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?
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
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.
~/.bash_profile
and put this in a new line:
alias emacs="emacs -nw"
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.