When I type vi into terminal, VIM starts up. But when I type vim into terminal, the terminal says The program 'vim' can be found in the following packages: and lists different varieties of vim, as if I don't have vim installed. Is there a reason for this? Is the vi that comes with ubuntu not the same as VIM?
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1 Answer
Well, you do have vim installed, but a minimal version of it called vim-tiny. If you run vim.tiny, you'll find it runs. This version has very few features enabled, and therefore doesn't provide the vim command. The other packages, vim-nox, vim-gnome, vim-gtk, vim-athena, have more features, and provide the vim command.
The vi command itself is actually a symbolic link, and points to whichever preferred version is installed through the Debian alternatives system. By default, since only vim-tiny is installed, the only alternative is vim.tiny, and running vi actually runs vim.tiny. If you install one of the other packages, they will become the preferred alternative for vi.
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