Which text editor do you use?
The first step of any linux install is installing vim/neovim. Anything else is sheer apostasy
It’s worse than the picture depicts. It’s not just the lovers, the elitists and the evangelists, it’s the sheer range of choice too, beyond the loudest.
Nano because I’m too lazy to learn vim or emacs. I want something that works and not something that operates like cheat codes in old video games.
The reasons us elders use VI is because on a new installation, it was the only thing available until:
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You are lucky enough to find a compiled version of PINE/PICO, or
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You have the compiler installed, and can get the source code and build it yourself.
For some reason, some elitists decided that if you don’t know that, then you are a failure. But honestly, when modern distros started coming out with WYSIWYG-type editors, it was a relief, even though I reverted to VI/VIM because of muscle-memory, I do not push it on new users. It’s the same argument people make for driving manual vs automatic, sure it’s useful, but when was the last time you even saw a manual car? (At least in North America).
You want to live dangerously, go ahead and put NetBSD with just the basics and leave the rest of us who want to do something useful alone.
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First choice: use a normal damn GUI text editor
Second choice: Nano. It’s simple and comprehensible, and a best CLI choice for newbies. You can then turn to vim, emacs, or whatever, but don’t make your life harder from the get-go
People suggesting to start with Vim are probably the same ones pushing for Arch as a first distro. C’mon.
That’s how you breed scrubs who can’t M-x-butterfly. I say give them a distro that boots into vi and starts a background process that block internet access around them. If they manage to quit vi and kill the daemon, they’re ready for Linux.
Lol
use a normal damn GUI text editor
The right choice as long as you don’t want to edit code/config files. Trust me, writing code inside libre office is not fun.
Libre office isn’t a text editor it’s a document processor; more like a gui for something like TeX, or realisticially html, than a program for reading/editing plain text.
Kate is a basic GUI text editor that can highlight syntax, suggest options and do other things useful for code and configs. Comes with KDE (which is a common newbie recommendation) and is available as Flatpak everywhere else.
But sure, there are instances where you should use CLI text editors. If you need to edit text files as root, this is generally the best option. Also, it’s the only option for headless setups and SSH. For that, nano will do.
Was gonna write that only one true text editor exists. But okay, you are right, of course
All I’m gonna say is than nano is installed on almost every Linux os and has the keyboard shortcuts written on the UI.
Who doesn’t have vi/m?
Fwiw, helix also gives visual feedback on bindings if a key is a table for mutiple bindings.
I’m sorry I don’t see how that’s relevant to my point.
I’m saying that of all the text editors, nano is the one that usually takes the least amount of effort to learn and set up. Both of those options require either learning or set up, so why would I choose them if convinience is what I’m after?
I was just asking which distros don’t have vi/m. The helix point was an aside. It wasn’t combative, just curious.
I wouldn’t know tbh. I’ve never had any reason to use anything other than nano for a terminal text editor.
Nano in the CLI, kate in the GUI
dd or GTFO.
head n-1 > tmp && echo “line replacement” >> tmp && tail -n+1 >> tml && mv tmp orig
I feel called out but the only time I’m editing a file is tweaking a config or .env file and its just so simple for me
signature look of superiority
Kate master race of KDE
I use
- sublime-text when not confined to a terminal
- nano for example with git’s CLI
- vi/vim when the others are not available.
Wait until you get cornered by elite Helix enjoyers
Helix is very enjoyable to use
For now. Soon it’ll be plugin slopped.
I already use it without plugins (since it doesn’t support them). Why wouldn’t I just not install the plugins?
That’s not the issue so much as it leads to the collapse of serious development. Better put, if these plugins are so important, why not add them to the editor? Instead we get turing complete configuration and all the performance degradation downstream of it.
Hmm I suppose I agree. I hope it doesn’t turn out that way. If it does, let’s fork it!
Noobs get hit with friendly fire.
I want whatever is closest to Notepad++. Honestly, KDE already comes with that built in.
kate when I am using GUI and vim when I am using CLI.
