Vim-6.2

Introduction to Vim

The Vim package, which is an abbreviation for VI IMproved, contains a vi clone with extra features as compared to the original vi.

The default LFS instructions install vim as a part of the base system, but owing to the lack of X libraries during the base install, Vim needs to be recompiled once X is installed to enable the GUI mode. There is no need for special instructions since X support is automatically detected.

Installation of Vim

Install Vim by running the following commands:

echo '#define SYS_VIMRC_FILE "/etc/vimrc"' >> src/feature.h &&
echo '#define SYS_GVIMRC_FILE "/etc/gvimrc"' >> src/feature.h &&
./configure --prefix=/usr \
   --with-features=huge &&
make &&
make install

Command explanations

--with-features=huge: This switch enables all the additional features available in Vim.

Contents

The Vim package contains eview, evim, ex, gview, gvim, gvimdiff, rgview, rgvim, rview, rvim, view, vim, vimdiff, vimtutor and xxd. Except for vimtutor and xxd, all the other commands are symlinks to vim and start vim with different options. vimtutor is a tool to learn the various vim commands and xxd is a command used to create hex dumps.