Episode: 2055
Title: HPR2055: GNU Nano Editor
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2055/hpr2055.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 13:47:38

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This is HPR Episode 2055 entitled GNU Hanover Editor.
It is posted by A.W. U.P. and is about 7 minutes long.
The summary is why GNU Hanover is a real tech editor and simple word processor.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
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Good day and welcome to another HPR episode.
This is JWP and I'm here to talk to you today about the nanotech editor.
Now I've done some podcasts before about the nanotech editor, but I felt it was time to bring back the nanotech editor.
Because Dave Morris was having a Raspberry 3, how he does his installations.
Very interesting podcast, but he said that he had to get Vi a real editor on here.
I would hate to say this, but now I was a real editor for real people.
I'm a certified Linux professional.
I work with Linux every day and I have to use Vi and Emacs sometimes.
It's pure torture.
It's not the way that it's supposed to be at all.
I've used Pine for a long time and Pine came from Pine came nanotech.
So what is nanotech's editor for Unix like Computing System or Operating Bottom?
It's using the command line interface.
It emulates the Pico editor part of Pine, which also provides additional functionality.
In contrast to Pico, nanotech is licensed under the GNU Public General License or GPL.
Released as free software by Chris Algareta in 1999.
Nanotech became part of the GNU project in 2001.
So it sort of belongs to all that stuff with Richard Stallman, just like Emacs does.
And so the history, it was first created in 99 with the name tip.
This is a Pico by Chris Algareta.
This motivation was a free software motivation so that it could be under free license
and he wanted it free as a freedom, not as free as a beer.
And he changed the name to nano to avoid the conflict with the existing tip utility.
The name comes from the SI preferences, which nanotech is a thousand times larger than Pico.
So, of course, nanotech is a number and Pico is also a number.
And I can assure you that nanotech is a thousand times better than Pico.
So again, in 2001, the project became part of the GNU project.
And a nano implement some features that Pico doesn't like, like colored text,
regular expression search and replaced smooth scrolling multiple buffers,
rebondable key support, undoing and redoing.
And I don't really use any of that.
I just use it to edit my files and type my emails and whatever.
Now, the thing with nano is that you can use a control keys.
It's quite simple, like control saves the current file.
Control W goes to search menu.
And these are called medic keys and they toggle behavior.
Did toggle behavior meta plus s toggle smooth mode off and on.
And the meta s is one to the press space key to release it.
And so that's what really the Wikipedia had to say.
And then if you go to Tux Radar, they have a June 22, 2010 article.
You know, right off the bat, nano supports text highlighting and text justification.
So it's a really simple word processor type thing as well.
And it's just a very lightweight, I like the color of it.
I've never had to edit it.
Most importantly, there's a Facebook page for it.
So if you go into the GN, a few type in the Facebook, the GNU nano text editor,
it'll go straight in and you can see that in the latest info has been nano has migrated.
It's source code from SVN to get.
And it, I think it's a link.
Now, what's changed recently is that they've gone to another thing.
So if you click on nano, the GNU editor, if you go to duck.go and type in that,
it'll go down and it'll say, first it comes up with an inline nano thing.
And so you click nano news, so it's nano minus editor.org.
And then you click news.
And you see, somehow it's gotten involved with the Savannah project news section, right?
And so if you click on the savanna.gnu.org, then we'll talk about the 10th birthday of Vanna, which was in 2009.
And it talks about some dated things.
But if you want to get the most current information about nano, it's the Facebook page.
It's where to go.
So yeah, so Dave, I'm glad that you think that V.I. is a real editor.
And the nano is what real people use for everyday vlogs and not V.I. or Emacs or something that tortures you to remember arcade commands that you've never, ever ever going to use, except when you're going to get a test from Red Hat to try to pass a test to, you know, to try to pass a test to do that.
All right. Well, y'all have a great day.
And I hope that you have a great summer. It's beautiful. For the weekend here in Germany.
Take care. And if you don't want to contact me, it's JWP.com at men.com.
All right. Take care. Bye.
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