Purpose
The default installation of VIM imitates vi, lacking many wonderful features.
Bare minimum
This is the bare minimum I want when using vi. The line numbering and syntax highlighting makes such a huge difference in appearance. The following can be typed in:
:set nu ai ts=2 sw=2 et
:syntax on
The same can be saved in .vimrc, in long form:
syntax on
set number " Line numbers on, always
set autoindent " always set autoindenting on
set tabstop=2 " spaces to use for tabstops
set shiftwidth=2 " spaces to use for autoindent
set expandtab " spaces, not tabs
Install
Download and save the [vimrc](https://github.com/lyndell/vi/blob/baremin/vimrc) file to ~/.vimrc.