Installing the latest gVim and Vim in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

I recently got a new computer and reinstalled Ubuntu and found out that my old post on how to install the latest gVim in Hardy Heron didn't work anymore. This is what I did to install the latest one. Thanks godlygeek!

sudo apt-get build-dep vim
sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts fakeroot dpkg-dev
apt-get source vim
cd vim-7.1
(cd upstream/patches; python get_patches.py)
dch -v 1:7.1-138+1ubuntu4~$(whoami)1 "Updated with patches through $(ls upstream/patches | grep -v '\.py$' | tail -n 1)"
sed -i -e '/gvimtutor/d' -e "1idebian/tmp/usr/bin/gvimtutor\t\t\t\tusr/bin/" debian/vim-runtime.install.in
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

Having trouble viewing that? See the pastie.

Now, you're supposed to have .deb files in the parent directory. I ran into a problem though in the last line. Here are the last few lines of output after running dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b: http://pastie.org/246789

To fix this, godlygeek asked me to edit vim-7.1/debian/vim-runtime.install.in and remove the line with gvimtutor in it. See my vim-runtime.install.in file.

So I edited it (gedit vim-7.1/debian/vim-runtime.install.in), then ran the last line (

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

in vim-7.1 directory again.

I got the compiled *.deb files in the parent directory!

To install them (note that your files will look different):

sudo dpkg -i vim-full_7.1-138+1ubuntu4~ramon1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i vim-gui-common_7.1-138+1ubuntu4~ramon1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i vim-runtime_7.1-138+1ubuntu4~ramon1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i vim-gnome_7.1-138+1ubuntu4~ramon1_i386.deb

gVim and placing scripts

It seems that everytime I install gVim in Ubuntu the place to put scripts is different. If anyone can shed some light on this please let me know. The last time I installed it, I put the scripts in /usr/share/vim/vimcurrent

Rails.vim breaks in Hardy Heron

Well, Vim breaks when using rails.vim in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Took me a few days to decide to actually try and fix it and not downgrade back down to Gutsy.

This post explains what you can do to fix this error. We'll upgrade to the latest Vim. Because the error is caused by an old version of Vim and rails.vim, you need to update it. You can read about it in this thread. That was my starting point to find the fix.

1) Download and install the latest version of Vim

svn co https://vim.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vim/vim7
cd vim7
./configure --with-features=huge
sudo make
sudo make install

2) Install all the plugins and scripts again
3) If you use haml, when I downloaded the latest version today of the haml syntax script, I had some illegal carriage return errors. I had to open haml.vim then save it via

:w ++ff=unix

Ubuntu and gVim

I've always been a Windows or DOS user ever since childhood. In the past several years I have tried to migrate to Linux.
Here comes in Ruby on Rails... on gVim... on... Ubuntu. It's nice and fast. you feel like you put your computer on steroids. Enough talk. Let me share with you the simple steps I took to install it.

1. Install Ruby on Rails so that gVim may be able to access whatever files are in the RoR install.
2. Go to http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~djm/ubuntu/gutsy/#gvim and follow the installation instructions for gVim.
3. Go back to my earlier post on Vim and you may follow that and paste the custom files in the gVim ~/.vim/ (which is equivalent to the Window's ~/vimfiles/ folder).

Happy geek out!