12 ms·

Nano is no longer a GNU project

151 points by wtbob 10y ago

bechampion 10y ago
don't want to sound nasty , but is anyone there using nano really ? i know it come by default in some distros but that's about it really.
- xrstf 10y ago
  I use it constantly, because I'm quicker making small edits with it than with vim. I would sorely miss it if it's not installed on a server.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    I hear this faster for small things but if you use vim I would say I can make changes in a small document twice as fast. They should have a new tag line: Nano the plain text editor for non-Vim maybe EMACS users?
    - Already__Taken 10y ago
      This is only true if you use vim at least once a week forever. Some people don't want to study a manual to change 1 config line. Call me crazy I know.
      - draw_down 10y ago
        Yeah, maybe I'm just weird, but I like it when the down-arrow key makes the cursor go down a line.
        philh 10y ago
        Not saying they don't exist, but I don't think I've ever encountered a vim instance where that didn't happen.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        I recall many frustrating days in college when I first learned vim but not enough to configure it (or was to lazy to). The arrow keys inserted control characters in edit mode on the basic Linux install I had at the time and on the school's computers (circa 2000-2004). It was annoying. It turned me off to vim for a while, but emacs and I were a better fit anyways.
        sleepybrett 10y ago
        Yeah, maybe I'm just weird, but modal editing is kind of a pain unless you do it every day. It's just a little too arcane for making a quick edit to a file in /etc. It's probably even more natural for me having grown up in the shadow of the University of Washington, so PINE was the popular email client and PICO was it's editor. Don't get me wrong, I've watched Vim power users do amazing things in that editor but those people are not me and I can't find a good reason to climb that particular mountain.
        baldfat 10y ago
        arrows work in vim as default since 2000???
      - baldfat 10y ago
        vim file_foo press i for interactive and make changes then press :wq :) I have that embedded in my brain after all these years.
        gargravarr 10y ago
        You forgot ESC after making changes ;) nano file_foo make changes ctrl-O-Enter - save ctrl-X-Enter - exit Simpler, I think?
        eximius 10y ago
        Don't even need the ^O, it asks if you want to save on exit if there are modifications.
    - BillinghamJ 10y ago
      Many many people who need to occasionally edit text in a terminal don't know how to use Vim OR Emacs.
- ultramancool 10y ago
  I use it to hack config files on many distros because I find vi atrocious and don't want to install emacs on systems that aren't mine.
- deevious 10y ago
  I seldom used it a long time ago, before learning the basics of vi(m). It's great when you need to change some random config and you need a commandline editor that has the basic commands listed in plain sight all the time.
- maze-le 10y ago
  > but is anyone there using nano really? Yes, because vim is a pain in the ... and emacs is too big sometimes.
  - pdkl95 10y ago
    > emacs is too big sometimes "Zile Is Lossy Emacs"
- nacnud 10y ago
  A fair few raspberry-pi tutorials seem to prefer Nano, for users new to Linux.
- supbpeerr 10y ago
  I am using it constantly. first thing on a rhel server: yum install nano
- Already__Taken 10y ago
  I only use it because sometimes vim doesn't work correctly over putty and I can't not verbally swear every time I have to search a vim issue.
  - teh_klev 10y ago
    Seriously, if you're spending more than a few minutes a week SSH'ing then forget PuTTY, grab yourself a copy of MobaXterm: http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ It's also Pageant aware and will use that as your ssh key agent if you prefer. And vim works properly. We like it so much we pay for the Pro editions.
    - sena 10y ago
      "Max. 12 sessions Max. 2 SSH tunnels Max. 4 macros Max. 360 seconds for Tftp, Nfs and Cron" Not open source and heavily limited. Unless you pay for Pro, it's pretty useless...
      - teh_klev 10y ago
        If you just have a handful of servers you can still get a lot done with the free edition, not useless at all by any stretch of the imagination. Paying a few quid a year to keep up with the updates is peanuts compared to the extra productivity we get from it.
  - laumars 10y ago
    Sounds like VT emulation settings in PuTTY might be wrong. There's nothing in vim that PuTTY doesn't support - in fact I've used vim over PuTTY many times.
- skissane 10y ago
  Back in the 1990s thru early 2000s, I used to use pico before I became comfortable with vi. For someone coming from a DOS/Windows/OS/2 background originally, it was less of a learning curve. I never used nano much, but I imagine the same reasons might apply for some people today. (I also used to use emacs a lot, I first used it on OS/2 under EMX, but there were systems on which pico was installed but emacs wasn't. Nowadays, I'm so used to vim, I start emacs and can't remember most of the keystrokes. Oh, and the first ever email client I used was Pine.)
- smhenderson 10y ago
  It's nice to have on boot disks, small enough to fit alongside busybox which ships with a lite vi[1] that some don't care for. I personally love vi and am a bit taken aback sometimes when visudo pulls up nano instead of vi because I haven't installed it or made it my default editor yet. So I'm not sure this means much to me personally but I'm always sad to see members of the community part ways. Still, I wish them all the luck and thank them for their efforts. [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/BusyBox_vi https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/BusyBox...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- draw_down 10y ago
  Yes, it's much easier to work with than modal editors which I find clumsy and terrible. I don't use it intensively, just when I need to edit something quickly, usually in an SSH session.
- yCloser 10y ago
  on any server without a monitor, ofc i use nano!
- Nursie 10y ago
  Yup, love it. Not as arcane as vim, great for small edits without the oh-crap-what-have-I-pressed-force-quit-start-over phenomenon that I get in vi. 'Serious' editing is done in gedit...
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    vi makes me angry. This was obvious when I installed Debian on a 1999-era iMac and had to edit (probably) x11 conf and had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. nano makes me happy.
