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# Installing Vim

## Installation of Vim

If you don't like vim to be installed as an editor on the LFS system, you may want to download an alternative and install an editor you prefer. There are a few hints how to install different editors available at http://archive.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs-hints/editors/

Both the vim-rt and vim-src packages need to be unpacked to install Vim. Both packages will unpack their files into the vim-5.7 directory. This won't overwrite any files from the other package. So it doesn't matter in which order it is done. Install Vim by running the following commands:

> `./configure --prefix=/usr &&`
> `make &&`
> `make install &&`
> `cd /usr/bin &&`
> `ln -s vim vi`

If you plan on installing the X Window system on your LFS system, you might want to re-compile Vim after you have installed X. Vim comes with a nice GUI version of the editor which requires X and a few other libraries to be installed. For more information read the Vim documentation.

## FHS compliance notes

The FHS says that editors like vim should use /var/lib/<editor> for their temporary state files, like temporary save files for example. If you wish vim to conform to the FHS, you should use this command set instead of the one presented above:

> `./configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var/lib/vim &&`
> `make &&`
> `make install &&`
> `cd /usr/bin &&`
> `ln -s vim vi &&`
> `mkdir /var/lib/vim`

## Contents

The Vim package contains the ctags, etags, ex, gview, gvim, rgview, rgvim, rview, rvim, view, vim, vimtutor and xxd programs.

## Description

### ctags

ctags generate tag files for source code.

### etags

etags does the same as ctags but it can generate cross reference files which list information about the various source objects found in a set of language files.

### ex

ex starts vim in Ex mode.

### gview

gview is the GUI version of view.

### gvim

gvim is the GUI version of vim.

### rgview

rgview is the GUI version of rview.

### rgvim

rgvim is the GUI version of rvim.

### rview

rview is a restricted version of view. No shell commands can be started and Vim can't be suspended.

### rvim

rvim is the restricted version of vim. No shell commands can be started and Vim can't be suspended.

### view

view starts vim in read-only mode.

### vim

vim starts vim in the normal, default way.

### vimtutor

vimtutor starts the Vim tutor.

### xxd

xxd makes a hexdump or does the reverse.

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