Vim - Vim is a commandline-based, visual, modal text editor. It is beyond lightweight, intuitive, and highly extensible. This entire website was written using the Vim editor and it can be found installed in virtually any server room in the world. What makes Vim stand out from the crowd of IDEs is its regular mode + insert mode paradigm. This allows for built-in macro support, registers to store several copy/pastes (yanking), and keyboard-controlled moves. No need to lift your hands to reach for a mouse. It's all about saving those keystrokes, baby!
Arch Linux - Arch Linux is my recommended Linux distribution for someone who is trying to break into the world of Linux and free software generally. Its minimal installation process will undoubtedly be a pain for new users, but the wiki has all of the information you will need to get your next OS up and running. Unlike many "mainstream" distributions like Ubuntu that use graphical installers, the command line installation process will teach you the backend basics of modern GNU+Linux operating systems and you will be better off for it.
*.conf
files. Rather, they are meant to be configured and patched at compile-time through their well-documented header files. Sure, most Linux distributions maintain suckless binaries in their repositories, but they're only sensibly pre-configured. If you want their software to precisely match your needs, you'll need to get it straight from the teet.