Nano has already supplanted the great EMacs and Vim as the most popular text editor of all linux distros, for though it has many omissions in functionality it scores over the older, more complete programs in two important respects. First, it is slightly simpler; and secondly it has the text “^ Exit” inscribed in highlighted text on its footer
EDIT : This sees to be going over some people’s heads. It’s a hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy reference.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions . . . it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
Still starts up instantly, though, and still smaller than practically every GUI editor.
$ nano -/ test.txt nano: invalid option -- '/'So much for that. Is this a really new option, or does it require a compilation flag that Debian doesn’t bother with?
# nano --help | tail -n1 -/ --modernbindings Use better-known key bindings # cat /etc/debian_version 13.6You must be on an old or LTS Debian. The -/ flag was added in the 8.0 release of nano in mid-2024. https://packages.debian.org/stable/editors/ lists 8.4 as the current version for Debian 13 / trixie.
That’s like yesterday by Debian standards, lol. And honestly, I’m surprised that they’re adding this kind of feature after this long. Feels similar to how i3-wm eventually merged gaps functionality (as known from the popular i3-gaps patch by airblader), I never thought it would actually happen.
Why would you run any other kind of Debian? I’m proudly running oldstable, my laptop has an Ubuntu version that’s even older. And though tempting, I’m not upgrading for
nano -/.I really appreciate the info, though!