Appendix D. vi and Vim: Source Code and Building
On the off chance that you don’t already have vi or Vim installed on your
system, this appendix describes where to get source code for both editors,
and prebuilt installable binaries for most popular operating systems.
Nothing Like the Original
For many, many years, the source code to the original vi was
unavailable without a Unix source code license. Although educational
institutions were able to get licenses at relatively low cost,
commercial licenses were always expensive. This fact prompted the creation
of Vim and many other vi clones.
In January 2002, the source code for V7 and 32V UNIX was made
available under an open source–style license.1 This opened up access to almost all of
the code developed for BSD Unix, including ex and vi.
The original code does not compile “out of the box” on modern
systems, such as GNU/Linux, and porting it is difficult.2 Fortunately, the work has already been done. If you
would like to use the original, “real” vi, you can
download the source code and build it yourself. See
https://github.com/n-t-roff/heirloom-ex-vi for more information.
We were able to build the “Heirloom” vi with no problems
on an Ubuntu GNU/Linux system just by following the instructions in the
README file.
Where to Get Vim
Most modern Unix-flavored OSs use Vim as the standard version of
vi.3
That is, when you execute vi, you get Vim.
Many such systems lag slightly behind the most current Vim. For example, as of this publication ...
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