    - jff 10y ago
      > had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. I can see how this would be frustrating, given that the vi movement keys are in fact HJKL
      - theandrewbailey 10y ago
        That's probably what they were. I was trying to remember exactly, since that was over 6 years ago, and I've never had to use vi like that before or since.
- erez 10y ago
  I use it, as a terminal editor, whenever I can. On my machines I use it instead of vi(m), and if I have control over a remote machine, there as well, I only use VI if a server doesn't have nano and I can't install it.
- merlish 10y ago
  It fills a real need as the console-based text editor for people who don't know vi (and would usually use e.g. gedit rather than emacs). (I'm sure it has other purposes too, but it's the most motivating one I know.) Ubuntu X11 stopped working? Or perhaps you need to tweak the nginx config on that tiny VPS you're renting? If you don't know vim, nano is something that's very easy to use and often pre-installed.
- drinchev 10y ago
  There was a nice xkcd about this [1]. I know HN is not the place for this comix, but anyway your question is a bit opinionated. 1 : http://xkcd.com/378/ http://xkcd.com/378/
  - sampo 10y ago
    > There was a nice xkcd about this Also Hackles https://web.archive.org/web/20160307122907/http://hackles.org/strips/cartoon284.png https://web.archive.org/web/20160307122907/http://hackles.or...
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  When I used to work with PHP files directly on an ssh'd serve nano was my jam.
- tretiy3 10y ago
  I find it very convenient to open large log files bc Nano is very lightweight. Something like that: $ cat /var/log/logfile | grep -n section_start which gives me required line numbers. and then: $ nano +lineno /var/log/logfile and for configs, of course.
  - Programmatic 10y ago
    I would go straight to vim and type: "/section_start<cr>", which navigates straight to that line. Then navigate to the line, "i" to enter insert mode, make edits, and "<esc>:wq<cr>". It is absolutely a learning curve, but the power of vim is insane. "dd" deletes lines, "A" appends to the end, "I" inserts at the beginning, "<lineno>G" jumps to a line number, all little tweaks that I use nearly every day in editing files quickly. It's especially nice when editing known_hosts where it tells you the line of the offending key, just "<line#>Gdd:wq" and it's done.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    >I find it very convenient to open large log files bc Nano is very lightweight. Nano seems to be far slower than vim for opening large files. Just quickly testing on a 200M 500k row text file on a SSD: Vim opens practically instantly. nano takes over 10 seconds to display text, but works well after that.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisan 10y ago
  I use nano whenever I have to mess on a server directly (which is rare). Rest of the time I'm in a JetBrains product I happily pay for.
- the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
  Every once in a while I'm forced to use it because it's set as default on some servers until I close it in anger and get vim installed :P
  - Ianvdl 10y ago
    How about vi for a quick edit? I haven't come across a distro without it so far (iirc it's part of the posix spec).
- pmontra 10y ago
  On some distros nano is the default editor for crontab. I run into it when I ssh to servers and have to setup cronjobs. I set EDITOR=vim if it's already installed there or I keep using nano and look at the help at the bottom of the page every single time I use it. I use emacs for editing code on my computer. It has got a different set of ctrl-* and I can't remember nano's ones.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  nano allows for less key strokes for simple edits to config files.
- jbb555 10y ago
  I use it once per install. Something runs an editor and it's nano and I think oops, and exit and install gvim.
- kingofspain 10y ago
  Constantly - for editing crontab, or occasionally to tweak some config stuff on dev boxes. I also do a lot of PHP though so that could explain it...
- therealmarv 10y ago
  yep. Beeing a DevOps since many years and still use nano for quick edits on ssh because I don't use vi(m) anywhere. Why should I learn a new editor which behaves totally different when I can use nano which behaves quite similar to my existing tools. And as you say it's on nearly every distro. On emergency I still know how to use vi... but that does not mean I like it very much.
- alayne 10y ago
  I use it on some dev servers I can't install software on as an alternative to vi. Otherwise I use emacs+tramp to edit files remotely. It's not a huge use case or most of my editing. Anything to avoid vi though.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Nano is extremely valuable for people learning the system. Typical alternatives are vi and emacs, which are extremely opaque, to the point that it's not even obvious how to exit them. UNIX tutorials will often say "use control-C to kill a command" and then that doesn't even work for this! Nano tells you how to use it right on the screen. Control-C still doesn't work, but it tells you how to exit. Saving files, paging, cut and paste commands are all shown. There's easily accessible help! If you're learning UNIX then editing files is handy. Without nano, you'd have to spend a bunch of time learning how to use a text editor before you could do anything that needs text editing.
- gargravarr 10y ago
  7 years after getting into Linux, I still prefer Nano to make fast edits to text files. Coming from a Windows history shortcut keys are fairly natural to me, and although I disagree with some of the mnemonics, I've got the improtant ones memorised. There's enough features to even do light coding in it (syntax highlighting, auto-indenting etc.). Basically, I can pull up, edit and save a file before vim has even entered Insert mode. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for a feature-complex editor like vim, but I have never, ever gotten on with it.
- ArneBab 10y ago
  yes: It’s my goto tool for quick edits, especially when working over SSH. For larger work I use Emacs.
- ArneBab 10y ago
  also if I wanted to tell others to edit something, I‘d point them to nano.
- rekado 10y ago
  When I'm not in an Emacs session (which is rare) I use zile for quick edits instead of nano.
deevious 10y ago
