In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Neovim is a free and open-source text editor that was created as a fork of the Vim text editor. Neovim aims to be a modern, feature-rich, and more user-friendly version of Vim while preserving the editor’s classic and powerful modal interface. The key differences between Neovim and Vim are:
- Asynchronous API: Neovim has an asynchronous API that enables developers to build more advanced plugins, making it possible to add new functionality to the editor in a more efficient way.
- Plugin Management: Neovim comes with a built-in package manager that makes it easier to manage and install plugins.
- Improved UI: Neovim has a more modern and customizable user interface compared to Vim. This includes a menu bar, tabs, and a status line that can be customized with various themes.
- Better Integration with External Tools: Neovim has better integration with external tools, such as language servers, which can provide code completion, linting, and other language-specific features.
- Performance Enhancements: Neovim has a more optimized codebase and uses less memory than Vim, making it faster and more responsive.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.
Prerequisites
- A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
- It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
- An active internet connection. You’ll need an internet connection to download the necessary packages and dependencies for Neovim.
- SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
- A
non-root sudo useror access to theroot user. We recommend acting as anon-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.
Install Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish
Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt commands in the terminal.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade sudo apt install wget apt-transport-https gnupg2 software-properties-common
Step 2. Installing Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04.
- Method 1. Install Neovim using Personal Package Archive (PPA) repository √
By default, Neovim is not available on Ubuntu 22.04 base repository. Now we add the Neovim PPA repository to your Ubuntu system:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/stable
After adding the repository, install the latest version of the Neovim application using the apt manager:
sudo apt update sudo apt install neovim
- Method 2. Install Neovim using the GitHub repository √
Run the following command below to download the latest version of Neovim from the GitHub page:
wget https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/download/stable/nvim-linux64.tar.gz
Next, extract the contents of the Neovim package:
tar xzvf nvim-linux64.tar.gz
Once is done, run the following command to start the Neovim:
./nvim-linux64/bin/nvim
Step 3. Accessing Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04.
Once successfully installed on your Ubuntu system, run the following path on your desktop to open the path: Activities -> Show Applications -> Neovim. Alternatively, you can open Neovim via the terminal using the following command:
nvim
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Neovim. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Neovim on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Neovim website.