Monday, October 19, 2020

Installing Vim on Linux

Installing Vim on Linux is very simple! Let's review how to install it on the most popular distros.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

As previously discussed, Vim is pretty popular text editor among developers, sysadmins and advanced Linux users. Today, let's review how to install it in your favorite Linux distributions since it's possible that Vim does not come preinstalled with it.

Installing Vim on Ubuntu/Mint/Debian/Elementary OS/Pop!_OS

Installing vim on Ubuntu (and derivatives such as Linux Mint, Elementary OS and Pop!_OS) it's pretty simple. Open a terminal and type the two simple commands:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vim

Installing Vim on Fedora/CentOS/RHEL/SUSE

Installing Vim on RPM-based systems such as Fedora, CentOS, SUSE, OpenSUSE and RHEL it's pretty simple. Open a terminal and type the two simple commands:

sudo yum update
sudo yum install vim

Installing Vim on Arch Linux/Manjaro

As one could expect, it's also very simple to install Vim on Arch Linux/Manjaro using Arch's package manager, Pacman:

sudo pacman -S vim

Installing Vim on other distros

For other distributions, please consult your distribution's website. It's very probable that Vim will be packaged up in the repositories and will be available for installation via the terminal or the software manager.

Testing the Install

With Vim installed, next step is to test if it's running with:

vim

Exiting Vim

In case it's your first time with Vim, to exit press:

<Esc> :q! 

Listing installed features

It's also possible to list which features are installed in your setup by running from the terminal:

vim --version
The enabled features will be marked with (+) while the disabled should have the (-) symbol aside.

Conclusion

One this post we reviewed how to install Vim on the most popular Linux distributions. We hope it helps!

See Also

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