Nano has already supplanted the great EMacs and Vim as the most popular text editor of all linux distros, for though it has many omissions in functionality it scores over the older, more complete programs in two important respects. First, it is slightly simpler; and secondly it has the text "^ Exit" inscribed in highlighted text on its footer

EDIT : This sees to be going over some people's heads. It's a hitchiker's guide to the galaxy reference.

The Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions . . . it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

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[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To flog this dead horse just a bit longer, micro is nearly seven times the size of nano, and Apple are clearly doing it wrong. Pointing an old name at a new thing is fine as long as there's backward compatibility, but a new name at an old thing that doesn't support the same features is a disservice to the old thing, the new thing and the user.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

, micro is nearly seven times the size of nano,

Still starts up instantly, though, and still smaller than practically every GUI editor.

-/

$ nano -/ test.txt 
nano: invalid option -- '/'

So much for that. Is this a really new option, or does it require a compilation flag that Debian doesn't bother with?

[–] esc@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

# nano --help | tail -n1  
-/             --modernbindings        Use better-known key bindings  
# cat /etc/debian_version 
13.6

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You must be on an old or LTS Debian. The -/ flag was added in the 8.0 release of nano in mid-2024. https://packages.debian.org/stable/editors/ lists 8.4 as the current version for Debian 13 / trixie.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's like yesterday by Debian standards, lol. And honestly, I'm surprised that they're adding this kind of feature after this long. Feels similar to how i3-wm eventually merged gaps functionality (as known from the popular i3-gaps patch by airblader), I never thought it would actually happen.

LTS Debian

Why would you run any other kind of Debian? I'm proudly running oldstable, my laptop has an Ubuntu version that's even older. And though tempting, I'm not upgrading for nano -/.

I really appreciate the info, though!