* A.J.Mechelynck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [060605 03:04]:
> cga2000 wrote:
> [...]
> >.. as I suspected. Some of the stuff I've read about v7.0 on this list
> >rather made my mouth water.. but as a comparatively new user of debian
> >upgrading vim is something I'm not prepared to do just now..
> >Thanks,
> >
> >cga
> >
> >
> >
>
> Well, here I am a "comparatively new" user of SuSE Linux, and I found it
> remarkably easy to compile
> Vim 7 on it. If you decide you want to try your hand at it, subscribe to the
> vim-dev list and ask
> advice there, I'll answer if no one else jumps in before me. Also, some day I
> should write a HowTo
> page for Vim on Unix, similar to the one I already have for Vim on Windows,
> and post it on my "Vim"
> site http://users.skynet.be/antoine.mechelynck/vim/
>
>
>
> Best regards,
> Tony.
Compiling is not hard, but there are already Debian packages with Vim
7.0, so you can simply install them (they may not be quite as up-to-date
as the svn repo, but they should be very close ATM).
I will assume that you, as a relatively new Debian user, are running
stable (sarge). The vim 7.0 packages are in unstable, and were compiled
against a libc6 which is in testing, which complicates things just a
bit.
There are two ways to attack this problem. The first is to download the
.deb files manually (from a web browser), and then install them with
dpkg. The second is to adjust your /etc/apt/sources.list to include
testing and unstable, then just use aptitude to do the work for you.
First, the dpkg way:
1. Download the .deb file for vim (or vim-gtk, vim-perl, or whichever
variant you want).
a. Browse to http://package.debian.org/vim (or vim-gtk...). This
will show the versions available in oldstable, stable, testing,
and unstable.
b. Click on unstable, which will take you to the page for that
version of vim.
c. Halfway down the page it says "Download vim" and has a table
with the different architectures. Click on your architecture
(perhaps i386 or amd64?).
d. This will bring you to a page with a list of mirrors. Click on
the mirror of your choice to download the .deb file.
2. Repeat step 1 for vim-common, vim-runtime, libc6, and libncurses5,
downloading all of the .deb files into the same directory. You can
use the version in testing for libc6 and libncurses5, I believe.
3. Type "dpkg -i" followed by the filenames of all of the downloaded
.deb files (all on one line). If I have not made any mistakes in
manually following dependencies, this will give you Vim 7.0. ;-)
If you occasionally want newer versions of some packages, but want to
keep most packages from stable, you can add testing and unstable to your
sources.list file, but identify stable as your preferred distribution:
1. Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf (this file may not yet exist). Add the
following line:
APT::Default-Release "stable";
It is important to use stable rather than sarge, due to how apt
identifies which release a package is from. Also note the
semicolon at the end.
2. Edit /etc/apt/preferences (this file probably will not yet exist).
Add the following three lines (if there are already other entries, I
think you need a blank line between this group of three lines and
any other group of lines):
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 700
The purpose of this entry in preferences is to make sure that if you
select a package from testing, it doesn't try to automatically
upgrade it to unstable the next time you run aptitude.
3. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Add the following lines, substituting
your favorite mirror for ftp.debian.org:
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.debian.org/security etch/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib non-free
You can omit contrib and non-free if you wish. If you want to use
apt or aptitude to download source, duplicate each line, replacing
deb with deb-src.
4. Now run apt-get update or aptitude update or just run aptitude and
type u for update. It will download a whole bunch of new Packages
files.
5. Run aptitude (if you are not already there!) and navigate to vim
normally. Press enter to see the package info for vim (or vim-gtk,
etc.). At the bottom will be a list of available versions; select
the version you want (1:7.0-017+5) and press + to select it for
upgrade/install. The rest is normal aptitude usage.
If selecting vim for upgrade results in some broken dependencies, you
may have to manually select some other packages for upgrade to fix the
dependencies.
If you are going to add testing and unstable to your sources.list, I
highly recommend upgrading aptitude to the version in testing. This
version of aptitude has some very nice enhancements that are well worth
it. Not least of these enhancements is a dependency problem resolver
that makes it much easier to upgrade packages with dependency issues due
to mixed stable/testing/unstable systems.
If you do upgrade aptitude, be sure to run "aptitude update" afterwards,
otherwise it will think that all of your packages are from untrusted
sources.
If my instructions get you into hot water, let me know (on list or by
private mail) and I will try to help you out.
...Marvin
