[Sussex] A beginner's guide to GNU/Linux

[Paul Tansom]

** Geoff Teale <gteale at cmedresearch.com> [2006-11-30 17:25]:
> On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 17:10 +0000, Paul Tansom wrote:
> > One of these days I really ought to try Emacs. So far my experience is
> > basically starting it, then opening a new terminal and using ps to
> > identify the process id to kill ;) I have been told the quite commands
> > in the past, but never remember them.
> 
> :-)
> 
> Most newbies find the menu "File->Exit Emacs" useful in that regard.

Erm, well I don't have Emacs installed on anything at the moment (vi
just arrives and I upgrade to vim, but Emacs needs installing), but I
can't say as I remember any menu on Emacs, just a largely empty screen.
It is a long(ish) while since I ventured into it though (as can be
witnessed by the lack of a copy on any of the machines I have access
to!!

... OK, I'm installing it on my desktop machine now - it'll likely be
reinstalled sometime soon anyway ;) That said I've been saying that for
ages and it just keeps getting used and abused!

.... aha, after a few minutes of experimental key pressing (I should
probably have headed off to Google, but I was running from a console
with no GUI access and no handy extra consoles at the time to try
Links2) I managed to work out how to get near the menu! It's a start ;)

> Intermediate users know the default key-binding: C-x C-c
> 
> Advanced users probably type: M-x kill-emacs
> 
> I have ACPI working correctly so I just hit the power button when I want
> to quit emacs :-P

Well you would :)

> > I guess starging my *nix life with vi gave it a bit of an advantage,
> > otherwise I'd likely be as lost in that as I am with Emacs. The
> > keybindings also seem to fit quite nicely with Mutt, which probably
> > helped me switch from my first *nix mail client of Pine (can't stand
> > that now!).
> 
> Yes - I don't think any argument based around emacs keybindings vs. vi
> keybindings will ever come to a useful conclusion.  People get used to
> things and find it hard to change, full stop.

Absolutely, I just wish they'd add the keybindings to Word - actually I
don't because I can't remember the last time I used Word, but I do find
myself wanting to use them in OOo and on web page forms. The number of
times I end up with odd characters in my text as I try to move around
the document. I've always been a bit of a text mode type though and
had a liking for strange codes in the text - I used to love Protext on
my old 8 and 16 bit computers :)

> vi is a perfectly valid choice of editor for most tasks - but it *is*
> arcane and to this day there is no better way of saying "I love emacs"
> than saying "I hate vi" :-)

Doesn't feel arcane to me, Emacs does... it all comes down to
familarity. Windows feels arcane to me, or perhaps childish would be a
better term - very limited and not at all useful for the power user,
very slow to do anything useful. By 2012 maybe it will have caught up
with Linux in the usability stakes ;)

** end quote [Geoff Teale]

-- 
Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/