I tried the vanilla emacs bindings and I have to say they are the worst bindings I have seen in my life, period!!. I had my hand bending into the weirdest of shapesThat's a sign of poor keyboard layout (relative to emacs).
Emacs was designed for keyboards with control and alt on both sides of the spacebar (and really benefits if the layout places control and alt symmetrically).
Thinkpads have this layout. There are other keyboards with a suitable layout. Most keyboards are not suitable for sustained Emacs use...
...and for what it is worth, Linux shells tend to use Emacs shortcuts out of the box.
