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Learning vi the easy way

Clicking this link will move you to the self-paced vi tutor. Save this file to your local machine. The typical name given to this file is tutor.vi. When you've got the file, start editing it issuing the following command:

vi tutor.vi

Following the directions in the file, you will learn to master the most important vi commands in just half an hour.

The order is important, so start at the top of the file and work your way to the bottom without skipping any parts.

If you should be in one of the rare cases where you really can't find any vi or vim (VI iMproved) program on your system, refer to the vim homepage for downloads. The editor is available on a wide variety of platforms, including M$ Windows.

vIm on Solaris

The latest release of the vim program (version 6.2 as of this writing), compiles without trouble on Solaris 9. Download the source, unpack, read the README file and make yourself at home. See Installing software from source for more info on the compiling business.

Sources are available from vim.sourceforge.net.

If you want syntax colour highlighting support, set your TERM variable:

export TERM=sun-color

Then, after you have started up vim, type

:syntax on

And now you can start doing some real work ;-)

Learning vIm the easy way

Learning the editor is made easy: just type vimtutor on the command line. This presents you with the same file for exercising that is used for vi.