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I know how to display line numbers (and columns) in the mode-line, but I'd like emacs to display the line numbers for all the lines on the left-hand side. I've seen this done in vim and other text editors. How do I do this for emacs?

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For Emacs version >= 26 you should use display-line-numbers-mode or global-display-line-numbers-mode.

As @eric-brown mentioned you can use M-x linum-mode.

Another good idea is to use (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'linum-mode) in your init.el to automatically enable linum-mode in all programming modes.

See EmacsWiki

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  • You might also find (global-display-line-numbers-mode) useful. – Lorem Ipsum Jan 14 '19 at 13:15
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M-x linum-mode will do the trick. If you wish to effect this for all buffers, then M-x global-linum-mode will do this.

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  • Do you know a way I can make this permanent? – Luke Shimkus Sep 25 '14 at 22:09
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    (per the suggestion of nispio and mgoszcz2) addition of (global-linum-mode) to your .emacs.d/init.el file will make it permanent. I find global-linum-mode to be a bit excessive, and mgoszcz2's suggestion for enabling it only in certain modes is a good one. – Eric Brown Sep 25 '14 at 22:24
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If you are using Emacs 26 or newer, you can use display-line-numbers-mode.

from etc/NEWS.26:

** Emacs now supports optional display of line numbers in the buffer. This is similar to what 'linum-mode' provides, but much faster and doesn't usurp the display margin for the line numbers. Customize the buffer-local variable 'display-line-numbers' to activate this optional display. Alternatively, you can use the 'display-line-numbers-mode' minor mode or the global 'global-display-line-numbers-mode'. When using these modes, customize 'display-line-numbers-type' with the same value as you would use with 'display-line-numbers'.

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nlinum-mode is another option. It has the same interface as linum-mode, so you can use the same hooks, but it uses a different technology to be more performant. Quote from nlinum.el:

;; This is like linum-mode, but uses jit-lock to be (hopefully) more efficient.

You can install it via GNU Elpa via the usual list-packages.

http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/nlinum.html

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Certainly linum-mode is a good choice. If you don't always want to see line numbers, like me, you can use this trick from the excellent What the .emacs.d!? blog.

This temporarily enables linum-mode when you run goto-line.

Here's the code from his blog:

(global-set-key [remap goto-line] 'goto-line-with-feedback)

(defun goto-line-with-feedback ()   "Show line numbers temporarily, while prompting for the line number input"   (interactive)   (unwind-protect
      (progn
        (linum-mode 1)
        (goto-line (read-number "Goto line: ")))
    (linum-mode -1)))
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