I just installed Ubuntu Server 8 and found vi to be acting strangely (compared to vi on Fedora, CentOS and OSX).
When I use the 'a' command to enter text, pressing the arrow keys results in "C", "D", "B" and "A" to get entered. This makes editing almost impossible..
Am I doing something wrong here?
You're probably using the vim-tiny editor that doesn't support arrow key navigation in insert mode; Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't have the vim package installed. Install this, and update your default version of vi:
sudo apt-get install vim
sudo update-alternatives --config vi
Select "vim.basic". You may also want to do this for editor (replace vi in the command above with editor) so the default editor called by other programs (like visudo) is also the right version of vim.
I also advise getting in the habit of hitting ESC from insert mode and using hjkl navigation common to Vi/Vim, rather than using the arrow keys.
vi instead of vim. Being a server they tend to ship with bare minimum. hjkl is the way to go. =-]
vim-tiny package by default. i think this version of vim is compiled to act like vi, so there won't be much (if any) difference between it and actual vi.
Nov 19, 2009 at 11:53
another option is to remove vim-tiny:
sudo apt-get remove vim-tiny
and then reinstall vim:
sudo apt-get install vim
aptitude install vim-full
The first thing I do on a new ubuntu install.
Try:
:set nocompatible
If it works you may consider putting it into your .exrc (w/o colon).
You also might want to do some configuration:
$ cp /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent/vimrc_example.vim ~/.vimrc
$ vim !$ # and adapt it to your needs
The example vimrc has some useful settings and is a good starting point.
(note that you have to adapt the path for other systems, this is debian/ubuntu specific. On Systems that follow upstream vim installation more closely, it is /usr/share/vim/vimrc_example.vim)
