How To Install Vim Text Editor on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Vim Text Editor on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Vim is a highly configurable text editor for efficiently creating and changing any kind of text. It is especially useful for editing config files and programs written in shell, python, Perl, c/c++, and more. The latest release of Vim includes a few new features, bug fixes, and documentation updates.

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 through the step-by-step installation of the Vim Text Editor on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 20.04, 18.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint or elementary OS.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• 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 Text Editor on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa

Step 1. Before installing any new software, it’s crucial to update your system’s package database. This ensures you’re getting the latest version of Vim and its dependencies.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2. Installing Vim Text Editor on Ubuntu 20.04.

Once your package database is up to date, you can proceed with installing Vim:

• Install Vim using Git.

Run the following commands to install Vim on Ubuntu using Git:

sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/vim/vim.git
cd vim
./configure
sudo apt install ncurses-dev
sudo yum install ncurses-devel
make
sudo make install

• Install Vim using the PPA repository.

Run the following commands to install Vim on Ubuntu using PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vim
sudo apt update
sudo apt install vim

After the installation completes, verify it by checking the Vim version:

vim --version

This will display information about the installed Vim version and its compiled features.

You can now use vim text editor:

$ vi file.c
$ vim file.c
$ sudo vim /etc/sysctl.conf

Step 3. Vim Basic Commands.

Basic Commands

Here are some essential commands to get you started:

• i: Enter Insert mode
• Esc: Return to Normal mode
• :w: Save the file
• :q: Quit Vim
• :wq: Save and quit
• /text: Search for “text”
• n: Move to the next search result
• N: Move to the previous search result

Navigation

In Normal mode:

• h, j, k, l: Move left, down, up, right
• w: Move to the start of the next word
• b: Move to the start of the previous word
• 0: Move to the start of the line
• $: Move to the end of the line
• gg: Go to the first line of the document
• G: Go to the last line of the document

Editing Text

• x: Delete character under the cursor
• dd: Delete current line
• yy: Copy current line
• p: Paste after cursor
• u: Undo last action
• Ctrl + r: Redo last undone action

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Vim. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the Vim Text Editor on your Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Vim website.