this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2026
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    Which text editor do you use?

    top 50 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] SigHunter@discuss.tchncs.de 109 points 1 month ago (8 children)
    [–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)
    [–] calango@programming.dev 13 points 1 month ago

    when I use kde I prefer to use this edit too

    [–] TabbsTheBat@pawb.social 18 points 1 month ago

    Came here to say kate! I tried a bunch of them before but kate is nice :3. And then I have nano for the terminal

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    [–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 90 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

    Me no love nano, me brain only can use nano.

    E macs scary. vim no let me leave :(

    [–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    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 :)

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    [–] plateee@piefed.social 71 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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!

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    [–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 54 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    As a new Linux user who spends as little time editing config files as I can manage, I'm fine with nano.

    [–] illusionist@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I was too untilI switched to opensuse aeon and default is vim instead of nano. I just switched. I don't care. Both are not perfect - i won' create yet another fork just because i want to do it differently. I don't get why vim has so few shortcuts.

    [–] felsiq@piefed.zip 81 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    I don’t get why vim has so few shortcuts.

    β€œthat’s bait” gif

    [–] wheezy@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago

    Someone's gotta do it. I'm leaving this comment so it's not me.

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    [–] Digit@lemmy.today 35 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    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.

    same cat surrounded by dozens of text editor courgettes that look like snakes

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    [–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    Why would you need a text editor when you can just do cat > file ?

    smh

    [–] barzaria@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    This command will literally overwrite the file that you do whenever you try to edit it. You need two >> to append at the end of a file, but it's super-duper hard to put text in the middle of a file from the terminal. That is why people use editors, for sure. Now that I think about it, there probably is some psychopath who uses the actual command line as an editor. They're probably more elitist than Vim users lol.

    [–] rustydrd@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Sounds like a skill issue tbh

    [–] 18107@aussie.zone 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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    [–] naught101@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)
    [–] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    It has an extremely consistent user interface and error reporting!

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    [–] Allero@lemmy.today 24 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

    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.

    [–] zerofk@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

    That’s how you breed scrubs who can’t 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, they’re ready for Linux.

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    [–] notabot@piefed.social 24 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Let the editor holy wars (re)start!

    Vim is the one true editor, and the heretics who claim otherwise shall be driven forth and sent to ~~re-education~~ linux boot camps to learn the true ways.

    [–] forbiddencherry@lemmy.today 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    Comment could have been a :q!

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    [–] BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.world 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

    I use Micro in the terminal - it offers good desktop integration with keys similar to DEs like ctrl+v and ctrl+c, rather than being terminal centred (e.g. Ctrl+C is usually the standard interrupt/abort key in the terminal). So it's nice if you're mainly in a desktop but pop in to a terminal occasionally and have the DE muscle memory.

    I use Kate outside the terminal.

    But honestly, which text editor you use depends on what you use it for and how often. Vim is very powerful and allows very fast use & productivity if you learn it properly and probably very useful if you spend a lot of time in the terminal or TTY, but Nano is more straight forward and easy for a lot of basic terminal based work.

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    [–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    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.

    [–] smiletolerantly@awful.systems 13 points 1 month ago

    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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    [–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol 20 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I install micro. I intend to use micro. My fingers type nano anyways. Every time.

    [–] lokalhorst@feddit.org 12 points 1 month ago

    Time for an alias!

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    [–] oysvendsen@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm a emacs guy, but nano should be the only one installed by default. The default editor should tell you how to exit!

    [–] EnsignWashout@startrek.website 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Not our fault everyone blows past the kind offer of : vimtutor on startup! (I kid. The default editor shouldn't require a class.)

    You're 100% correct. Nano is a perfectly reasonable default.

    That said, it is 2026. It also wouldn't kill us to default to an interactive one-time prompt that defaults to nano, but offers one or two others, and removes itself after setting the user's choice.

    [–] OnASnowyEvening@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    vi because it's everywhere, even on servers where packages can't be downloaded or shouldn't be installed.

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    [–] fizzle@quokk.au 16 points 1 month ago

    Helix is really rad

    [–] Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 month ago

    Nano because I'm too lazy to learn vim or emacs. I want something that works and not something that operates like cheat codes in old video games.

    [–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    None of them. I need a texteditor, not an unusable wannabe miracle machine for which you need documentation and a diploma just to exit it.

    [–] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 month ago (4 children)
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    [–] BladeFederation@piefed.social 11 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

    Even worse: I like GUI editors like Kate/KDevelop/Geany/VSCode. Unless it is on a server obviously.

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    [–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    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.

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    [–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    ed is the standard text editor.

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    [–] Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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    [–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

    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.

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    [–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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    [–] this@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    All I'm gonna say is than nano is installed on almost every Linux os and has the keyboard shortcuts written on the UI.

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    [–] eurodyne@piefed.world 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    pico!

    But nano will do ;)

    [–] kirisamemarisa@lemmy.eco.br 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)
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    [–] Avicenna@programming.dev 9 points 1 month ago

    Do you have a minute talk about our lord and saviour Vim?

    [–] Nullpwn@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

    I'm too old to keep lying that I don't like nano..

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