Looks like the devels weren't all that happy about assigning the copyright of their code to the FSF. Part of the e-mail thread discussing the move is here https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00015.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000... I did't have the time to dig out the whole conversation history.
- infodroid 10y ago
  I reviewed the discussion but I still can't understand what the controversy is about. According to the following explanatory note from the GNU project, developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project: When the developers of a program make it a GNU package, they can decide either to give the copyright to the FSF so it can enforce the GPL for the package, or else to keep the copyright as well as the responsibility for enforcing the GPL. Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html --- FYI this is the start of the discussion thread: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00012.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...
  - supercheetah 10y ago
    Interesting. It looks like the Nano devs have misunderstood what can be called a GNU package. If they don't assign copyright to the FSF, but want it to still be a GNU package, they just have to declare that they're taking responsibility for licensing enforcement.
  - davexunit 10y ago
    >developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project This is correct, but it's up to the maintainer to decide if their project will require copyright assignment from all contributors or not. I send patches to a couple of GNU projects, Guile and Guix. Guile requires copyright assignment, Guix does not. Assigning copyright to the FSF is very much unlike assigning copyright to a for-profit company. The terms that you sign and agree to with the FSF are very reasonable and they protect the developer from having the license changed should the FSF be taken over by people that would want to abuse your contributions.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
drinchev 10y ago
A bit strange, because as far as the history remembers, Nano was explicitly a fork of Pico, because of the license. [1] Strange how history rewrites itself. 1 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_(text_editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_(text_editor) EDIT : Quotes from Wikipedia `The GNU Project has a clone of Pico called nano which has been developed because Pico's earlier license was not a free software license, since distribution of a modified version of the code was ambiguously forbidden.[2] By default nano attempts to mimic Pico to replicate the environment users are used to. However it can be configured to offer mouse support, auto indentation, regular expression searches and even syntax highlighting making it more useful. Newer versions of Pico as part of Alpine are released under the Apache License.`
- nailer 10y ago
  Not much history rewriting or strangeness: pico wasn't open source, nano was open source. nano is still open source. Nothing has changed with this announcement except who own the copyrights to the open source code.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Pico was certainly open source; it was part of PINE, one of the older and more popular Unix mail programs.
    - RMarcus 10y ago
      I'm sure what the poster meant was the Pico wasn't free/libre software. edit: > because Pico's earlier license was not a free software license, since distribution of a modified version of the code was ambiguously forbidden.
      - nailer 10y ago
        I meant open source, but same requirement to allow distribution of modified software appears in both the free software list of freedoms [1] and the open source definition [2]. 1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html 2. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dangrossman 10y ago
> > As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, > > nor to anyone else. All the code I write is GPL'ed. > > You don't need to own the copyright on any code in > > order to be able to enforce the GPL. [...] > Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright > was owned by me before it was assigned to the FSF. > It's not required per se, but generally speaking, > there must be a Maintainer of the Software who > believes in the ideals of the GNU system I do believe in the ideal of the GNU system: to have computer systems that consist entirely of libre software. > and will adhere to the GNU coding standards That is too bureaucratic, not libre enough. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00021.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...
- haddr 10y ago
  That's a great summary and an eye-opener on the whole situation. Everything aside, but isn't this FSF enforcement a little too much burden for some? Does it actually change anything? (apart from giving a bad sensation when you hear "now we own the copyright of your work")
  - brudgers 10y ago
    I am not a lawyer. The strength of the GNU licenses depends on existing copyright laws [plural]. As the copyright holder, GNU is more likely to have standing in an arbitrary jurisdiction when seeking to enforce the license. Whether or not enforcement is important is another matter. If it isn't, then there's nothing but a fantastic warm fuzzy in choosing GNU over a "do whatever you want" license. To put it another way, license terms like other contract terms should align with what the author is willing to go through the bother of enforcing.
- ArneBab 10y ago
  Copyright assignment isn’t actually required by the GNU project. It’s the maintainers choice whether to require it for the specific project or not.
- abetusk 10y ago
tapiwa 10y ago
Loads of us use nano. Simple light editor without the overhead (read learning curve), of all the other big editors. Sure, I might not write code in it, but when I need to edit a conf file or two, both on a server, and my desktop, it really hits the spot.
- k__ 10y ago
  I use nano, because I didn't "get" Vim.
  - blakesterz 10y ago
    I hate to admit it, but that's more or less why I do as well. It's not that I don't get ViM, it's just that I don't like it. I have TRIED to force myself to use it. Something about that long reach for the Esc key? I don't know what it is really, but I just never felt comfortable using it. Emacs is such a huge monster of a program. 90% of what it does I never touch. Most of the time I just need to edit a conf file and move on. Being a sysadmin my needs are very few in a text editor.
    - ionrock 10y ago
