In the end I found the problem - and this did help, but not as I expected.
It was actually in /etc/profile.d/vim.*. If the uid>100 vi is aliased
to vim (so I get all the nice features) otherwise it's not and I dont.
That's why I sometimes got the nice stuff and sometimes didn't. RH9
did a simple alias.
Now I know, I can just change it. But ... why only alias for uid>100?
Maybe they asumed that anyone using uid<0 knows what they are doing
(so types vim not vi) :)
Thanks all the same.
On 7/11/06, Benji Fisher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Do not have too much faith in RH. Several years ago, they included
an alpha version of vim (6.0z, I think) in their release, and linked it
to /bin/vi (or maybe /usr/bin/vi ). The last time I checked, the system
vimrc file they included was seriously crufty.
Have a look at the system vimrc files on the two systems. (See the
end of the :version message for where these are, or the start of
:scriptnames .) That should explain wuestion (2) from your original
post, and maybe others. It will also give you a chance to decide for
yourself whether I am right about the cruft.
As a first step toward figuring out the highlighting problems, try
:verbose set ft? syntax?
in a file where it works and one where it does not.
HTH --Benji Fisher
On Mon, Jul 10, 2006 at 09:28:59AM +0100, dave--uk wrote:
> I'm not really convinced that is the problem. Nothing really points to it.
>
> 1) Syntax highlighting does work for some files - if it was the build
> it wouldn't work at all.
> 2) Not remembering the file positions sounds like a configuration switch.
> 3) The help files being opened binary, rather than uncompressed on the
> fly, along with the associated message, strongly suggests this is a
> config problem.
> 4) I've used multiple binary builds, from different sources, all
> giving exactly the same issues.
> 5) It seems so unlikely that the official Centos-4 build of vi -
> Centos is basically RHEL - is radically broken. Vi is pretty basic
> stuff. I don't believe RH would ship and not fix a broken vi.
>
> If necessary I can build from source, but it's not my first choice!
>
> On 7/10/06, Yakov Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >On 7/10/06, dave--uk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> I used to use RH9 and was VERY happy with three features of vim (6.1.320)
> >> 1) almost everything was syntax highlighted, including, for example,
> >httpd.conf.
> >> 2) when i edited a file, vim remembered the last position I was at
> >> 3) the help worked
> >>
> >> Having moved to Centos-4 (RHEL) (vim 6.3.046) none of these work any
> >more.
> >>
> >> I do get some syntax highlighting - for example of .cpp files - but
> >> .conf files etc don't get highlighted anymore, and no file positions
> >> are remembered.
> >>
> >> When I try to use help I get something like
> >>
> >> "quickref.txt.gz" [readonly][noeol] 83L, 20610C
> >> E434: Can't find tag pattern
> >>
> >> then quickref.txt.gz is loaded binary.
> >>
> >> I've tried to find the cause myself by comparing the vimrc files etc,
> >> and by searching google, but not found any answers. I even found and
> >> installed v7 (from the rpm at
> >> http://www.karan.org/blog/index.php/2006/05/10/p139) but this gives
> >> exactly the same issues.
> >>
> >> I have the following vim packages installed:
> >> vim-common.i386 2:7.0.000-2.el4.kb installed
> >> vim-enhanced.i386 2:7.0.000-2.el4.kb installed
> >> vim-minimal.i386 2:7.0.000-2.el4.kb installed
> >
> >You binary installation of vim seems to be
> >bad/bogus/broken/befuddled. (may be even bedeviled).
> >
> >I recommend to install vim from sources. This is best. This
> >is also easy. You need gcc installed. Then, (download
> >tgz from http://www.vim.org/download.php#unix,
> >./configure && make && make install), or follow
> >instructions on http://www.vim.org/download.php#unix
> >
> >If you, for some reason, can't build & install from sources, then
> >you can try binary rpms found on rpmfind.net.
> >My guess is that many of rpms of over distros, listed
> >on rpmfind.net, are installable on your distro, because
> >vim generally has little external dependencies. But this is
> >only an option if you can't build & install from sources,
> >see above.
> >
> >Yakov
> >
