A new, VERY whittled down version of my .emacs file.

.emacs

;; .emacs

;;; uncomment this line to disable loading of "default.el" at startup
;; (setq inhibit-default-init t)

;; turn on font-lock mode
(when (fboundp 'global-font-lock-mode)
  (global-font-lock-mode t))

;; enable visual feedback on selections
;(setq transient-mark-mode t)

;; default to better frame titles
(setq frame-title-format
      (concat  "%b - emacs@" (system-name)))

;; default to unified diffs
(setq diff-switches "-u")

;; always end a file with a newline
;(setq require-final-newline 'query)

(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 )

;;
;; I use emacs on a black background, these font settings make it a bit easier to
;; to read, but they still kinda suck.
;;
(custom-set-faces
  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 '(font-lock-comment-face ((((type tty pc) (class color) (background light)) (:foreground "#f2f2f2"))))
 '(font-lock-string-face ((((type tty) (class color)) (:foreground "LightBlue")))))
(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 )
(custom-set-faces
  ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom -- don't edit or cut/paste it!
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 '(font-lock-string-face ((((type tty) (class color)) (:foreground "LightBlue"))))
 '(font-lock-keyword-face ((((type tty pc) (class color)) (:foreground "red"))))
 '(font-lock-function-name-face ((((type tty pc) (class color)) (:foreground "cyan"))))
 '(font-lock-string-face ((((type tty pc) (class color)) (:foreground "#dddddd"))))
 '(font-lock-comment-face ((((type tty pc) (class color)) (:foreground "white"))))
 '(font-lock-builtin-face ((((type tty pc) (class color)) (:foreground "LightBlue"))))
 )
(setq c-default-style "linux")

;; 4 char indents like God intended
(setq c-basic-offset 4)