its line number?

Answer 1

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

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

Answer 2

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