Most Linux distributions ship a stripped-down Vim — often without +python3, +clipboard, or GUI support, and rarely the newest release. Building Vim yourself fixes all of that: you decide exactly which language interpreters and features get compiled in, and you get whatever version is on Vim’s master branch.

The process is straightforward. This guide walks through it on a Debian-based distro such as Ubuntu.

Note: This post has been updated from its original 2013 version to match how Vim is built today. The source has moved from vim.org’s Mercurial repository to GitHub, the Python 2 interpreter has been swapped for Python 3 and the GTK2 GUI for GTK3, and configure flags that newer Vim removed (such as --enable-sniff and the now-default --enable-multibyte) have been dropped.

Install the prerequisites

sudo apt install git libncurses-dev libgtk-3-dev libatk1.0-dev \
  libcairo2-dev libx11-dev libxpm-dev libxt-dev \
  python3-dev ruby-dev libperl-dev liblua5.4-dev

Remove any existing Vim

sudo apt remove vim vim-runtime gvim vim-tiny vim-common vim-gui-common

Build from source

Get the source code

Vim’s source now lives on GitHub, so clone it directly:

git clone https://github.com/vim/vim.git

Configure

cd vim
./configure \
  --with-features=huge \
  --enable-rubyinterp \
  --enable-python3interp \
  --enable-luainterp \
  --enable-perlinterp \
  --enable-cscope \
  --enable-fontset \
  --enable-gui=gtk3 \
  --prefix=/usr

Note: --prefix=/usr above, together with VIMRUNTIMEDIR in the next step, assumes a Debian-like layout where Vim’s runtime files go in /usr/share/vim/vim91/. The vim91 part tracks the version you cloned (Vim 9.1 → vim91). On a non-Debian distro the paths may differ — in that case drop both --prefix here and VIMRUNTIMEDIR below and let the defaults take over.

Compile and install

make VIMRUNTIMEDIR=/usr/share/vim/vim91
sudo make install

Confirm the features you asked for made it in:

vim --version

Troubleshooting

• gvim won’t start. Rebuild with a different GUI toolkit, e.g. swap --enable-gui=gtk3 for --enable-gui=gtk2.

• Backspace doesn’t work. Add these lines to your .vimrc:

  set nocompatible
  set backspace=indent,eol,start