After switching from Windows to PopOS a few years ago, I spent countless hours trying to find a GUI text editor as good as Notepad++ but failed. I have tried many of the native variants NotepadNext and others.
Comments
By stargrazer 2026-03-1113:44 You could try running notepad++ in wine, the windows emulator
But I suppose that doesn't really answer your question. Linux is/was a compendium of a bunch of little tools you string together. Many/Most/All of the items in Notepad++ can be found as smaller independent tools.
The real addicts will use console tools like VIM or EMACS to do their editing (not really GUI, but powerful).
As an alternate alternate, try using Visual Studio Code (VSC). Not quite as light weight as Notepad++, but very functional.
On Linux, I'll use KWrite to do my basic editing. I'll revert to VSC when heavy editing is required.
By fainpul 2026-03-1120:47 Have you tried these?
https://apps.gnome.org/en/TextEditor/
https://github.com/elementary/code
Since you're coming from Notepad++, maybe you are looking for something ugly? Try this:
By cpburns2009 2026-03-1113:47 One problem with Linux is there's so many editors to choose from. I assume you want to exclude the Java IDEs which rules out Eclipse and Netbeans. The basic editors are Gedit and Kate. The native IDEs are Geany and KDevelop. Then there's the Scintilla-based editors/IDEs which are probably closer to what you're looking for: SciTE (text editor), or CodeLite (IDE).
