Slashdot Mirror
GNU Nano Gets New Stable Release
jones_supa writes: GNU Nano 2.4.0 has been released as the first stable update to this UNIX command line text editor in a number of years. The release codenamed "Lizf" brings a wide variety of changes: full undo system, Vim-compatible file locking, linter support, formatter support, flexible syntax highlighting, and random bugfixes.
I always prefer random fixes instead of carefully planned specific fixes.
Nano is a full screen text editor.
Ed is a command line editor.
Have Slashdot editors never used a teletype?
I'll always prefer pico/nano over vi and emacs.
Are you kidding? No self respecting neckbeard would be caught dead using Nano. It's too simple and straightforward for them. Their editor needs to have an interactive and non interactive mode and no use of the delete or backspace key. I mean keyboards have had that function for like a half century now...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
For me, nano fulfills a vital role:
When some inexperienced Linux user has to edit some file in some form of Linux and there is no gui available, I point them to nano, because it behaves pretty closely to what they expect from a text editor (which tends to be something like notepad...sigh).
The other, most common alternatives aren't nice for newcomers. vi comes preinstalled in most *nixes, but it is just alien to your average user, and emacs - though it behaves more like what users expect - always ends confusing them because of the key chords (and it doesn't come installed in most distros, if I am not mistaken).
nano is simple enough and good enough to get the job done, and most Linuxes have it pre-installed.
So, thank you nano developers. Keep up the good work!
I'm a *nix neckbeard, I respect my skills, and I use nano daily. It's a simple, fast, straightforward editor with controls similar to Word Star. Ctl-K to delete line, etc. As I've been busy building my neckbeard for 15 years or so now, and originally learned word processing with WordStar, it's a simple, natural fit.
I code in NetBeans with an IDE but for sysadmin work on any of the 50 or so servers I admin? Nano + mercurial all the way.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
systemd will get an integrated text editor with emacs, vi and nano emulation modes...
Are you kidding? No self respecting neckbeard would be caught dead using Nano. It's too simple and straightforward for them. Their editor needs to have an interactive and non interactive mode and no use of the delete or backspace key. I mean keyboards have had that function for like a half century now...
Yeah, no one but those mythical "neckbeards" could ever possibly want such advanced features as... being able to customize it. Or auto completion. Or hell, even code folding. I mean, Nano's biggest boast it that they have syntax highlighting and find-and-replace. Some people need a bit more from their editor then that. Oh, and VI does support the backspace key. In fact, it has for about 20+ years now.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
Does it have the butterfly macro for real programmers?
https://xkcd.com/378/
The tiny editors do have their uses. They tend _not_ to require dozens of unrelated and bulky graphical packages to support them, the failure of any of which can disable the graphical editor. And they work well over poor bandwidth connections to remote servers, and even work well on overburdened, very lightweight virtualization servers for software routers or proxies.
So making them work really well can save work time and be very appreciated by people doing critical work with very real constraints.
Even modern, GUI based systems have tools that work outside the GUI, or in a text-mode terminal of some kind.
Maintaining such tools is just as needed as maintaining other parts of a system. Or creating new bits, for that matter. If not done, it would only be a matter of time before you'd have (badly) broken bits of software all over the place. To the point where a system becomes unusable to do real work. Text mode editors are just one of many components of modern systems (and imho, not in the "buggy whip" department anyway).
Besides: many people use it. Among other reasons, probably because it saves them time, or does some jobs better than other editors. As long as there are enough users, that alone makes developer's time well spent.
The tiny editors do have their uses. They tend _not_ to require dozens of unrelated and bulky graphical packages to support them, the failure of any of which can disable the graphical editor. And they work well over poor bandwidth connections to remote servers, and even work well on overburdened, very lightweight virtualization servers for software routers or proxies.
So making them work really well can save work time and be very appreciated by people doing critical work with very real constraints.
Oh, absolutely. That's why vi is so useful.
I would simply like if it explained how to cut and paste multiple lines of text at the same time. For that task I have to reach for the mouse (the block of text needs to fit on the screen) or use a graphical editor - that'd be pluma or leafpad, to be free of bullshit.
That was still easier in MS-DOS EDIT.
By the way : (shit, I put it in a pastebin because of the slashdot filter)
http://dpaste.com/3210G6K
It has qwerty-isms. That's perhaps one of my bigger peeves with Free software. The video games in linux are worst, they're likely to be playable with a qwerty keymap only. DOS/Windows games of the 90s at least just read the raw scan codes so the keyboard acted as if it was qwerty.
vi a link to vim ? I haven't used plain old vi in a long time.
The operating system I use actually does ship with an implementation of a very old version of vi. I don't use it (I use vim), but I do know for a fact that it supports the backspace key, along with a bunch of stuff nano doesn't.
Clarification: I don't have a problem at all with nano, but I do with people who say it's stupid that I want more from a text editor than search-and-replace. Also, binding all those shortcuts to the control key has got to wear on your pinky after a while...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I'm a *nix neckbeard...
