> 
> Everytime I try to edit a file (using ed), I get a read-only fil system
> error, how do I fix this?

You're running in single-user mode. At this point, all the file systems
are mounted read-only (so you can fsck them w/o cache consistancy errors).

Either:

1) type logout to let the boot proceed to multi-user

2) mount -o rw / (from memory; possibly a bit off)

Take care,

Bill