Help with updating my nano gnu

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Level 1

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Help with updating my nano gnu

Hello everybody I am a new user to OSX and the mac line. I currently GNU nano v 2.0.6 installed in my os and would like to update it to the latest version but I am having problems. These are the steps I followed:

1. download the .tar file from the official website

2. Click on it so that it extracts in the same folder.

3. Navigate to the folder in in terminal and use the following commands

./confugure

make

sudo make install

4. While I enter these commands a lot of other text comes up and I cant figure out what it means. ( I am really new to this)

However in the end when I try to access nano again from the ternimal it still is the same version. I am mainly doing this so that I can enable colour coding.
If someone could provide me with clear instructions to fix this I would be very greatfull.

MacBook Air (13-inch Mid 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 9, 2014 11:08 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,126 points

Mar 10, 2014 12:32 AM in response to adishwar

Syntax coloring capability is compiled into nano 2.0.6 that ships with Mavericks. You can verify this with the following terminal command:

nano --version

However, syntax coloring requires that you do substantial construction work to build language-specific syntax definition files that contain the specific custom color instructions. These are then included into the ~/.nanorc file. So... no instant color gratification.

For more years than I care to count, I was a Vi man. Then I discovered MacVim. And then Sublime Text 3, which is my current favorite. There is also Komodo Editor, Chocolate, Textastic, and TextMate. Variously, these editors understand command completion, syntax coloring, and code completion without you having to engineer these features yourself.

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Answer 2

adishwar Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 10, 2014 12:36 AM in response to VikingOSX

Oh so basically even if I was able to update it I would have to set up the colour coding myself anyway. Wow thats interesting, thanks a lot man!

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,126 points

Mar 10, 2014 12:37 AM in response to adishwar

Yes, that is correct. Trying to save you some time for actual coding.

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Answer 4

BobHarris

Level 9

56,747 points

Mar 10, 2014 3:52 AM in response to adishwar

There is a very good chance your compiled nano is in /usr/local/bin/nano

Do you have /usr/local/bin in your PATH environment variable ahead of /usr/bin? Or did you try invoking nano with the full path?

Note, this would apply on any Unix system, not just Mac OS X.

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Answer 5

Tony T1

Level 6

10,247 points

Mar 10, 2014 5:06 AM in response to adishwar

What Bob said.

In Terminal, enter: which -a nano and you'll see both.

Even if you have /usr/local/bin/ in you path, /usr/bin is usually first, so the old nano is loaded.

I use a newer version of rsync, so in my .bash_profile I have

alias rsync='/usr/local/bin/rsync' (if I want to run the old rsync, I just use \ (\rsync)

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Answer 6

Tony T1

Level 6

10,247 points

Mar 10, 2014 5:18 AM in response to VikingOSX

VikingOSX wrote:

For more years than I care to count, I was a Vi man. Then I discovered MacVim. And then Sublime Text 3, which is my current favorite. There is also Komodo Editor, Chocolate, Textastic, and TextMate. Variously, these editors understand command completion, syntax coloring, and code completion without you having to engineer these features yourself.

For a cheap text editor, there's TextWrangler (free) and Smultron ($6).

No where near as powerful as the editors you listed, but compared to nano.....

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