      As an emacs user, it is ironic I mention this tip! You can use Control + [ as an alternative to using ESC in Vim. This solved my reluctance to reach for the ESC key in the far reaching corner of my keyboard. This thread does remind me of nano. Maybe it is time to give it a try when editing files on servers.
    - Scarbutt 10y ago
      Sysadmins are the primary candidates for vi/m ;)
    - HalcyonicStorm 10y ago
      I add "imap jj <Esc>`^" to my .vimrc That way, I don't leave the home row when trying to switch modes
      - 10y ago
cronjobber 10y ago
From the mailing list, on using Github: > Plus, in order to use their services, you need to assume liability That sounds bad, as in really bad. One important function of Open Source licenses is to get as far away from liability as possible. Do people here know whether that's just a misunderstanding, or a realistic risk of keeping code on Github?
- nerdponx 10y ago
  Just read through their terms of service, and I don't see anything to that effect. You are responsible for not violating other people's copyright with stuff you upload to GitHub, and GitHub is not responsible for damage, etc. due to service outages. But that's it.
- oceanswave 10y ago
  I think you're conflating the role of a host and the role of a OSS license. As with most hosts, the issue of liability rests on the owner. I couldn't upload 50gb of pirated movies to github and cry "github save me, I used you and now I need you to protect me." Your software license dictates your liability to users of your code. GitHub is saying we're just a host, and we defer to the software liscensors on how their code should be used
- kriro 10y ago
  Also worth mentioning that liability laws can be rather different from country to country. Germany (and Austria iirc) is somewhat notorious in that regard as you can't completely "get rid of" liability and warranty. There's no public domain for example (technically that's still debated but the main opinion seems to be it's not possible for me to release anything as public domain, see §29 UrhG-D).
soyiuz 10y ago
I use nano all the time when teaching Python, before moving to other more feature rich editors. It is perfect for quickly explaining the importance of plain text files. A big thanks to the developers for making software that is simple, ubiquitous, and lasting!
mikegerwitz 10y ago
I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Benno also did not want to assign copyright to the FSF for his contributions. Instead, it seems, Benno decided to fork the project. But he did so with hostility: he updated the official GNU Nano website, rather than creating a website for the fork. It's early, so there's still discussion going on, but again, to be clear: GNU Nano has absolutely not left GNU.
- cm3 10y ago
  But if a or the driving force of a project takes things elsewhere, the users will eventually follow. If the disagreement was over GNU's insistence to require assigning copyright to the FSF, then I can fully understand the reluctance. It's the same reason many contributors cannot officially submit patches to side projects of Google employees, Ubuntu projects, etc.
  - klakier 10y ago
    Do you know that according to copy rights, open source projects are mess. Nobody tried it in the court, but if some developer contributing to project went to court saying "This part of code is mine, I don't want it to be modified by other people", then the project could be in trouble. Nobody tried that (yet). That's why some OS projects require signing Developer Certificates of Origin etc.
    - adrianN 10y ago
      No, the courts have already handled cases around the GPL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Leg...
      - 10y ago
cdevs 10y ago
I just hate when I'm in sublime and I hit ctrl+w to search and it closes the file #fml
- stuaxo 10y ago
  Yup, I wouldn't mind a version of nano but with keybindings more like Windows or even MS Edit.
  - ffes 10y ago
    Something like https://github.com/rgburke/wed https://github.com/rgburke/wed ?
- broodbucket 10y ago
  Hit something similar today where I tried to raw insert emacs-style with Ctrl-Q...in Atom...went about as well as you'd expect old habits die hard
- wtbob 10y ago
  For me it's when I'm in Firefox and hit C-s to search and it pops up a save dialogue …
  - smhenderson 10y ago
    I like that Firefox uses '/' for that like vim/less/etc... Took me a while to get used to it on Windows, was always reaching for C-f, but once you get used to it it's great!
jm0codes 10y ago
All night will be spent desperately trying to get all the FTP logins back from this man! facepalm
Annatar 10y ago
So happy to read that they are leaving GNU, since presumably that means that the project is ditching the GPL license. Perhaps this will be the first event in a chain reaction of ditching GPL.
- davexunit 10y ago
  (Accidentally upvoted this crappy post.) No, the project cannot just ditch the license that all of the code has been contributed under. It's still GPL. Your anti-GPL fervor will have to rest for awhile longer.
  - Annatar 10y ago
    People (like for example Joerg Schilling) have re-licensed their work in the past not to be under the GPL any more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrtools#License_compatibility_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrtools#License_compatibility... From the article, but this is also common knowledge: As is common with the GPL and other open source licenses, very little case law exists to provide guidance to users and provide a definitive answer on whether binary versions are distributable. And further: Joerg Schilling continues to develop his version of cdrtools under the CDDL and GPL (mkisofs) licenses, whereas the cdrkit fork has received next to no updates since. Good for him.
- rmmm 10y ago
  No. The rift is not over the license itself. From the mail archive Benno states... > > As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, nor to > > anyone else. All the code I write is GPL'ed. You don't need to > > own the copyright on any code in order to be able to enforce the > > GPL. [...] > > Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright was owned by me > before it was assigned to the FSF. It's not required per se, but > generally speaking, there must be a Maintainer of the Software who > believes in the ideals of the GNU system I do believe in the ideal of the GNU system: to have computer systems that consist entirely of libre software. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00021.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...
ChicagoDave 10y ago
Love nano - been using it for something like 18 years or whenever I had my first Linux server online. I couldn't survive a *nix environment without it.

151 points by wtbob 10y ago

don't want to sound nasty , but is anyone there using nano really ? i know it come by default in some distros but that's about it really.

xrstf 10y ago
I use it constantly, because I'm quicker making small edits with it than with vim. I would sorely miss it if it's not installed on a server.
- baldfat 10y ago
  I hear this faster for small things but if you use vim I would say I can make changes in a small document twice as fast. They should have a new tag line: Nano the plain text editor for non-Vim maybe EMACS users?
  - Already__Taken 10y ago
    This is only true if you use vim at least once a week forever. Some people don't want to study a manual to change 1 config line. Call me crazy I know.
    - draw_down 10y ago
      Yeah, maybe I'm just weird, but I like it when the down-arrow key makes the cursor go down a line.
      - philh 10y ago
        Not saying they don't exist, but I don't think I've ever encountered a vim instance where that didn't happen.
        Jtsummers 10y ago
        I recall many frustrating days in college when I first learned vim but not enough to configure it (or was to lazy to). The arrow keys inserted control characters in edit mode on the basic Linux install I had at the time and on the school's computers (circa 2000-2004). It was annoying. It turned me off to vim for a while, but emacs and I were a better fit anyways.
      - sleepybrett 10y ago
        Yeah, maybe I'm just weird, but modal editing is kind of a pain unless you do it every day. It's just a little too arcane for making a quick edit to a file in /etc. It's probably even more natural for me having grown up in the shadow of the University of Washington, so PINE was the popular email client and PICO was it's editor. Don't get me wrong, I've watched Vim power users do amazing things in that editor but those people are not me and I can't find a good reason to climb that particular mountain.
      - baldfat 10y ago
        arrows work in vim as default since 2000???
    - baldfat 10y ago
      vim file_foo press i for interactive and make changes then press :wq :) I have that embedded in my brain after all these years.
      - gargravarr 10y ago
        You forgot ESC after making changes ;) nano file_foo make changes ctrl-O-Enter - save ctrl-X-Enter - exit Simpler, I think?
        eximius 10y ago
        Don't even need the ^O, it asks if you want to save on exit if there are modifications.
  - BillinghamJ 10y ago
    Many many people who need to occasionally edit text in a terminal don't know how to use Vim OR Emacs.
ultramancool 10y ago
I use it to hack config files on many distros because I find vi atrocious and don't want to install emacs on systems that aren't mine.
deevious 10y ago
I seldom used it a long time ago, before learning the basics of vi(m). It's great when you need to change some random config and you need a commandline editor that has the basic commands listed in plain sight all the time.
maze-le 10y ago
> but is anyone there using nano really? Yes, because vim is a pain in the ... and emacs is too big sometimes.
- pdkl95 10y ago
  > emacs is too big sometimes "Zile Is Lossy Emacs"
nacnud 10y ago
A fair few raspberry-pi tutorials seem to prefer Nano, for users new to Linux.
supbpeerr 10y ago
I am using it constantly. first thing on a rhel server: yum install nano
Already__Taken 10y ago
I only use it because sometimes vim doesn't work correctly over putty and I can't not verbally swear every time I have to search a vim issue.
- teh_klev 10y ago
  Seriously, if you're spending more than a few minutes a week SSH'ing then forget PuTTY, grab yourself a copy of MobaXterm: http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ It's also Pageant aware and will use that as your ssh key agent if you prefer. And vim works properly. We like it so much we pay for the Pro editions.
  - sena 10y ago
    "Max. 12 sessions Max. 2 SSH tunnels Max. 4 macros Max. 360 seconds for Tftp, Nfs and Cron" Not open source and heavily limited. Unless you pay for Pro, it's pretty useless...
    - teh_klev 10y ago
      If you just have a handful of servers you can still get a lot done with the free edition, not useless at all by any stretch of the imagination. Paying a few quid a year to keep up with the updates is peanuts compared to the extra productivity we get from it.
- laumars 10y ago
  Sounds like VT emulation settings in PuTTY might be wrong. There's nothing in vim that PuTTY doesn't support - in fact I've used vim over PuTTY many times.
skissane 10y ago
Back in the 1990s thru early 2000s, I used to use pico before I became comfortable with vi. For someone coming from a DOS/Windows/OS/2 background originally, it was less of a learning curve. I never used nano much, but I imagine the same reasons might apply for some people today. (I also used to use emacs a lot, I first used it on OS/2 under EMX, but there were systems on which pico was installed but emacs wasn't. Nowadays, I'm so used to vim, I start emacs and can't remember most of the keystrokes. Oh, and the first ever email client I used was Pine.)
smhenderson 10y ago
It's nice to have on boot disks, small enough to fit alongside busybox which ships with a lite vi[1] that some don't care for. I personally love vi and am a bit taken aback sometimes when visudo pulls up nano instead of vi because I haven't installed it or made it my default editor yet. So I'm not sure this means much to me personally but I'm always sad to see members of the community part ways. Still, I wish them all the luck and thank them for their efforts. [1] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/BusyBox_vi https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Learning_the_vi_Editor/BusyBox...
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draw_down 10y ago
Yes, it's much easier to work with than modal editors which I find clumsy and terrible. I don't use it intensively, just when I need to edit something quickly, usually in an SSH session.
yCloser 10y ago
on any server without a monitor, ofc i use nano!
Nursie 10y ago
Yup, love it. Not as arcane as vim, great for small edits without the oh-crap-what-have-I-pressed-force-quit-start-over phenomenon that I get in vi. 'Serious' editing is done in gedit...
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  vi makes me angry. This was obvious when I installed Debian on a 1999-era iMac and had to edit (probably) x11 conf and had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. nano makes me happy.
  - jff 10y ago
    > had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. I can see how this would be frustrating, given that the vi movement keys are in fact HJKL
    - theandrewbailey 10y ago
      That's probably what they were. I was trying to remember exactly, since that was over 6 years ago, and I've never had to use vi like that before or since.
erez 10y ago
I use it, as a terminal editor, whenever I can. On my machines I use it instead of vi(m), and if I have control over a remote machine, there as well, I only use VI if a server doesn't have nano and I can't install it.
merlish 10y ago
It fills a real need as the console-based text editor for people who don't know vi (and would usually use e.g. gedit rather than emacs). (I'm sure it has other purposes too, but it's the most motivating one I know.) Ubuntu X11 stopped working? Or perhaps you need to tweak the nginx config on that tiny VPS you're renting? If you don't know vim, nano is something that's very easy to use and often pre-installed.
drinchev 10y ago
There was a nice xkcd about this [1]. I know HN is not the place for this comix, but anyway your question is a bit opinionated. 1 : http://xkcd.com/378/ http://xkcd.com/378/
- sampo 10y ago
  > There was a nice xkcd about this Also Hackles https://web.archive.org/web/20160307122907/http://hackles.org/strips/cartoon284.png https://web.archive.org/web/20160307122907/http://hackles.or...
sergiotapia 10y ago
When I used to work with PHP files directly on an ssh'd serve nano was my jam.
tretiy3 10y ago
I find it very convenient to open large log files bc Nano is very lightweight. Something like that: $ cat /var/log/logfile | grep -n section_start which gives me required line numbers. and then: $ nano +lineno /var/log/logfile and for configs, of course.
- Programmatic 10y ago
  I would go straight to vim and type: "/section_start<cr>", which navigates straight to that line. Then navigate to the line, "i" to enter insert mode, make edits, and "<esc>:wq<cr>". It is absolutely a learning curve, but the power of vim is insane. "dd" deletes lines, "A" appends to the end, "I" inserts at the beginning, "<lineno>G" jumps to a line number, all little tweaks that I use nearly every day in editing files quickly. It's especially nice when editing known_hosts where it tells you the line of the offending key, just "<line#>Gdd:wq" and it's done.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  >I find it very convenient to open large log files bc Nano is very lightweight. Nano seems to be far slower than vim for opening large files. Just quickly testing on a 200M 500k row text file on a SSD: Vim opens practically instantly. nano takes over 10 seconds to display text, but works well after that.
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chrisan 10y ago
I use nano whenever I have to mess on a server directly (which is rare). Rest of the time I'm in a JetBrains product I happily pay for.
the_mitsuhiko 10y ago
Every once in a while I'm forced to use it because it's set as default on some servers until I close it in anger and get vim installed :P
- Ianvdl 10y ago
  How about vi for a quick edit? I haven't come across a distro without it so far (iirc it's part of the posix spec).
pmontra 10y ago
On some distros nano is the default editor for crontab. I run into it when I ssh to servers and have to setup cronjobs. I set EDITOR=vim if it's already installed there or I keep using nano and look at the help at the bottom of the page every single time I use it. I use emacs for editing code on my computer. It has got a different set of ctrl-* and I can't remember nano's ones.
alistproducer2 10y ago
nano allows for less key strokes for simple edits to config files.
jbb555 10y ago
I use it once per install. Something runs an editor and it's nano and I think oops, and exit and install gvim.
kingofspain 10y ago
Constantly - for editing crontab, or occasionally to tweak some config stuff on dev boxes. I also do a lot of PHP though so that could explain it...
therealmarv 10y ago
yep. Beeing a DevOps since many years and still use nano for quick edits on ssh because I don't use vi(m) anywhere. Why should I learn a new editor which behaves totally different when I can use nano which behaves quite similar to my existing tools. And as you say it's on nearly every distro. On emergency I still know how to use vi... but that does not mean I like it very much.
alayne 10y ago
I use it on some dev servers I can't install software on as an alternative to vi. Otherwise I use emacs+tramp to edit files remotely. It's not a huge use case or most of my editing. Anything to avoid vi though.
mikeash 10y ago
Nano is extremely valuable for people learning the system. Typical alternatives are vi and emacs, which are extremely opaque, to the point that it's not even obvious how to exit them. UNIX tutorials will often say "use control-C to kill a command" and then that doesn't even work for this! Nano tells you how to use it right on the screen. Control-C still doesn't work, but it tells you how to exit. Saving files, paging, cut and paste commands are all shown. There's easily accessible help! If you're learning UNIX then editing files is handy. Without nano, you'd have to spend a bunch of time learning how to use a text editor before you could do anything that needs text editing.
gargravarr 10y ago
7 years after getting into Linux, I still prefer Nano to make fast edits to text files. Coming from a Windows history shortcut keys are fairly natural to me, and although I disagree with some of the mnemonics, I've got the improtant ones memorised. There's enough features to even do light coding in it (syntax highlighting, auto-indenting etc.). Basically, I can pull up, edit and save a file before vim has even entered Insert mode. Don't get me wrong, I understand the need for a feature-complex editor like vim, but I have never, ever gotten on with it.
ArneBab 10y ago
yes: It’s my goto tool for quick edits, especially when working over SSH. For larger work I use Emacs.
ArneBab 10y ago
also if I wanted to tell others to edit something, I‘d point them to nano.
rekado 10y ago
When I'm not in an Emacs session (which is rare) I use zile for quick edits instead of nano.

