from small one page howto to huge articles all in one place

search text in:




Other .linuxhowtos.org sites: www.linuxhowtos.org
toolsntoys.linuxhowtos.org



Last additions:
How to make X listen on port 6000

How to make X listen on port 6000

words:

34

views:

84528

userrating:

average rating: 1.2 (52 votes) (1=very good 6=terrible)


May, 25th 2007:
April, 26th 2007:
Apr, 10th. 2007:
Druckversion . pdf icon
You are here: Tutorials per portage category->app-editors->nano

Configuring the nano text editor


nano is a small, free and friendly editor which aims to replace Pico, the default editor included in the non-free Pine package. Rather than just copying Pico's look and feel, nano also implements some missing (or disabled by default) features in Pico, such as "search and replace" and "goto line number".

Lets go ahead and configure it.

($:~)=> nano -w ~/.nanorc
# Use auto-indentation  
set autoindent

# Backup files to filename~
set backup

# Use cut to end of line with ^K by default
set cut

# Enable ~/.nano_history for saving and reading search/replace strings.
# set historylog

# Don't convert files from DOS/Mac format
set noconvert

# Don't follow symlinks when writing files
# set nofollow

# Don't display the help lists at the bottom of the screen
# set nohelp

# Don't wrap text at all
set nowrap

# Use smooth scrolling as the default
set smooth

# Use this spelling checker instead of the internal one. This option
# does not properly have a default value.
set speller "aspell -c"

# Allow nano to be suspended with ^Z
# set suspend

# Use this tab size instead of the default; it must be greater than 0
# set tabsize 8

# Save automatically on exit, don't prompt
# set tempfile

# Enable ~/.nano_history for saving and reading search/replace strings.
# set historylog

# Disallow file modification, why would you want this in an rc file? ;)
# set view

#Color Syntax Highlighting
syntax "c-file" "\.(c|h)$"
color red "\<[A-Z_]{2,}\>"
color green "\<(float|char|int|void|static|const|struct)\>"
color brightyellow "\<(if|while|do|else|case|switch)\>"
color brightcyan "^#( )*(define|include|ifn?def|endif|elif|else|if)"
color brightyellow "<[^= ]*>" ""(.|[^"])*""
color brightyellow start=""(\\.|[^\"])*\\( | )*$" end="^(\\.|[^\"])*""
color brightblue "//.*"
color brightblue start="/\*" end="\*/"

syntax "HTML" "\.html$"
color blue start="<" end=">"
color red "&[^; ]*;"

syntax "TeX" "\.tex$"
color green "\\.|\\[A-Za-z]*"
color magenta "[{}]"
color blue "%.*"

syntax "mutt"
color green "^>.*"

syntax "php" ".*/*.php$"
color brightwhite "\{|\}|\."
color red "('[^']*')"
color red "\"[^\"]*\""
color brightblue "(\$([[:alpha:]_]|->)*)"
color brightgreen "((\$(([[:alpha:]_0-9])+\->)+)[[:alpha:]_0-9]+\()"
color yellow " (if|else if|else|return|case|break)"
color yellow "\|\||\?|!|\||&&|=|;|\(|\)"
color red "false|true"
color brightwhite "[[:space:]]+debug|[[:space:]]+echo|\$this\->debug"
color cyan "//.*"
color cyan start="/\*" end="\*/"

syntax "groff" "\.ms$" "\.mm$" "\.me$" "\.tmac$" "^tmac." ".rof"
color cyan "^\.ds [^ ]*"
color cyan "^\.nr [^ ]*"
color brightmagenta "\\."
color brightmagenta "\\f."
color brightmagenta "\\f\(.."
color brightmagenta "\\s(\+|\-)?[0-9]"
color cyan "(\\|\\\\)n."
color cyan "(\\|\\\\)n\(.."
color cyan start="(\\|\\\\)n\[" end="]"
color brightgreen "^\. *[^ ]*"
color yellow "^\.\\\".*$"
color green "(\\|\\\\)\*."
color green "(\\|\\\\)\*\(.."
color green start="(\\|\\\\)\*\[" end="]"
color brightred "\\\(.."
color brightred start="\\\[" end="]"
color brightcyan "\\\\\$[1-9]"

