Now that you can log in and move easily between directories and see your files, you'll want to be able to edit those files. To do this, you'll need a program that allows you to edit the characters in a file. If you are used to working on Microsoft Windows, you have probably used programs such as Microsoft Notepad, WordPad, or Word to do this. These programs are not available in Linux. There are several other choices for editors, all of which are free. In this chapter, you will use an editing program called Emacs. Other possibilities are programs such as nano, vi, vim, and gedit. Programmers have strong feelings about which editor to use, so if you already have a favorite, you can skip this section.

If you want to use Emacs, download and install it by typing sudo apt-get install emacs. Once...