Well, I'm not a true neckbeard, but merely a unix beard. But I question anyone's commitment to the Unix way if they are not using Traditional Vi. But I'm rather torn on the issue of facial hair and operating systems because a man I deeply respect has no beard at all!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They'll have to call it Micro now!
I still use Midnight Comannder's editor (mcedit) whenever I need to edit text in a Linux terminal. I find it a lot more user-friendly than any other terminal-mode text editor.
Vi is downright arcane. You need to hit i before you can type, and you need to hit Escape :wq to save and quit. Fortunately, it's not as bad as classic vi, where arrow keys don't exist, and you need to use ESC then hjkl, and backspace keys don't exist either, and you need to use ESC x.
Meanwhile, in mcedit land, you just hit F9, which is clearly labelled as "pull down", and menus appear. You can see what your options are, and carry out commands. This is why GUIs are awesome, it shows you the possibilities.
I use nano because for me it is the best text-mode "text editor". I use it to "edit text". Not for coding, which I guess is what you're talking about. For just "editing text", nano is the most user-friendly. There's no need for all those advanced features you mention when all I want to do is "edit text files". I'm talking about plain "text files", the kind that just have words and punctuation and none of the code tags or whatever that needs to be syntax highlighted. Just normal words in English or other language and none of the programming words that need to be auto-completed. You know what I mean?
Don't fornicate. Seriously, just don't do it.
I know the buggy whip maker is some nice metaphor, but some people don't think it through.
vi is fine if you've got nothing important to do but learn archaic interfaces but some of us have shit to do.
but nano looks like wordstar
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I suppose that's why you only manage 50-or-so servers
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
I certainly wouldn't be caught using nano, not since our sys admin accidentally trashed a Linux system by editing the pam config file with nano. After he saved the file, nobody could log in anymore because nano inserted a line feed where a long line had wrapped in his terminal.
We got the system back by booting from a live CD and using vi to join the broken line back together.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
This is one of the problems with open source development; people will spend endless hours perfecting the buggy whip; not to mention coming up with new, competing buggy whip designs.
Yeah, how DARE they spend their own time doing what they like! Don't they know that they should be productive and do what sunderland56 deems more important?!
I have to say, I grew up on DOS and then moved to Linux over time.
vi - everyone was talking about it being "equivalent" but I use it ONLY when absolutely, 100% necessary and I can't install anything else.
emacs - can't be bothered. Literally, just no.
pico/nano - lifesavers.
I don't want to change contexts, do line-at-a-time editing, with arcane commands that you have to "man" to find out. Pico/nano lets you navigate with the keyboard, has all the shortcuts clearly listed below, and doesn't play games.
Coming from anything else to use the text editing commands, people must hate them.
The equivalent of "apt-get install nano" is one of the first commands I execute on any Linux machine, no matter how minimal and console-based or fancy and gui-based.
When something says "edit this postfix file" or similar, I just want to run a command on it and start editing with an easy-to-find save and exit.
Much like you probably haven't used a manual typewriter for a long time. The only reason to use either is pure nostalgia.
Unless you need to cut a mimeograph stencil. Which would be either nostalgia or for love of the smell of mimeo ink.
I like nano because the screen has all the commands you need right at the bottom. It's my go to editor. I don't have to flip back and forth between a help screen and a working screen (and an reading screen) like vi.
Cheap storage VM.
Nano is also supported in almost all Linux distros out of the box, even ultra slim embedded, so using it on unfamiliar systems really speeds things up.
Not just Linux. It is available on every Unix I have seen from HP-UX to AIX to the BSDs.
"Eclipse or whatever" doesn't work in a terminal window, but nano does.
Matches work in places electric lights do not, so we should all switch to matches.
Anyone who is going to bother learning a text editor will learn a better one.
I didn't realize there was much to learn, can't people figure out how to use more than one text editor? We are talking about programmers and sysadmins aren't we, they're supposed to be experts in these matters.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I usually test a few logins before logging out so I can revert any typos or whatever. I do the same even when using glorious Vi. Pity that nano decided to reformat lines, I wouldn't have expected that.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You can disable line wrapping by starting nano with the '-w' flag.
Attitudes like this are part of why commercial UNIX got clobbered by Linux and BSD.
Ever use an old version of Solaris without GNU utilities? Or HPUX? Or (shudder) UNIXware?
The basic utilities would feel right at home to someone on UNIX 7. Clunky, unintuitive, lacking modern features, and bug-ridden. Some hardcore UNIX heads liked it, although I can't fathom why. Sun wised up after a while - no idea about HP. Even on Linux, you're seeing vim replace all the other vi clones like elVIs, to the complaint of practically no one.
If you're going to spend all day wielding a buggy whip, you want one that's comfortable in your hand.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Sounds like the fault of pam for being crippled by a linefeed.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard