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If you want to teach someone a command line editor (that's an if, but at some point it will be useful - at the very least as a backup), then nano or pico (pico

If you want to teach someone a command line editor (that's an if, but at some point it will be useful - at the very least as a backup), then nano or pico (pico is often - maybe always - a symlink to nano) is a good idea. It would be unpleasant to edit in nano/pico full time (no syntax highlighting or indentation help, etc.), but if you have to do something through ssh and emacs or vim are still too much, they get the job done. What makes them new-user-friendly is that they keep a "menu" of basic commands visible at the bottom of the screen. So you can always see how to save, quit, etc. For GUI editors, Gedit and Kate were pretty popular for (K)ubuntu and other Debian derivatives.

sergiotapia 14y ago
I agree with learning or at least being a bit familiar with nano. It's probably the best way to edit a small one-off file via SSH. Imagine you want to quickly change a directory path in httpd.conf, instead of downloading the file, editing and then uploading it via FTP - just nano that sumbitch and you're done. I learn how to use it in about 30 minutes. That's really all it takes to get the basics down.
- bazzargh 14y ago
  I would disagree that that's the easiest way. C-x C-f /ssh:user@host:/path/to/httpd.conf ... and I have it open in my local emacs, with my own settings, with colour and indenting, and no lag when I'm editing. (this is called tramp mode) And if I then typed M-x eshell, I'd have a shell at the directory where I opened that file, and the nano users would start shouting 'burn the witch!'. Other editors also support remote editing over ssh - no need to download/upload, the editor takes care of that for you. Working this way, I don't even have to trust that the remote server has nano or emacs or whatever - which it often doesn't.
BruceIV 14y ago
I'll second that recommendation for nano as a CLI text editor - it does have syntax highlighting, and it's available by default on most relatively modern Linux distros. (But, yeah, for new programming students, Geany is a great choice, as is plain ol' gedit.)

sergiotapia 14y ago

I agree with learning or at least being a bit familiar with nano. It's probably the best way to edit a small one-off file via SSH. Imagine you want to quickly change a directory path in httpd.conf, instead of downloading the file, editing and then uploading it via FTP - just nano that sumbitch and you're done. I learn how to use it in about 30 minutes. That's really all it takes to get the basics down.

bazzargh 14y ago
I would disagree that that's the easiest way. C-x C-f /ssh:user@host:/path/to/httpd.conf ... and I have it open in my local emacs, with my own settings, with colour and indenting, and no lag when I'm editing. (this is called tramp mode) And if I then typed M-x eshell, I'd have a shell at the directory where I opened that file, and the nano users would start shouting 'burn the witch!'. Other editors also support remote editing over ssh - no need to download/upload, the editor takes care of that for you. Working this way, I don't even have to trust that the remote server has nano or emacs or whatever - which it often doesn't.

BruceIV 14y ago

I'll second that recommendation for nano as a CLI text editor - it does have syntax highlighting, and it's available by default on most relatively modern Linux distros. (But, yeah, for new programming students, Geany is a great choice, as is plain ol' gedit.)