VIM a powerful and flexible text editor

The first version was released in November 1991, for the Amiga platform. A year later came the first version for UNIX. Its author, Bram Moolenar, was inspired by VI editor, very popular among the UNIX followers. Vim inherits the features of VI and adds new ones, being a 99% compatible with its predecessor when it starts in compatible mode.

Its development model under a GPL compatible license and the new built-in features made VIM gain a lot of followers very quickly becoming one of the most popular editors. Currently the most GNU/Linux distributions incorporate it as the text editor by default.

Basic modes

Normal. Using key combinations you can perform actions such as: copy and delete words, groups of words, lines, go to start, at the end of the file, etc. It is the default mode when you start the editor
Insert. Allows you to edit the file on which we are working
Command-line, Cmdline. Allows to execute complex commands such as: searches by key words, searches using regular expressions, read an external file, open an external file, etc.
Visual. Allows you to select a block of text in a simple and flexible way and execute operations such as: delete, copy, change to upper case or to lower case as applicable, space to the right, to the left, etc.
Select. Similar to selection mode implemented by OpenOffice/LibreOffice by typing a printable character delete the selection and starts the insert mode
Ex. Similar to the Cmdline mode, but after running a command mode remains

Change from one mode to another
From / to	Normal	Insert	Cmdline	Visual	Select	Ex
Normal		i, Shift i	:, /, ?, !	v, Shift v, Ctrl v	gh, g Shift h, g Ctrl h	Shift q
Insert	Esc		—	—	—	—
Cmdline	Enter, Esc, Ctrl c	:start		—	—	—
Visual	Esc, v	c, Shift c	:		Ctrl g	—
Select	*	**	—	Ctrl o, Ctrl g		—
Ex	:vi	—	—	—	—

* You can change from Select selection to Normal mode pressing one of the buttons ← → ↑ ↓** You can enter in insert mode holding any printable character

Relevant characteristics

Highlighting of syntax for more than 200 programming languages (Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Bash, etc.)
Integration with a large number of compilers, interpreters and debuggers (GCC, MANX AZTEC C, TEX COMPILER, other)
Autocomplete
Search by key words
Allows to execute operations (searches, substitutions of words) based on regular expressions
Undo and redo
Command completion (similar to bash)
Horizontal, vertical, or multiple windows which allow you to edit various file at the same time
Flexible architecture that allows the integration of additional functionality through scripts developed by contributors
Online documentation and integrated to the editor

Install VIM

Debian/Ubuntu

$ sudo apt install vim

RHEL/CentOS

$ sudo yum install vim-minimal

Fedora

$ sudo dnf install vim-minimal

Alpine Linux

$ sudo apk add vim

Vim also has a user interface (gVim), which may be more friendly for beginners, however veterans administrators prefer use it in text mode

The latest stable version is the 7.4.x Also the binary is available for the following platforms: UNIX, MS-DOS / MS-Windows, Macintosh, Amiga, OS/2, Cygwin, other.