text editing in ubuntu

[Dan Farrell]

On Tue, 4 Aug 2009 03:10:13 +0100
steve <utopia_beach at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> ... a minimalist at heart. 

Me too; if you're also a DIY kind of persion then check out gentoo.
not for the feint of heart, but it'll get you up to speed on cli really
fast.  

> i love linux and i've always wanted to ditch windows completely but
> have never found a satisfactoty means of editing text, or of editing
> text in email. i also need a good html editor. 

vim.  with proper syntax highlighting vim is beautiful.  learning curve
is steep, but not as steep as everyone says.  advantages: - don't need
gui to feel at home (ssh login, anyone? ever break X?)  - very
lightweight. (compare to bluefish!)  - extremely powerful, with regular
expressions, macros, and the like.  - not emacs :-)  - included in some
form on most POSIX machines: learn vi commands and you'll always have
an editor.  As for the learning curve: biking downhill, though relaxing
and easy, is not recommended for training purposes, for obvious
reasons.  

for email you should try claws mail.  Super lightweight, fast, capable
mail client with all the features I want from email and none of the
cruft.  managed to configure UI such that it's pretty usable on my
1024x600 screen.  you might be happy to know that it was also written
by a Japanese programmer (Hiroyuki Yamamoto).  email lends itself well
to lightweight gui apps IMHO.  

good lock.