VIM (Vi IMproved ) is not installed by default under FreeBSD. 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 or config files. You can install vim binary package system or use FreeBSD’s ports system.
Task: Install vim binary package
Type the following command to install vim lite version on older version of FreeBSD:
# pkg_add -r -v vim-lite
On the latest version of FreeBSD use the pkg command:
# pkg install vim-lite
Sample outputs:
Updating FreeBSD repository catalogue... FreeBSD repository is up to date. All repositories are up to date. The following 1 package(s) will be affected (of 0 checked): New packages to be INSTALLED: vim-lite: 8.0.0642 Number of packages to be installed: 1 The process will require 23 MiB more space. 5 MiB to be downloaded. Proceed with this action? [y/N]: y [backup] [1/1] Fetching vim-lite-8.0.0642.txz: 100% 5 MiB 394.4kB/s 00:14 Checking integrity... done (0 conflicting) [backup] [1/1] Installing vim-lite-8.0.0642... [backup] Extracting vim-lite-8.0.0642: 100%
You can also use FreeBSD ports system to install vim:
# cd /usr/ports/editors/vim-lite/
# make install clean
To start vim type command:
$ vim
You can also create a alias using alias command:
$ alias vi='vim'
Add above alias to your shell start up file such as ~/.bashrc / ~/.cshrc
Task: Setup global vimrc file
You need to copy default vimrc file from /usr/local/share/vim/vim71/vimrc_example.vim to /usr/local/share/vim:
# cp /usr/local/share/vim/vim71/vimrc_example.vim /usr/local/share/vimrc
OR for vim 8.x on FreeBSD 11 stable:
# cp -v /usr/local/share/vim/vim80/vimrc_example.vim /usr/local/share/vimrc
Sample outputs:
usr/local/share/vim/vim80/vimrc_example.vim -> /usr/local/share/vimrc
Task: Personal ~/.vimrc file
You can customize ~/.vimrc as per your requirements. Here is my own file:
$ cat ~/.vimrc
Sample output:
set nocompatible " must be the first line filetype on filetype indent on filetype plugin on set laststatus=2 set statusline=%<%f\%h%m%r%=%-20.(line=%l\ \ col=%c%V\ \ totlin=%L%)\ \ \%h%m%r%=%-40(bytval=0x%B,%n%Y%)\%P |
2 comment
create a softlink between vim and vi would easy.
# whereis vim
vim: /usr/local/bin/vim /usr/local/man/man1/vim.1.gz /usr/ports/editors/vim
# whereis vi
vi: /usr/bin/vi /usr/share/man/man1/vi.1.gz
# mv /usr/bin/vi /usr/bin/vi.bak
# ln -s /usr/local/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi
In ‘Task: Setup global vimrc file’ it should be
# cp /usr/local/share/vim/vim71/vimrc_example.vim /usr/local/share/vim/vimrc
instead of
# cp /usr/local/share/vim/vim71/vimrc_example.vim /usr/local/share/vimrc