deevious 10y ago

Looks like the devels weren't all that happy about assigning the copyright of their code to the FSF. Part of the e-mail thread discussing the move is here https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00015.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000... I did't have the time to dig out the whole conversation history.

infodroid 10y ago
I reviewed the discussion but I still can't understand what the controversy is about. According to the following explanatory note from the GNU project, developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project: When the developers of a program make it a GNU package, they can decide either to give the copyright to the FSF so it can enforce the GPL for the package, or else to keep the copyright as well as the responsibility for enforcing the GPL. Source: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html --- FYI this is the start of the discussion thread: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00012.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...
- supercheetah 10y ago
  Interesting. It looks like the Nano devs have misunderstood what can be called a GNU package. If they don't assign copyright to the FSF, but want it to still be a GNU package, they just have to declare that they're taking responsibility for licensing enforcement.
- davexunit 10y ago
  >developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project This is correct, but it's up to the maintainer to decide if their project will require copyright assignment from all contributors or not. I send patches to a couple of GNU projects, Guile and Guix. Guile requires copyright assignment, Guix does not. Assigning copyright to the FSF is very much unlike assigning copyright to a for-profit company. The terms that you sign and agree to with the FSF are very reasonable and they protect the developer from having the license changed should the FSF be taken over by people that would want to abuse your contributions.

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drinchev 10y ago

A bit strange, because as far as the history remembers, Nano was explicitly a fork of Pico, because of the license. [1] Strange how history rewrites itself. 1 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_(text_editor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_(text_editor) EDIT : Quotes from Wikipedia `The GNU Project has a clone of Pico called nano which has been developed because Pico's earlier license was not a free software license, since distribution of a modified version of the code was ambiguously forbidden.[2] By default nano attempts to mimic Pico to replicate the environment users are used to. However it can be configured to offer mouse support, auto indentation, regular expression searches and even syntax highlighting making it more useful. Newer versions of Pico as part of Alpine are released under the Apache License.`

nailer 10y ago
Not much history rewriting or strangeness: pico wasn't open source, nano was open source. nano is still open source. Nothing has changed with this announcement except who own the copyrights to the open source code.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Pico was certainly open source; it was part of PINE, one of the older and more popular Unix mail programs.
  - RMarcus 10y ago
    I'm sure what the poster meant was the Pico wasn't free/libre software. edit: > because Pico's earlier license was not a free software license, since distribution of a modified version of the code was ambiguously forbidden.
    - nailer 10y ago
      I meant open source, but same requirement to allow distribution of modified software appears in both the free software list of freedoms [1] and the open source definition [2]. 1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html 2. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

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dangrossman 10y ago

> > As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, > > nor to anyone else. All the code I write is GPL'ed. > > You don't need to own the copyright on any code in > > order to be able to enforce the GPL. [...] > Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright > was owned by me before it was assigned to the FSF. > It's not required per se, but generally speaking, > there must be a Maintainer of the Software who > believes in the ideals of the GNU system I do believe in the ideal of the GNU system: to have computer systems that consist entirely of libre software. > and will adhere to the GNU coding standards That is too bureaucratic, not libre enough. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00021.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...

haddr 10y ago
That's a great summary and an eye-opener on the whole situation. Everything aside, but isn't this FSF enforcement a little too much burden for some? Does it actually change anything? (apart from giving a bad sensation when you hear "now we own the copyright of your work")
- brudgers 10y ago
  I am not a lawyer. The strength of the GNU licenses depends on existing copyright laws [plural]. As the copyright holder, GNU is more likely to have standing in an arbitrary jurisdiction when seeking to enforce the license. Whether or not enforcement is important is another matter. If it isn't, then there's nothing but a fantastic warm fuzzy in choosing GNU over a "do whatever you want" license. To put it another way, license terms like other contract terms should align with what the author is willing to go through the bother of enforcing.
ArneBab 10y ago
Copyright assignment isn’t actually required by the GNU project. It’s the maintainers choice whether to require it for the specific project or not.
abetusk 10y ago

tapiwa 10y ago

Loads of us use nano. Simple light editor without the overhead (read learning curve), of all the other big editors. Sure, I might not write code in it, but when I need to edit a conf file or two, both on a server, and my desktop, it really hits the spot.