syntax "perl" "\.p[lm]$"
color red "\<(accept|alarm|atan2|bin(d|mode)|c(aller|h(dir|mod|op|own|root)|lose(dir)?|onnect|os|rypt)|d(bm(close|open)|efined|elete|ie|o
|ump)|e(ach|of|val|x(ec|ists|it|p))|f(cntl|ileno|lock|ork)|get(c|login|peername|pgrp|ppid|priority|pwnam|(host|net|proto|serv)byname|pwuid
|grgid|(host|net)byaddr|protobynumber|servbyport)|([gs]et|end)(pw|gr|host|net|proto|serv)ent|getsock(name|opt)|gmtime|goto|grep|hex|index|
int|ioctl|join|keys|kill|last|length|link|listen|local(time)?|log|lstat|m|mkdir|msg(ctl|get|snd|rcv)|next|oct|open(dir)?|ord|pack|pipe|pop
|printf?|push|q|qq|qx|rand|re(ad(dir|link)?|cv|do|name|quire|set|turn|verse|winddir)|rindex|rmdir|s|scalar|seek|seekdir|se(lect|mctl|mget|
mop|nd|tpgrp|tpriority|tsockopt)|shift|shm(ctl|get|read|write)|shutdown|sin|sleep|socket(pair)?|sort|spli(ce|t)|sprintf|sqrt|srand|stat|st
udy|substr|symlink|sys(call|read|tem|write)|tell(dir)?|time|tr|y|truncate|umask|un(def|link|pack|shift)|utime|values|vec|wait(pid)?|wantarray|warn|write)\>"
color magenta "\<(continue|else|elsif|do|for|foreach|if|unless|until|while|eq|ne|lt|gt|le|ge|cmp|x|my|sub|use|package|can|isa)\>"
color cyan start="[$@%]" end="( |\\W|-)"
color yellow "".*"|qq\|.*\|"
color white "[sm]/.*/"
color white start="(^use| = new)" end=";"
color green "#.*"
color yellow start="<< 'STOP'" end="STOP"

syntax "Java source" "\.java$"
color green "\<(boolean|byte|char|double|float|int|long|new|short|this|transient|void)\>"
color red "\<(break|case|catch|continue|default|do|else|finally|for|if|return|switch|throw|try|while)\>"
color cyan "\<(abstract|class|extends|final|implements|import|instanceof|interface|native|package|private|protected|public|static|strictfp|super|synchronized|throws|volatile)\>"
color red ""[^"]*""
color yellow "<(true|false|null)>"
color blue "//.*"
color blue start="/\*" end="\*/"
color brightblue start="/\*\*" end="\*/"
color brightgreen,brightgreen "[ ]+$"

syntax "nanorc" "[\.]*nanorc$"
color white "^ *(set|unset).*$"
color cyan "^ *(set|unset) (autoindent|backup|const|cut|fill|keypad|multibuffer|noconvert|nofollow|nohelp|nowrap|operatingdir|preserve|quotestr|regexp|smooth|speller|suspend|tabsize|tempfile|historylog|view)"
color brightwhite "^ *syntax [^ ]*"
color brightblue "^ *set\>" "^ *unset\>" "^ *syntax\>"
color white "^ *color\>.*"
color yellow "^ *color (bright)?(white|black|red|blue|green|yellow|magenta|cyan)\>"
color magenta "^ *color\>"
color green "^#.*$"

syntax "bash" "\.sh$"
color brightblack "#.*"
color brightyellow "\(" "\)" "\{" "\}"
color red "\<[A-Z_]{2,}\>"
color red "[\$\*\'\`\|\=]"
color brightblue "\[.*\]"
color green "\<-e\>" "\<-d\>" "\<-f\>" "\<-r\>" "\<-g\>" "\<-u\>" "\<-u\>" "\<-w\>" "\<-x\>" "\<-L\>"
color green "\<-eq\>" "\<-ne\>" "\<-gt\>" "\<-lt\>" "\<-ge\>" "\<-le\>" "\<-s\>" "\<-n\>" "\<-z\>"
color blue "\" "\" "\" "\" "\" "\" "\" "\" "\"
color blue "\" "\" "\" "\" "\"
color brightwhite "\.*"


