As I'm reading through Evan Klitzke's excellent blog, I came across Esc is Ctrl-[.

One of Vim's quirks is that it's a modal editor, and you switch from edit mode (where you're typing things) to command mode by hitting the esc key, which on most keyboards is the upper-leftmost key on the keyboard.

Lots of Vim/vi users map esc to a ctrl key, but Evan says that ctrl-[ is a default equivalent of esc.

He's right. Try it.

I'm not sure if ctrl-[ will replace esc in my future, but it very well might.

If you think of using your keyboard like a that of a musician -- and when text editing, I think this is a very valid comparison -- think of how you type.

I do touch type -- I learned it on manual typewriters at U.S. Grant High School in the San Fernando Valley back in the day. I can't remember if I took one semester or two, but it was enough to give me a lifelong ability that I use every day-- and heavily.

But when it comes to things like esc keys or ctrl sequences, pre-computer touch-typing doesn't really help.

So here's the deal: I use my left-hand ring finger (or 3rd finger in guitar-fingering parlance) to hit the esc (as well as the backtick key below it. I can generally find esc fairly well, though I have to look much of the time to get the backtick.

But ctrl-[ is a little harder to type. I use the left-ctrl with my left pinky finger (aka 4th finger), and it looks like I'll have to hit the [ with my right pinky finger (or maybe 3rd finger). That's a funky stretch for my right hand. I may be able to get used to it, but the question is whether it's easier or faster than stabbing for esc with my left hand's 3rd finger.

In any case, having an esc alternative in Vim without any configuration is a nice feature.

My Fedora 27 system died a less-than-noble death at the hands of a Fedora 28 upgrade.

Maybe my error was upgrading too early (it was about a week after the release), or maybe it was because my system was too old. I probably started this installation on Fedora 17 or 18. That's a lot of upgrades, and one was bound to go south. This was that one.

So I reinstalled Fedora 28 from the ISO via USB, keeping my same partitions. (Note to Fedora developers: This should be easier to do. I had to bluff my way through it.)

Now that I have a new Fedora, I'm trying to keep it simple.

Instead of a bunch of desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, Xfce, LXDE), I'm sticking with the stock GNOME.

I'm only slowly adding the things that died with F27. I just added the RPM Fusion repositories, and before that I installed the Ruby programming language and all the packages I needed to install the gems I need. I have everything

I don't even have Google Chrome. Don't need it. Firefox has made a lot of progress in the past year, and who doesn't need less spying?

Normally I'm an Xfce user, but I can get around (and get along) with GNOME 3.

Nautilus -- or Files as it's now called -- is appreciably fast, especially compared to the Windows file manager (where the lag is not a deal breaker but is noticeable).

I'm enjoying using gEdit (aka Text Editor). I'm not saying I won't add Geany at some point, but for now this works. I added the gedit-plugins so I could get the built-in-terminal, though Menu - Tools - External Tools - Open Terminal Here is probably more useful.