Vim 8.0 Released! How to install it in Ubuntu 16.04

Vim (Vi Improved) text editor has reached the 8.0 release, the first major Vim release in ten years. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04 via PPA.

Vim 8.0 brings some interesting new features, many small improvements and lots of bug fixes. Here are some of them:

• Asynchronous I/O support, channels, JSON
• Jobs
• Timers
• Partials, Lambdas and Closures
• Packages
• New style testing
• Viminfo merged by timestamp
• GTK+ 3 support
• MS-Windows DirectX support

How to install Vim 8.0 in Ubuntu:

For Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 18/17, and their derivatives, Vim 8.0 has been made into this backport PPA

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonathonf/vim

Type in your password when it prompts and hit Enter.

2. To upgrade from a previous release, launch Software Updater and you’re able to upgrade it after checking for updates.

To install or upgrade Vim from command line, run command:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install vim

To check out Vim version, run command vim –version.

Uninstall Vim 8.0:

To uninstall Vim 8.0 and downgrade it to the stock version in Ubuntu repository, run the command below to purge the PPA:

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/vim