In February we continue with the second event of our current meetup cycle – every first Wednesday of the month until summer. Check out the rest of the dates and topics too: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/2025/12/20/save-the-dates-meetup-cycle-2026/

Coming up on on February 4, we will do some text-wrangling with Vim. So if you ever wondered why people actually like to use this very un-intuitive way of editing text-files, which is nevertheless the default on Linux server systems, this session might be for you.

After a short intro to vim and how it came about (or where it came from [1] and how it was nearly a kind of historical accident [2]), we will work through some vim basics, go on some vim adventures and check out the (mostly) self-explaining vimtutor. So bring along your Linux box to hack some text files. But: Vim is also available for Windows and Mac, so don’t worry if you have no Linux system ready. Just bring your notebook and we’ll figure out the rest together.

Reference for more background info:
[1] https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/05/where-vim-came-from.html
[2] https://buttondown.com/hillelwayne/archive/modal-editing-is-a-weird-historical-contingency/

Schedule

• 17:30 : Arrival and open chatting
• 18:00 : General intro to the Feminist Linux Meetup and intro of participants
• 18:10 : Short input on Vim
• 18:30 : Pratical part

Location information

 at Vordere Zollamtstraße 7, in the semainr room 24 (Seminarraum 24) on ground floor. The room is in a building of the University of Applied Arts next to Wien Mitte / The Mall, here on the map: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/176477793

(*) Invitation policy and social conduct

The meetup (and workshop) is open to all women*, non-binary*, inter*, and trans* people, who are interested to talk about Linux and related topics. In this case, non-binary does mean that you neither fully identify as „woman“ or „man“. It does not mean, that you only programme in fuzzy-logic and don’t use binary numbers. This would of course be fantasticly queer, but believe us, our computers also work with binary code most of the time.

With the * we mark certain words to point to the fact, that all these categories are socially constructed. That means, that they do not exist „in nature“, but that we humans interpret nature in this specific way. Therefore it is also legitimate, that people choose these categories for themselves in a way that best fits them. If that unsettles you or you want to know more about it, take a look at our article on invitation policy: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/invitation-policy/

Beyond that, we want to create an atmosphere and environment that is encouraging everyone. To do so, we created a Code of Conduct, that describes what we all can do, that no one has to be uncomfortable: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/code-of-conduct/

In order for everyone to feel really welcome and accepted though, we want to be actively aware and foster a social environment that we describe here: https://feminist-linux.diebin.at/social-framework/