Linux machines come with Vim installed, which is great news! However, it might be rather out of date, and Vim 8 introduces some much-needed optimizations. Pull up your Command Prompt, and run the following code:
$ git clone https://github.com/vim/vim.git
$ cd vim/src
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo apt-get install make build-essential libncurses5-dev
libncursesw5-dev --fix-missing
This will make sure you’re on the latest major and minor patch of Vim. If you don’t care for being on the cutting edge, you can also update Vim using a package manager of your choice. Different Linux distributions use different package managers; the following list includes some common ones:
| Distribution | Command to install the latest version of Vim |
| Debian-based (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint) |
$ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install vim-gtk |
| CentOs (and Fedora prior to Fedora 22) |
$sudo yum check-update $sudo yum install vim-enhanced |
| Fedora 22+ |
$sudo dnf check-update $sudo dnf install vim-enhanced |
| Arch |
$sudo pacman -Syu $sudo pacman -S gvim |
| FreeBSD |
$sudo pkg update $sudo pkg install vim |
Do keep in mind that package manager repositories tend to lag behind from anywhere between a few months to a few years.
That’s it, you’re now ready to dive into the world of Vim! You can start the editor by typing the following command:
$ vim
On modern systems, you can also start Vim by invoking vi. However, it's not always the case: on older systems the two are different binaries. Vi is Vim’s predecessor (Vim stands for Vi improved). Today, it’s merely an alias pointing to Vim. There are no reasons to use Vi over Vim, unless, for some reason, you're unable to install the latter.