k__ 10y ago
I use nano, because I didn't "get" Vim.
- blakesterz 10y ago
  I hate to admit it, but that's more or less why I do as well. It's not that I don't get ViM, it's just that I don't like it. I have TRIED to force myself to use it. Something about that long reach for the Esc key? I don't know what it is really, but I just never felt comfortable using it. Emacs is such a huge monster of a program. 90% of what it does I never touch. Most of the time I just need to edit a conf file and move on. Being a sysadmin my needs are very few in a text editor.
  - ionrock 10y ago
    As an emacs user, it is ironic I mention this tip! You can use Control + [ as an alternative to using ESC in Vim. This solved my reluctance to reach for the ESC key in the far reaching corner of my keyboard. This thread does remind me of nano. Maybe it is time to give it a try when editing files on servers.
  - Scarbutt 10y ago
    Sysadmins are the primary candidates for vi/m ;)
  - HalcyonicStorm 10y ago
    I add "imap jj <Esc>`^" to my .vimrc That way, I don't leave the home row when trying to switch modes
    - 10y ago

cronjobber 10y ago

From the mailing list, on using Github: > Plus, in order to use their services, you need to assume liability That sounds bad, as in really bad. One important function of Open Source licenses is to get as far away from liability as possible. Do people here know whether that's just a misunderstanding, or a realistic risk of keeping code on Github?

nerdponx 10y ago
Just read through their terms of service, and I don't see anything to that effect. You are responsible for not violating other people's copyright with stuff you upload to GitHub, and GitHub is not responsible for damage, etc. due to service outages. But that's it.
oceanswave 10y ago
I think you're conflating the role of a host and the role of a OSS license. As with most hosts, the issue of liability rests on the owner. I couldn't upload 50gb of pirated movies to github and cry "github save me, I used you and now I need you to protect me." Your software license dictates your liability to users of your code. GitHub is saying we're just a host, and we defer to the software liscensors on how their code should be used
kriro 10y ago
Also worth mentioning that liability laws can be rather different from country to country. Germany (and Austria iirc) is somewhat notorious in that regard as you can't completely "get rid of" liability and warranty. There's no public domain for example (technically that's still debated but the main opinion seems to be it's not possible for me to release anything as public domain, see §29 UrhG-D).

soyiuz 10y ago

I use nano all the time when teaching Python, before moving to other more feature rich editors. It is perfect for quickly explaining the importance of plain text files. A big thanks to the developers for making software that is simple, ubiquitous, and lasting!

mikegerwitz 10y ago

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Benno also did not want to assign copyright to the FSF for his contributions. Instead, it seems, Benno decided to fork the project. But he did so with hostility: he updated the official GNU Nano website, rather than creating a website for the fork. It's early, so there's still discussion going on, but again, to be clear: GNU Nano has absolutely not left GNU.

cm3 10y ago
But if a or the driving force of a project takes things elsewhere, the users will eventually follow. If the disagreement was over GNU's insistence to require assigning copyright to the FSF, then I can fully understand the reluctance. It's the same reason many contributors cannot officially submit patches to side projects of Google employees, Ubuntu projects, etc.
- klakier 10y ago
  Do you know that according to copy rights, open source projects are mess. Nobody tried it in the court, but if some developer contributing to project went to court saying "This part of code is mine, I don't want it to be modified by other people", then the project could be in trouble. Nobody tried that (yet). That's why some OS projects require signing Developer Certificates of Origin etc.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    No, the courts have already handled cases around the GPL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Leg...
    - 10y ago

cdevs 10y ago

I just hate when I'm in sublime and I hit ctrl+w to search and it closes the file #fml

stuaxo 10y ago
Yup, I wouldn't mind a version of nano but with keybindings more like Windows or even MS Edit.
- ffes 10y ago
  Something like https://github.com/rgburke/wed https://github.com/rgburke/wed ?
broodbucket 10y ago
Hit something similar today where I tried to raw insert emacs-style with Ctrl-Q...in Atom...went about as well as you'd expect old habits die hard
wtbob 10y ago
For me it's when I'm in Firefox and hit C-s to search and it pops up a save dialogue …
- smhenderson 10y ago
  I like that Firefox uses '/' for that like vim/less/etc... Took me a while to get used to it on Windows, was always reaching for C-f, but once you get used to it it's great!

jm0codes 10y ago

All night will be spent desperately trying to get all the FTP logins back from this man! facepalm

Annatar 10y ago

So happy to read that they are leaving GNU, since presumably that means that the project is ditching the GPL license. Perhaps this will be the first event in a chain reaction of ditching GPL.

davexunit 10y ago
(Accidentally upvoted this crappy post.) No, the project cannot just ditch the license that all of the code has been contributed under. It's still GPL. Your anti-GPL fervor will have to rest for awhile longer.
- Annatar 10y ago
  People (like for example Joerg Schilling) have re-licensed their work in the past not to be under the GPL any more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrtools#License_compatibility_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cdrtools#License_compatibility... From the article, but this is also common knowledge: As is common with the GPL and other open source licenses, very little case law exists to provide guidance to users and provide a definitive answer on whether binary versions are distributable. And further: Joerg Schilling continues to develop his version of cdrtools under the CDDL and GPL (mkisofs) licenses, whereas the cdrkit fork has received next to no updates since. Good for him.
rmmm 10y ago
No. The rift is not over the license itself. From the mail archive Benno states... > > As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, nor to > > anyone else. All the code I write is GPL'ed. You don't need to > > own the copyright on any code in order to be able to enforce the > > GPL. [...] > > Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright was owned by me > before it was assigned to the FSF. It's not required per se, but > generally speaking, there must be a Maintainer of the Software who > believes in the ideals of the GNU system I do believe in the ideal of the GNU system: to have computer systems that consist entirely of libre software. https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg00021.html https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000...

ChicagoDave 10y ago

Love nano - been using it for something like 18 years or whenever I had my first Linux server online. I couldn't survive a *nix environment without it.