Linux – Languages in vim editor

I feel your pain. I have all my ~/.*rc files under version control (Subversion), has worked great since I started in 1998, using CVS. One way to do it, is to check out all your rc files like this when you stand in your home directory:

svn co svn+ssh://user@host/path/to/repo/trunk/home/user .
A    .signature
A    .vimrc
A    .bashrc
A    .screenrc
A    .psqlrc
[...]
Checked out revision 7645.

This way the config files will also be synced and updated across the various computers when you run svn update.

You may be using a different clone or a cut down version of vim. Ubuntu by default uses vim-tiny if I remember correctly. You can find out which one is being used by checking the link "/etc/alternatives/vi"**. If it points to /usr/bin/vim.tiny you have a very minimal vim installed. If it points to some other file you can use "dpkg -S filename" to figure out where it came from.

To install a different "clone" use apt-get or another package management tool. I suspect that vim-gnome or vim-full may more to your liking. If one or both of the above are already installed but you have the link

** Many utilities and programs like mail, vi, java, awk, etc. are linked through /etc/alternitives/. For example on my system /usr/bin/cc is a link to /etc/alternatives/cc which is a link to /usr/bin/gcc. This allows a common set of tool names to be used with different packages that provide the same functionality.

I hope this helps