Applications

This is a short list describing some of the applications that you may find useful.

Text Editors

You may want to try several of these before deciding which one you like to use.
pico file
Use the "pico" editor to create or edit file. This is an editor which is similar to DOS's "edit" or Windows' "notepad". It is probably one of the easiest to learn of this group. I'm told that running this as: pico -w file turns off word-wrapping.
kwrite file
Use the "kwrite" editor to create or edit file. kwrite is a mouse-driven Xwindow-based editor with a simple menu. kwrite can usually be started by clicking on a pencil-shaped icon on the KDE panel. kwrite is based on "kate" which, unfortunately, is currently broken.
kedit file
Use the "kedit" editor to create or edit file. kedit seems to be a slightly enhanced version of kwrite (I don't know that it is). kedit is based on "kate" which, unfortunately, is currently broken.
mc
If available, mc (Midnight Commander) is a clone of the old DOS program "Norton Commander" that runs under Linux. mc has a built-in text editor which is fairly simple to use.
xedit file
Use the "xedit" editor to create or edit file. xedit is similar to kwrite. It is a little more confusing, and probably a bit more advanced.
vi file
Use the "visual" editor to create or edit file. This is an editor which is based primarily on text consoles rather than graphical systems like we use today. It is probably the oldest and most difficult to use of this group, but it is also the most portable between UNIX systems. Modern versions have support for mice, etc.
emacs file
Use the "emacs" editor to create or edit file. Emacs was developed as a text-based windowing environment. Once you start emacs, you never have to leave it (well, maybe to log out). It is also difficult to learn, but can be run in different modes depending on what type of file you are editing. Emacs has been integrated rather nicely into the Xwindows environment.
jove file
Use the "jove" editor to create or edit file. Jove is a stripped-down, smaller version of emacs. I think that it is installed in W109, but I can't recall if I had that done or not. If jove is installed, there may also be a tutorial called "teachjove" installed.