Setting up on Linux

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 However, it might be rather out of date, and Vim 8 introduces some much-needed optimizations.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

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:

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.