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Learning Vim from the insideOpen Ended Class Creator: pbr Status: Established |
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Lesson 3: Assignment 1This assignment is optional.This class is about learning and exploring the source code... but we're SO CLOSE to being able to compile Vim now, that this assignment is here for those who wish to do that. Here are the steps for compiling: ./configure make It's that simple. If you have the proper compiler tools installed, you'll see make taking all the various steps to compile a local version of Vim for you. Remember; if you run 'vim' from the command line, you'll still be running the one in your PATH. You need to run ./src/vim to run the executable you just compiled. For me, "version 7.2.329" compiled and ran without a hitch. However a number of students have had to take extra steps. If your ./configure step fails you might have to pull in ncurses: sudo aptitude install libncurses5-dev or sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev # needed for me on ubuntu 9.10 For a minimal Debian 5 lenny install you might try: sudo aptitude install libncurses-dev build-essential One student also recommends: sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev # only if you have space & time Less Simple but better:Feedback from students prompts me to introduce these alternative build steps. the '-j' option to make parallelizes the build; your mileage may vary. make distclean
./configure -prefix=$HOME --enable-gui=auto \
--enable-cscope --enable-pythoninterp --enable-fontset
make -j2
make install
This last step should install Vim in your home directory so long as you've given the configure step the proper prefix. If you'd like you can do a 'make test' before the 'make install'. For me, the output of 'make test' left my terminal emulator in an odd state, so I've omitted it from the above. Lastly, if you configure with prefix=$HOME then 'make install' will place executables in your 'bin' directory; ensure $HOME/bin is in your path FIRST if you want to use YOUR version of vim instead of the system version. Going Ballistic...So it turns out there's a whole branch of computer science dedicated to compiling vim. (kidding). If you'd like to experiment with variations, here's an awesome resource with details on building Vim: http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compunix.htm He even has instructions for Windows users: http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/compile.htm (that said, we won't be diving into Windows in this course) HOMEWORK: Again please do NOT submit homework unless something didn't work for you and you need assistance.Homework Submissions15 total
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compiled and running, next lesson ==> No comments. Sign up or log in to comment 
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Just used the ./configure, make method. When I run vim it gives an error, Error detected while processing /home/(me)/.vimrc: line 1: E484: Can't open file /usr/local/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim I checked and that file doesn't exist, so I'm thinking that on my system (Arch) that it's just kept somewhere else as my normal vim gives no problem and syntax highlighting works fine. If I had done make install, I suppose it would have put those files where they were expected to be. Other than that no problems. Comments:
This is part of what led me to refine this lesson with the Less Simple but better approach above. So please give that one a try and see if things don't work better for you. The additional -prefix=$HOME param means that 'make install' will only write files into your home directory; there should be no need to 'sudo' for it to work, and also, after that, the resultant vim executable shouldn't catch the error you mentioned. ...I think. Hope this helps! -pbr 
I went with the first option. Got some errors after running ./configure. Installed ncurses, sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev, compiled it again. It worked, compiled version successfully runs. Although I get this little error: Error detected while processing ~/.vimrc: line 14: E484: Can't open file /usr/local/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim Press ENTER or type command to continue Platform is ubuntu9.10 > sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev > ./configure > make > ./src/vim Error detected while processing ~/.vimrc: line 14: E484: Can't open file /usr/local/share/vim/syntax/syntax.vim Press ENTER or type command to continue Comments:
That might be related to not having run a 'make install' step yet. I'm guessing you have a custom .vimrc? I encourage other students with ideas about what might be behind this to post them. In the meanwhile I'll investigate as well. 
I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.2. I have XCode installed (you have to if you want to compile ANYTHING). I've also got macports installed too, but I don't think that played a role in my successful compilation. This didn't work: ./configure make This did: ./configure --disable-darwin make Comments:
Outstanding. Thanks for the feedback; I'm sure other Mac users will appreciate it. Does that give you a working 'gvim' / 'vim -g'? It took me a good while to figure out what it would take to make that work on Ubuntu; you might have a similarly high curb to jump for the mac.
So although I've been able to compile vim since day one of this course, I've not been able to successfully compile gvim, or run 'vim -g'. It took me a while to unravel why. Below are the steps I had to take on Ubuntu 9.10. Without the various libraries I needed from the build-dep package, even when I used --enable-gui=whatever it didn't take. But, as usual with Linux, a little persistence paid off. Hope this helps if you're experiencing similar difficulties! sudo apt-get build-dep cd src; ./configure -prefix=$HOME --with-features=huge \ --enable-gui=gtk2 --enable-cscope --enable-pythoninterp \ --enable-fontset make make install No comments. Sign up or log in to comment 
Again, running a minimal setup of Debian 5.0 Lenny. I had to first install some packages: Comments:
Hey that build-essential target is great to know about. Thanks for mentioning it! 
needed a few extra libs sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev # needed for me on ubuntu 9.10 sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev # only if you have space & time No comments. Sign up or log in to comment 
needed to install libncurses5-dev to complete ./configure Comments:
This didn't happen to me. What distro are you running?
Ubuntu Karmic
Odd... I'm running 9.10 myself. Had no problem w/ ./configure - what errors were you seeing?
Maybe you compiled something that uses ncurses before, and had already installed libncurses? checking for tgetent in -lcurses... no
no terminal library found
checking for tgetent()... configure: error: NOT FOUND!
You need to install a terminal library; for example ncurses.
Oh, and thanks for whipping up this course. It's a great idea.
Heh... you're right. I have a few custom terminal emulators installed (tilda and yakuake) and I'll bet I pulled it in when I compiled one of those. You're welcome; glad you're enjoying the course. You might also want to say thanks to kday for launching CrunchCourse via the 'contact' link on the top bar of the page.
Yah, will do.
I needed to install ncurses-dev as well, ubuntu 9.10, nearly fresh VM sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev 
Configuring and compiling went without a hitch. I did do a few things different though, and enabled GUI, cscope and python interpreter. ./configure --enable-gui=auto --enable-cscope --enable-pythoninterp --enable-fontset make -j2 make test Comments:
OUTSTANDING! I was hoping for some feedback on this step. I'll update the assignment to include your configure line as an option the student might consider.
could you comment or link to info on the options you enabled (cscope, pythoninterp, fontset) and why you like them? seems pythoninterp is for python extensions cscope is for searching/browsing source (see http://cscope.sourceforge.net/cscope_vim_tutorial.html) not sure about fontset 
might say make -j4 for systems with 2 cpus. The rule of thumb seems to be -j(2 x #cores) where hyper threads also count as "cores" No comments. Sign up or log in to comment |
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