Linux/Editoren

Applications

Console

Text editors that can be used in a command line interface environment.

• nano - small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico
• vim - A full-featured extensible editor with syntax highlighting
• emacs - the extensible self-documenting text editor( high learning curve)
• jed - editor for programmers (textmode version)
• jupp/joe/joe-jupp - user friendly full screen text editor with keybindings/modes, hex editor, syntax highlighting, search/replace, regex, macros and status lines.
• ne - easy-to-use and powerful text editor
• dte - small and easy to use console text editor
• micro - easy and mouse-friendly console text editor
• neovim - A full-featured extensible editor with syntax highlighting (Vim-clone with new features)
• e3 - very small text editor supporting many key bindings (Emacs, Vi, Pico, Nedit, Wordstar)

Graphical

Text editors that can be used in a graphical environment.

• gedit - Default text editor of Gnome desktop environment. Aiming at simplicity by default, can be configured as full fledged integrated development environment through various plugins provided by gedit-plugins package.
• geany - Advanced text editor with basic features of integrated development environment and has only few dependencies on other packages.
• pyroom - Full screen text editor for distraction free writing, with configurable colour-schemes and keybindings.
• scite - A GTK+ based programmers editor, uses Scintilla editing component.
• kwrite - Default text editor of KDE Software compilation, provides syntax highlighting and ability to export documents to PDF, HTML, PostScript among other features.
• kate - Acronym for KDE Advanced Text Editor, can be turned to full featured integrated development environment, providing extendable (via XML) syntax highlighting, session management and other features.
• mousepad - Default editor of Xfce desktop environment, intended to be, simple, fast and easy to use.
• GUI version of vim, provided by packages vim-gtk3, vim-gtk, vim-athena.
• Emacs - The default Emacs package includes an interface for X11. emacs, emacs-gtk, emacs-lucid
• jedit - very powerful/flexible (like emacs) and also easy to use (like notepad). Has many plugins for specialized needs.

How to set a default text editor

See also: DesktopDefaultSettings

For administrator

You can set a text editor as default with the update-alternatives command:

update-alternatives --set editor /path/to/the/chosen/editor

or

update-alternatives --config editor

and to see the list of possible paths:

update-alternatives --list editor

command instead of vim, emacs or nano for example. 

For users

file: 

export EDITOR=emacs