Replacing vi by vim

Question

How do I replace vi by vim so that when I type vi in terminal vim is opened?

Solution 1

You can add

alias vi=vim

to ~/.bashrc . This will start vim whenever you type vi.

Note that in Ubuntu 10.10 (and I think also 10.04) vi is already mapped to vim.

Solution 2

'vi' in Ubuntu already starts 'vim', although by default it starts 'vim-tiny' (which comes closest to the original 'vi' in its (lack of) features). You can see this with:

sudo update-alternatives --display vi

If you want it to use another version of vim, then make sure it's installed and run:

sudo update-alternatives --config vi

Solution 3

In addition to what Peter Smit has suggested. You can do the following as well to make that change system wide rather than just your account.

add alias vi='vim' to /etc/bash.bashrc

or create a symlink to vim

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/vim /usr/bin/vi

However on my system both /usr/bin/vim and /usr/bin/vi are symlinks to /etc/alternatives/vim

Comments

[Searock]

Sorry for another silly question, but where is .bashrc located ? I am quite new to Ubuntu.

[Peter Smit]

In your home directory. Just type vim ~/.bashrc

[Searock]

Can I use update-alternatives for other applications, what does update-alternatives do, does it installs extra features ?

[RiverWay]

Yes you can. It updates alternatives. No, it doesn't. If you want to know more use man update-alternatives or start a new question.

[JanC]

Actually, 'vi' has pointed to some variation of 'vim' since almost forever in Ubuntu (see my answer about alternatives to know how to change which variation).

[Karoly Horvath]

The symlink is a bad suggestion: use update-alternatives to manage this in Ubuntu.

[OmarOthman]

This should be marked as the correct answer, instead of the workaround that was accepted!