Emacs: Startup with no window system

Question

I know to start emacs with no window system, I do:

emacs -nw filename.txt

But, I don't want to specify -nw constantly. What do I add in my .emacs to do this automatically?

Answer 1

Depending on platform in shell, I believe you could add an alias in your bashrc or bash_profile (depending on needs) so that emacs is interpreted as emacs -nw

Answer 2

You can choose to install the non graphical version of emacs, under OSX I have the package "emacs @23.2, Revision 5 (editors): installed via MacPorts so when I type 'emacs' it never shows a GUI. off course aliasing (as suggested in another answer) leaves you with the option to run the graphical version sometimes.

Answer 3

1. Open your ~/.bash_profile and put this in a new line: alias emacs="emacs -nw"
2. Save the file.
3. Applying the change everywhere and immediately is simplest if you just log out and then log back in.

Answer 4

As a slightly more extensive example ...

Here is a snippet from my local .bashrc

  ## grrrr me type bad
    alias emasc='emacs -nw'
    alias emacs='emacs -nw'
    alias emacsx='emacs23-x'
    alias ls='ls --color'

That does it for me.

Also if your using emacs in a "real" console it detects the absence of a windowing environment and starts correctly without an alias .

i.e.

ctrl + alt + F[1-6]

You could also set your EDITOR env variable (in bashrc)

Finally you could uninstall any GUI versions :)

on debian:

apt-get install emacs23-nox 

would most probably do it all for you.