Ubuntu Linux Vim Sorry, the command is not available in this version: syntax on
Q. I am using vim under Ubuntu Linux and whenever I type following command:
syntax on
I’m getting an error which read as follows:
E319: Sorry, the command is not available in this version: syntax on
How do I fix this problem?
A. Vim is a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi. It can be used to edit all kinds of plain text. It is especially useful for editing programs.
There are a lot of enhancements above Vi: multi level undo, multi windows and buffers, syntax highlighting, command line editing, filename completion, on-line help, visual selection, etc
Ubuntu Linux comes with tiny version of vim.
All you need to do is installed full vim version by typing following command:
$ sudo apt-get install vim
You can add syntax on command to ~/.vimrc file
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~ Last updated on: March 4, 2007
February 26th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Did you even read the question? The answer doesn’t address the question at all.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:19 am
Actually answers the question.
Ubuntu natively comes with tiny vim. This does not support syntax and other fancy stuff. So if you’ve just installed Ubuntu and run vim, you will get the error reported.
In order to get syntax highlighting and other features, you must install the complete vim via apt-get.
March 27th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Installing the full vim via apt-get doesn’t help at all. The problem stays as it is.
March 29th, 2008 at 1:33 am
Installing vim via apt-get solved the problem. Thank you.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:36 am
Great post, solved my problem, thanks!
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Works perfectly - who would have thought - two vim packages.
May 3rd, 2008 (6 days ago) at 9:09 pm
you should be using vim-tiny that is the default package in Ubuntu.
You should install a more bloated version.