Which text editor do you use?
I am no coder, so I only ever need to modify configs or write down my thoughts. nano for configs, Standard Notes for thoughts
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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vi because it's everywhere, even on servers where packages can't be downloaded or shouldn't be installed.
This is my reply every time someone suggests nvim. Is it on the servers I use but I'm not an admin for? No? Then it doesn't sound like a great option.
My favourite editor is the first one I find that's installed
Best choice: use whatever comes pre-installed.
Vim it is.
I learned vim (technically vi) because it was the only editor available on these tiny liveusbs I would use for work. It was literally my only option. Once I got used to the motions, using any text editor without vim motions felt unusable to me.
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Why would you need a text editor when you can just do cat > file ?
smh
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My colon quit.
Poor souls of those that haven't found the way of the Gnu.
May the Gnu have mercy of your lost ways and show you the light M-x show-light RET
May the macros never lack in your life,
May your parentheses be balanced,
And may your init.el pass with no fails.
Emen
Even worse: I like GUI editors like Kate/KDevelop/Geany/VSCode. Unless it is on a server obviously.
Me no love nano, me brain only can use nano.
E macs scary. vim no let me leave :(
You might like micro :) its like nano but with more user friendly features like Ctrl+s for save, and clicking places to change cursor location. I think you have to enable the "cheat sheet" of keyboard commands being visible all the time if you want it to always be showing like I do
It also supports extensions but I don't really care about that lol. I just want something simple with nice ux :)
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!
haha!
Sometimes I feel like my side of the holy war isn't engaging in completely good faith.
I might switch sides to emacs if my fingers were long enough to reach the key combinations.
Maybe I'll go try it, anyway!
...
What was the command to exit vi, again...?
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Started using helix after vim and neovim went full llm brain.
yeah, it's all true, lol.
it's emacs, though.
I liked Sublime enough to pay for it. It has become my primary text editor at home.
I also like Atom/Pulsar, but it takes a but too long to open for my use case.
Obsidian isn't exactly a text editor, but it fits many of the use cases. It may be closed source, but all the files are accessible and usable if the app ever disappears.
I want to use vim more, but I'm lazy, and the learning curve keeps putting me off. I might get there eventually.
Nano is ol' reliable. When everything else failed, Nano was still there for me and worked perfectly.
Nano, because it was the first I'd ever used and it does everything I need it to do (i.e. very little, edits the occasional config file and that's it)
Notepad under wine
Not even Notepad ++? Damn
Notepad++ doesn't have Notepad's awesome AI features, clearly
๐คฎ๐คฎ
I see the Helix cucumber got left at the grocery store
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.
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I constantly switch between Nixvim, DOOM Emacs, helix, and NVChad. I can never settle on one editor for long. I don't know why.
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.
Idk it took me 3 attempts to learn (neo)vim, but now every Linux system I SSH in I just go straight for vi(m), because moving around and editing in Nano is just so slow when you're used to vim keys.
I swear I'm not trying to proselytize. People should use whatever they want, and these discussions are pointless. It's all just tradeoffs and getting used to things.
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As a new Linux user who spends as little time editing config files as I can manage, I'm fine with nano.
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I'm using Emacs, but after getting a bit used to the vanilla keybindings for the past couple of weeks i still feel like vim-like motions are better, so now i'm playing around with a helix-mode package to emulate helix keybindings (i was using helix before switching to emacs). One change i did make though is bind end-of-line and beginning-of-line to $ and 0 like in proper vim. Helix uses END ans HOME keys for this and i hate it lol, no idea why they thought it was a good idea to move that far away from the home row for that.
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Do you have a minute talk about our lord and saviour Vim?
I miss atom, when it was discontinued I tried vscodium and immediately hated it, then used kate for a while, and now use neovim. neovim is nice but atom was just so good
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