How To Install alpine-pico on Ubuntu

Pico is a straightforward text editor based on the Alpine messaging system composer. Commands, like in Alpine, are presented at the bottom of the screen, and context-sensitive help is available. Characters are immediately placed into the text as they are written. Control-key combinations are used to enter editing commands. As a workaround for communications programs that swallow some control characters, press ESCAPE twice, followed by the required control character, e.g. “ESC ESC c” would be equivalent to inputting a ctrl-c. There are five main capabilities in the editor: paragraph justification, searching, block cut/paste, a spelling checker, and a file browser. Paragraph justification (or filling) occurs in the paragraph that includes the cursor, or in the paragraph immediately below if the cursor is between lines. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines or lines that begin with a space or tab. Using the control-U key combination, un-justification can be performed immediately after justification. String searches are not case-sensitive. A search starts at the current cursor location and goes all the way to the end of the text. In subsequent searches, the most recent search string is provided as the default.

On Ubuntu 20.04, there are three options for installing alpine-pico. Each strategy of installation will be described in detail in the following sections.

• Using apt-get to install alpine-pico
• Using apt to install alpine-pico  
• Using aptitude to install alpine-pico 

Let’s go through all the installation methods.

Method 1: Using apt-get to install alpine-pico

Step 1: Using the following command, update the apt database using apt-get.

sudo apt-get update

Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use apt-get to install alpine-pico by performing the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install alpine-pico

Method 2: Using apt to install alpine-pico  

Step 1: The apt database will be updated using the following command.

sudo apt update

Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use apt to install alpine-pico by performing the following command:

sudo apt -y install alpine-pico

Method 3: Using aptitude to install alpine-pico 

Step 1: If you want to use this method, you may need to install aptitude first because it is not normally installed by default on Ubuntu. Use the following command to update the apt database with aptitude.

sudo aptitude update

Step 2: After upgrading the apt database, we can use aptitude to install alpine-pico by performing the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install alpine-pico

We can launch Pico Editor in Linux with the help of the following command. Open the terminal and execute the following command.

pico

Below some of the flags are mentioned which will help us in getting started with Pico’s Editor. We can also check its manual for a better understanding of Pico Editor to open the manual simply put the following command into your terminal, and to close it press q.

man pico

This command will open the pico’s manual page.

Usage of Pico Editor

Example 1: Using the (“+”) symbol and number 

This symbol (+) causes pico to begin with the cursor positioned n lines into the file. 

Note: There is no space between the “+” symbol and the number

 pico +5

After pressing Enter, Pico’s editor will be open, the and cursor position will be n (here 5) lines after opening the file.

Example 2: Using the (.) symbol

It shows all files, including ones that begin with a period (.).

 pico -a

This will open pico’s editor and shows all the files in my case none of the files are created so it’s empty.