Fedora and Vim

June 21, 2013

For some unknown reason the default vim editor (which you get when you type "vi") is a pruned down version of vim compiled with almost no features. In particular you do not get syntax highlighting or status line customization. You also do not get about a million other things. The way to find out what you are running is:

vi --version

You also may want to type:

which vi

In my case the latter shows me:

alias vi='vim'
    /usr/bin/vim

I have no idea where this alias is getting set, but this was the source of a lot of confusion. I actually want this alias as it turns out.
The vi --version command shows me:

VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3 (2010 Aug 15, compiled May 14 2013 13:18:26)
Included patches: 1-415, 417-944
Modified by 
Compiled by 
Huge version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
...

The Huge version thing is good. On another system I was seeing:

VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3 (2010 Aug 15, compiled May 14 2013 13:18:45)
Included patches: 1-415, 417-944
Modified by 
Compiled by 
Small version without GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):

Here the "Small version" thing is bad.

Getting the big version

The small version comes from the package "vim-minimal", which as near as I can tell installs /bin/vi. The huge version comes from the package "vim-enhanced", which as near as I can tell installs /bin/vim.

So, to get the huge version with all the cool stuff:

yum install vim-enhanced

Then either invoke it by typing "vim", or (as I do) put an alias in your .bashrc so that vi runs vim.

alias vi='vim'

It is tempting to yum erase vim-minimal.

Feedback? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Computer Info / [email protected]