GNU nano
Sign in to saveAlso known as nano, Nano, TIP, TIP Isn't Pico
small, user-friendly console text editor
Key facts
- Original author
- Chris Allegretta
- Developer
- Benno Schulenberg
- Initial release
- 18 November 1999 ; 26 years ago ( 1999-11-18 )
- Stable release
- 9.0 / 8 April 2026
- Written in
- C
- Operating system
- Cross-platform
- Included with
- GNU based operating systems
- Available in
- English
- Type
- Text editor
- License
- 2007: GPL-3.0-or-later , 2001: GPL-2.0-or-later , 1999: GPL-1.0-or-later
- Website
- nano-editor .org
- Repository
- git .savannah .gnu .org /cgit /nano .git
via Wikipedia infobox
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
GNU nano is a text editor for Unix-like computing systems or operating environments using a command line interface. It emulates the Pico text editor, part of the Pine email client, and also provides additional functionality. Unlike Pico, nano is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Released as free software by Chris Allegretta in 1999, nano became part of the GNU Project in 2001. The logo resembles the lowercase form of the Greek letter Eta (η).
History
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “GNU nano” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.