I wanted to have a separate laptop where I only use the terminal for my use cases. At the moment I am somewhat confident using the terminal, but I think limiting myself to tty only would build my confidence even more. Any tips?
EDIT: I am already using nvim and I already have installed a minimal distro (Arch). I just need advice on how to actually run this system effectively.
If you’re serious about sticking to the terminal, it’s probably worth learning a terminal text editor like emacs or vim. Once you get the hang of them, you can be much more productive compared to something like nano.
I think it’s also worth learning about job control and/or terminal multiplexers, but I’ve yet to fully understand them myself.
How can you be more productive in vim compared to nano?
Serious question.
vim is more then simple file editing.
- netrw (interactive file manager)
- copen/lopen (windows to connect, e.g. external programs)
:global,%s/, etc. which form text manipulation language (from editor ed, I guess)args&argsdo(multi-file editing)- filetype (hooks for the user)
ctrl_Xcompletion modes- motion (fluent & with jumplist to walk forward/backwardl
- undotree (persisting, unlimited, timebased - on-demand)
- macros (record and replay keypress)
romainl(awesome community member)
vim for one-time tasks at work. When people are proposing to script something, I open buffers, normalize the data and filter the results. I think in vim and I would very, very much recommend it, if you work with data or are a dev.
Easy. Just learn to use it and it is already there.
With nano, you work with that letter where your cursor is at the moment. This is convenient, but limited.
With vim, you can also work with a word, or the whole line, or part of the line, or a section, or the whole file (or many files if you use the shell extension) and it goes all with the same ease.
Vim also allows you to keep your hands in place on the letters on your keyboard all the time. No need to move the hands around, grabbing the mouse and back, or the arrow keys, and thus search for the correct position for your hand every few seconds - which costs time and focus.
If I understand you correctly, I can write more efficiently because I can move to the next paragraph or sentence which I can’t with normal keybindings. Or special commands where I delete everything within “”. I understand the appeal of special moves but why not simply creating a Ctrl, Meta or alt command for that?
Try running this:
vimtutor
If you are already aware of hjkl, skip to the part where you learn motions:
/motion
Then look up surround (ysw is usually the command to surround a word, ys3w the next 3 words, etc)
It’s pretty neat.
That is some very useful commands, thx! But I don’t think I’ll be using it often and hence I’ll lose the skill. I know ctrl+vxs or f etc because I use them very often. Anything that I don’t use is forgotten even if I’d use vim
vim has better default keybindings/commands that allow for less movement of your hands. Nowadays, in reasonably current versions of nano, that’s mostly it. The main difference is nano is somewhat usable but extremely inefficient unless you learn it, while vim forces you to learn it to get anything done at all, which also pushes people to spend a bit of time learning it in general.
If you’re sure of the numbers you’re using, vim’s ability to repeat commands is also helpful. In practice I find that it’s really hard to make use of them beyond low numbers, where nano can still achieve things in similar amounts of keypresses. Eg something to delete 3 words like <escape>3dwi can be done similar with a sequence like Alt-A ^→ ^→ ^→ ^K in nano. Make it 20 words and nano is going to be a lot slower, but that’s quite an uncommon action.
But the practice is that nano users don’t spend time learning any of that and just hold delete until the words are gone, which takes forever. Everyone that can do basics in vim quickly learns that you can dw words away and make it 3dw to delete 3 of them. The default, easiest to use & access tool for any given situation gets blamed not just for its flaws, but also for the users that don’t want to spend time learning any tool.
After reading up on vim, I ended up at emacs now and I like the emacs style because it works with ctrl and meta keys which feels familar to me. I may learn emacs now.
Your example makes completely sense, yet I’ve never felt that the standard way was slow in the first place. I could see my workflow improving, but I guess I just want to have extra special commands. Thank you!
VIM for the win. I really enjoy the built in file browser accessed by the command :explore
I also code in go frequently and go-fmt and go-lint etc work flawlessly. You can use whatever LSP you want so you get your code tips and autosuggestion etc.
The tabs and split window functions are nice too. Plus if you learn Vi well it’s on almost every system in existence. Nano not so much
