How To Install nano on Ubuntu

Posted on April 1, 2023 (Last modified on May 20, 2023 )

2 minutes • 418 words

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install nano on Ubuntu.

What is `nano`

nano is:

GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine (itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).

However, GNU nano also implements many features missing in Pico, including:

undo/redo
line numbering
syntax coloring
soft-wrapping of overlong lines
selecting text by holding Shift
interactive search and replace (with regular expression support)
a go-to line (and column) command
support for multiple file buffers
auto-indentation
tab completion of filenames and search terms
toggling features while running
and full internationalization support

There are three methods to install nano on Ubuntu. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install nano Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install nano using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install nano

Install nano Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install nano using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install nano

Install nano Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Ubuntu. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install nano using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install nano

How To Uninstall nano on Ubuntu

To uninstall only the nano package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove nano

Uninstall nano And Its Dependencies

To uninstall nano and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Ubuntu, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove nano

Remove nano Configurations and Data

To remove nano configuration and data from Ubuntu we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge nano

Remove nano configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove nano configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge nano

Dependencies

nano have the following dependencies:

References

nano website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install nano package on Ubuntu using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.