vim, because that's how my father taught me, and how his father's father taught him.

Choose vim! The generational trauma of file editors!

As a new Linux user who spends as little time editing config files as I can manage, I'm fine with nano.

Kate

Me no love nano, me brain only can use nano.

E macs scary. vim no let me leave :(

Why would you need a text editor when you can just do cat > file ?

smh

Let the editor holy wars (re)start!

Vim is the one true editor, and the heretics who claim otherwise shall be driven forth and sent to re-education linux boot camps to learn the true ways.

ed is the standard editor

My requirements for a text editor:

• it displays 'A' when I press the 'A' key
• doesn't require more than 1 minute of learning to use it

Bonus points if it comes pre installed.

I use Micro in the terminal - it offers good desktop integration with keys similar to DEs like ctrl+v and ctrl+c, rather than being terminal centred (e.g. Ctrl+C is usually the standard interrupt/abort key in the terminal). So it's nice if you're mainly in a desktop but pop in to a terminal occasionally and have the DE muscle memory.

I use Kate outside the terminal.

But honestly, which text editor you use depends on what you use it for and how often. Vim is very powerful and allows very fast use & productivity if you learn it properly and probably very useful if you spend a lot of time in the terminal or TTY, but Nano is more straight forward and easy for a lot of basic terminal based work.

I'm a emacs guy, but nano should be the only one installed by default. The default editor should tell you how to exit!

vi because it's everywhere, even on servers where packages can't be downloaded or shouldn't be installed.

Helix is really rad

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.

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.

Nothing wrong with Kate. I know how to use Nano because it's an essential skill for when your machine boots into emergency mode, but aside from that editing text from the terminal is lunacy.

ed is the standard text editor.

Even worse: I like GUI editors like Kate/KDevelop/Geany/VSCode. Unless it is on a server obviously.

I don't understand the issue. I've been using Linux less than a year but I started with a KDE desktop so it came with Kate, Kwrite, and Nano. I've literally never needed anything else.

I've tried out a couple IDEs like Codium and Geany, but I don't see what they offer that Kate doesn't.

I've also at least opened Emacs but I didn't get much further than that.

I use Nano in the terminal when I'm editing config files because I read somewhere that it's safer.

I installed Neovim and Micro but I haven't explored those at all yet. I don't have any problems with Nano.

I tried Pluma but I really only use it for dumping lists.

For the most part I use Kate, but for simpler notes I use Kwrite just to keep them in separate spots on my launcher.

I don't see why this is such an issue though.

All I'm gonna say is than nano is installed on almost every Linux os and has the keyboard shortcuts written on the UI.

Do you have a minute talk about our lord and saviour Vim?

I'm too old to keep lying that I don't like nano..

i am quite fond of kate

Micro >

pico!

But nano will do ;)

Wait until you get cornered by elite Helix enjoyers

I see the Helix cucumber got left at the grocery store

Notepad++ in a Windows XP VM

I use Vim, which has some really handy tricks that I use somewhat often (eg, type :r! followed by a terminal command and it will add the standard output of said command to the bottom of your file).

That being said, there's nothing wrong with Nano. Most distros come with it out of the box nowadays, and its learning curve is practically nonexistent compared to the alternatives.

mcedit😎

Helix

This is kinda irrelevant for a new user, but vi/vim is available literally everywhere. If you need to shh onto another machine and edit some files, it's the only editor you can reliably expect to exist.

Best choice: use whatever comes pre-installed.

Emacs with Vim’s modal editing.

Commit heresy with evil-mode Emacs.

Kate master race of KDE