And thats it. You may want to read the /usr/share/doc/nano/nanorc.sample file for any other options you may want or change the color highlighting a bit.
rate this article:
current rating: average rating: 1.5 (34 votes) (1=very good 6=terrible)
Your rating:
Very good (1) Good (2) ok (3) average (4) bad (5) terrible (6)

back



Support us on Content Nation

New Packages

- as rdf newsfeed
- as rss newsfeed
- as Atom newsfeed
2026-04-21
firefox - 150.0
Ebuild name:

www-client/firefox-150.0

Description

Firefox Web Browser

Added to portage

2026-04-21

firefox-l10n - 150.0
Ebuild name:

www-client/firefox-l10n-150.0

Description

Firefox Web Browser's translation files

Added to portage

2026-04-21

git - 2.54.0
Ebuild name:

dev-vcs/git-2.54.0

Description

Stupid content tracker distributed VCS designed for speed and efficiency

Added to portage

2026-04-21

htmlcxx - 0.87-r1
Ebuild name:

dev-cpp/htmlcxx-0.87-r1

Description

A simple non-validating CSS 1 and HTML parser for C++

Added to portage

2026-04-21

radarr-bin - 6.2.0.10390
Ebuild name:

www-apps/radarr-bin-6.2.0.10390

Description

A fork of Sonarr to work with movies a la Couchpotato

Added to portage

2026-04-21

rutorrent - 5.3.0
Ebuild name:

www-apps/rutorrent-5.3.0

Description

ruTorrent is a front-end for the popular Bittorrent client rTorrent

Added to portage

2026-04-21

spectre-meltdown-checker - 26.33.0420460
Ebuild name:

app-admin/spectre-meltdown-checker-26.33.0420460

Description

Spectre & Meltdown vulnerability/mitigation ch

Added to portage

2026-04-21

2026-04-20
amule - 2.3.3-r8
Ebuild name:

net-p2p/amule-2.3.3-r8

Description

aMule, the all-platform eMule p2p client

Added to portage

2026-04-20

bluez-alsa - 4.3.1-r2
Ebuild name:

media-sound/bluez-alsa-4.3.1-r2

Description

Bluetooth Audio ALSA Backend

Added to portage

2026-04-20

coreutils - 9.11
Ebuild name:

sys-apps/coreutils-9.11

Description

Standard GNU utilities (chmod, cp, dd, ls, sort, tr, head, wc, who,...)

Added to portage

2026-04-20

filelock - 3.29.0
Ebuild name:

dev-python/filelock-3.29.0

Description

A platform independent file lock for Python

Added to portage

2026-04-20

firefox-bin - 150.0
Ebuild name:

www-client/firefox-bin-150.0

Description

Firefox Web Browser

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gcc - 16.0.1_p20260419
Ebuild name:

sys-devel/gcc-16.0.1_p20260419

Description

The GNU Compiler Collection

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 5.10.253
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-5.10.253

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 5.15.203
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-5.15.203

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 6.1.169
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.1.169

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 6.12.82
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.12.82

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 6.18.23
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.18.23

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 6.19.13
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.19.13

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoo-sources - 6.6.135
Ebuild name:

sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-6.6.135

Description

Full sources including the Gentoo patchset for the . kernel tree

Added to portage

2026-04-20

gentoolkit - 0.7.2
Ebuild name:

app-portage/gentoolkit-0.7.2

Description

Collection of administration scripts for Gentoo

Added to portage

2026-04-20

ghostty - 1.3.1
Ebuild name:

x11-terms/ghostty-1.3.1

Description

Fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform terminal emulator

Added to portage

2026-04-20

ghostty-terminfo - 1.3.1
Ebuild name:

