Text Editors
Overview
Choosing a text editor is a deeply personal decision in the Linux world. Whether you want a simple GUI editor or a powerful modal editor you can use over SSH, Linux has you covered. Here are the most popular options.
Command-Line Editors
vim / vi
The classic modal editor. Steep learning curve, but incredibly powerful and available on every Unix-like system. Once you learn it, you'll never go back. Start with
vimtutor.GNU Emacs
More than an editor — an entire operating environment. Extensible via Emacs Lisp. Famously described as "a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor." Install with:
apt-get install emacs.nano (pico)
The friendliest command-line editor. On-screen shortcuts shown at the bottom. Perfect for editing config files. Recommended for beginners.
GUI Editors
gedit
GNOME's default text editor. Clean, simple, with syntax highlighting. Good for casual editing.
kate / kwrite
KDE's text editors. Kate is full-featured with a file browser and terminal pane; kwrite is lighter.
nedit
Motif-based editor with a familiar feel for people coming from Windows Notepad/WordPad. Syntax highlighting, macro support.
Quick vim Cheat Sheet
i enter Insert mode
Esc return to Normal mode
:w save
:q quit
:wq save and quit
:q! quit without saving
dd delete (cut) current line
yy yank (copy) current line
p paste
/pattern search forward
n next match