Which text editor do you use?
Gentoo picked vi for me about 20 years ago...
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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I use nvim/ vim just because i was new and didn't know anything I could edit on an ssh connection with beside vim. And it isn't that hard, using lazyvim atm (still new and dont have time to configure myself) and if I can just use the mouse if I am too stupid, not that hard. But it get more and more convenient as time goes on. You encounter enough times and just think to yourself "is there a better way?" and most of the time there is! Just start with "i", "" and ":wq".
I used to use nano.
Since I learned how to exit vim, without murdering it, I use vim. Vim is mostly my choice becasue deleting and moving lines is incedibly fast and it has the very best code highlighting.
Comparing an Operating System with text editors doesn't make any sense.
All I'm gonna say is than nano is installed on almost every Linux os and has the keyboard shortcuts written on the UI.
Having gone thrugh the litany or editors over the years. I have stripped down my needs to nano. I just need a quick edit here and there on occiasions.
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.
Which text editor do you use?
- Emacs mostly
- sometimes fin for configs and some other small file tweaks and when developing/testing fin,
- sometimes mcedit just because it's an awesome under sung hero of easy tui text editors. ... beats nano imo.
- sometimes leafpad, like when i need some intermediary between things that are being stubborn to paste between
- rare neovim, like when i'm trying to learn neovim, or trying something that only neovim has
- rare nano... there are probably still times...
- once kate to see what it was like, I liked it, then I added the features I liked to emacs.
Also the naming of these apps are incredible confusing. Im using linux full time for over a year now (Mint, Bazzite) and still cant remember the names of half the damn utility apps. Its a good thing most distros show you the most likely thing if you start typing in some slightly relevant text to the search.
My idiot brain hardwired by years of windows use: -I need to download an app... Something, something app store
Linux: -You mean Bazaar?
-Aw yisss, but also want to make a screenshot, something to do with snipping tool?
-Spectacle maybe?
-Fuck yeah!
Nano is objectively the most beginner friendly of the bunch.
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.
Thatβs how you breed scrubs who canβt 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, theyβre 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.
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
You guys edit text?
Claude, remove spotify from sources.list
Wait until you get cornered by elite Helix enjoyers
Helix is very enjoyable to use
neovim for terminal based editing and jetbrains for a more full fledged project experience.
Why is this post not mentioning the most important editor of all time? Why is this post deliberately missing out the standard text editor ed, that wastes no system resource on unnecessary output like help messages or a text buffer. If you are coming to Linux you should really start looking into learning ed, since, well it is the standard Texteditor overall.
But real *nix'ers use ed
You may as well start there. You'll be using it eventually once you inevitably develop the same passionate idolization of Unix that I, the righteous self appointed evangelist of all things good && just && Unix possess.
/s
Commandline? Nano (or Pico or whatever) if it exists. Else vim/vi. I originally used emacs back in the day. However, for anything else, I'm using the closest thing to notepad++ I can find at the time.
I love gram
Emacs with Vimβs modal editing.
I use Vim. I am not a power user by any stretch but it's what I use. I know like three shortcuts, which is enough to make me marginally faster in vim than nano. I don't really feel much desire to learn a terminal editor and be super good with it. There are other things I'm more interested in spending my time on if I feel motivated to learn.
Kate and micro
I just use the inbuilt text editor in linux mint.
Or a full fledged IDE when I edit code.
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.
You usually don't take the time to learn vim or Emacs just to write some notes. The real value of such powerful and highly customisable text editors only shows itself when you are editing lots and lots of text on a regular basis (e.g. codimg, writing blogs or any other form of writing)
The advantage vim and emacs have is, that they have keybindings for about everything you could ever want. This has the advantage, that once you know how to use them, your working speed massively increases, but it takes quite some time to learn the keybindings. Another advantage and disadvantage of (neo) vim and emacs is, that both are being modified by config files. This comes at the advantage of being able to modify about everything about your editor, but means that sometimes it can be quite hard to implement a specific behaviour. The next advantage is, that your configuration becomes easily portable and extensible. Implementing a specific behaviour often only requires copy pasting a 15 year old stackoverflow post and if you want to move to a new device, you just have to grab your config files and are good to go.
Emacs also has orgmode directly integrated into it, which can be used to write text and format it (similar to Markdown, but much more powerful) and even export it to other formats like HTML or LaTeX. As you might expect, orgmode also has its own keybindings. This means, that you can write your documents inside emacs [orgmode], use all the powerful text formatting tools and keybindings and then share your work in a nicely formatted and portable way.
And then there's me on Geany...
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.
Welcome to Team Kate. There are dozens of us!
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