X or Console?

This is a question for Unix/Linux users, and you probably already know the answer because it's a matter of personal preference, but it's worth looking into. Emacs was a console application for years, but developed an optional graphical interface (GUI) because users demanded one, and now you can use whichever you like best, or both.

I like using the console because it seems to utilize the screen efficiently and removes all the graphical distractions of the GUI. Emacs presents a menu bar at the top of the screen which you interact with using keyboard commands, and a status bar at the bottom of the screen bearing pertinent information. But that's my choice when I'm using Linux. If you're the kind of person that likes a GUI, that option is available to you, and if you want a clever sort of compromise you can always run the console version of emacs in an X terminal by issuing a command like "xterm -e emacs -nw." The -nw flag tells emacs to run the console version, not the GUI version. As a bonus, this compromise allows you cool options like running emacs in transparent consoles, and so on (aterm -tr -sh 60 -fg white -bg black -e emacs -nw).