x11-terms/ghostty-terminfo-1.3.1

Description

Terminfo for ghostty, a fast, feature-rich, and cross-platform ter

Added to portage

2026-04-20

hash-slinger - 3.5
Ebuild name:

net-dns/hash-slinger-3.5

Description

Various tools to generate DNS records like SSHFP, TLSA, OPENPGPKEY, IPSECK

Added to portage

2026-04-20

img2pdf - 0.6.3
Ebuild name:

media-gfx/img2pdf-0.6.3

Description

Losslessly convert raster images to PDF

Added to portage

2026-04-20

irker - 2.25
Ebuild name:

net-irc/irker-2.25

Description

Submission tools for IRC notifications

Added to portage

2026-04-20

libquo - 1.3.1-r3
Ebuild name:

sys-cluster/libquo-1.3.1-r3

Description

Run-time tuning of process binding policies made easy

Added to portage

2026-04-20

libtmux - 0.55.1
Ebuild name:

dev-python/libtmux-0.55.1

Description

Typed library that provides an ORM wrapper for tmux, a terminal multiplex

Added to portage

2026-04-20

lyx - 2.5.1
Ebuild name:

app-office/lyx-2.5.1

Description

WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean) document processor based on LaTeX

Added to portage

2026-04-20

mate-calc - 1.28.0-r2
Ebuild name:

mate-extra/mate-calc-1.28.0-r2

Description

Calculator for MATE

Added to portage

2026-04-20

md5deep - 4.4
Ebuild name:

app-crypt/md5deep-4.4

Description

Expanded md5sum program with recursive and comparison options

Added to portage

2026-04-20

md6sum - 1.0-r3
Ebuild name:

app-crypt/md6sum-1.0-r3

Description

A C implementation of MD6

Added to portage

2026-04-20

mhash - 0.9.9.9-r4
Ebuild name:

app-crypt/mhash-0.9.9.9-r4

Description

Library providing a uniform interface to a large number of hash algorith

Added to portage

2026-04-20

minisign - 0.12
Ebuild name:

app-crypt/minisign-0.12

Description

Dead simple tool to sign files and verify signatures

Added to portage

2026-04-20

minted - 3.4.0-r1
Ebuild name:

dev-tex/minted-3.4.0-r1

Description

LaTeX package for source code syntax highlighting

Added to portage

2026-04-20

nbxmpp - 7.2.0
Ebuild name:

dev-python/nbxmpp-7.2.0

Description

Python library to use Jabber/XMPP networks in a non-blocking way

Added to portage

2026-04-20

nikola - 8.3.3-r1
Ebuild name:

www-apps/nikola-8.3.3-r1

Description

A static website and blog generator

Added to portage

2026-04-20

pybind11 - 3.0.4
Ebuild name:

dev-python/pybind11-3.0.4

Description

AST-based Python refactoring library

Added to portage

2026-04-20

pygobject - 3.56.2
Ebuild name:

dev-python/pygobject-3.56.2

Description

Python bindings for GObject Introspection

Added to portage

2026-04-20

safeeyes - 3.4.1
Ebuild name:

x11-misc/safeeyes-3.4.1

Description

Linux alternative to EyeLeo

Added to portage

2026-04-20

skopeo - 1.22.2
Ebuild name:

app-containers/skopeo-1.22.2

Description

Work with remote container images registries

Added to portage

2026-04-20

starship - 1.25.0
Ebuild name:

app-shells/starship-1.25.0

Description

The minimal, blazing-fast, and infinitely customizable prompt for any sh

Added to portage

2026-04-20

testdisk - 7.2-r1
Ebuild name:

app-admin/testdisk-7.2-r1

Description

Checks and undeletes partitions + PhotoRec, signature based recovery tool

Added to portage

2026-04-20

vlc - 4.0.0_pre20260418
Ebuild name:

media-video/vlc-4.0.0_pre20260418

Description

Media player and framework with support for most multimedia files

Added to portage

2026-04-20

rdf newsfeed | rss newsfeed | Atom newsfeed
Copyright 2004-2025 Sascha Nitsch Unternehmensberatung GmbH
- Copyright and legal notices -
Time to create this page: 74.8 ms