Redhat 8 and init.el

[Mel]

I'm trying to utilize the advice in this post:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=pan.2002.09.14.20.48.16.446325.24107%40polybus.com&rnum=3

In order to strip unwanted characters from text files.  It states the
following: "Use Xemacs. In your .xemacs/init.el file add the
following...."

However, I do not have the init.el file in Redhat 8.  I have several
*init.el files, but not sure which is comparable to the one listed in
that post.

I'm not even sure if Xemacs is the same as the emacs I have on rh8.

Any advice is appreciated.

Yes, I am a newb....