[plug] text editors.. pico

[Phillip Steege]

There is a good review of Linux text editors in the October 2000 issue of
"Linux Format" (the UK Linux magazine).  It is available at news agents now.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bernard Blackham <dagobah at mad.scientist.com>
To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [plug] text editors.. pico


> On Sat, 30 Sep 2000, Scott Campbell wrote:
>
> > firstly i want to say what a huge success the inatallfest was!!! I went
> > there with no clue about linux, and left with half a clue :)
>
> Mission accomplished :)
>
>
> > but, one thing i did not quite understand, on alot of documentation and
> > sorts, its said edit this file and enter this into it, and delete that
line
> > and so on ....
> >
> > but how do you actually edit the file, what is the name of a text
editior?
> > and some basic commands?
>
> The most common text editor on Linux & UNIX clones machines (that i've
> seen) is either emacs or vi/vim, both of which are horribly hard to use
> for newbies... powerful yes, but quite irritating for simple tasks.
> They're probably already installed though.
>
> Can anybody else comment here... How is nano/pico for long lines? I know
> they like to wrap them at around 70 or 80, but if it's not the intended
> result, what do you do?
>
> For serious text editing (oxymoronic?), I use vim (Vi IMproved). Learn the
> basic commands and you should be fine. There's a lot of stuff it can do,
> macros, etc., but learn the basics first (type :h).
>
> > I have tried a bit, but all i have learnt is that pico is not installed
:((
> > I am running debian ...
>
> Pico usually comes with the mail client PINE, but Debian (2.2) also comes
> with a program called Nano - a clone of pico with a few more features.
> To install it you can type "apt-get install nano" and you'll probably be
> asked for the CD's.
>
> If you find any software that isnt installed then in most cases you can
> just type "apt-cache search whatever", and it'll give you a list of
> matching packages. Then to install one, type "apt-get install
> packagename".
>
> There's an far more friendly program called aptitude, which is a front-end
> for the apt-cache/apt-get/apt-blah tools. There's a few key combo's you'll
> need to know, have a look at /usr/doc/aptitude/README when it's installed.
>
> Enjoy :)
>
> Bernard.
>
> --
>  Bernard Blackham
>  dagobah at mad.scientist.com
>
>
>