How To Install Vim Editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Vim Editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Vim is a free and open-source text editor. It is an improved version of the vi editor. Vim comes standard with most modern Linux distributions, but some of the minimal installations doesn’t include vim editor default.

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 Vim text editor 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.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install Vim Editor 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

Step 2. Installing Vim Text Editor on Ubuntu 22.04.

• Install Vim from the Ubuntu Official Repository.

By default, Vim is available on Ubuntu 22.04 base repository. Now run the following command below to install the latest version of Vim editor to your Ubuntu system:

sudo apt install vim

Confirm the installation and check the installed build version of Vim:

vim --version

Step 3. Accessing Vim Text Editor 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 -> Vim or launching it through the terminal with the command shown below:

vim

Vim Basic Command:

• Esc: Enter command mode
• Ctrl + r: Redo changes
• u: Undo changes
• dd: Delete a line
• yy: Copy a line
• Esc + :w: Save the changes
• Esc + :wq or Esc + ZZ: Save and quit Vim editor.
• Esc + :q! : Force vim to quit discarding all changes

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Vim. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Vim text editor on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Vim website.