The Vim Tutorial - Part One - Basic Commands

Finally, I learnt how to exit Vim, and I have my computer back, thank you so much!

[@marcelocortez3312]

Same happened to me hours ago...

[@marcelocortez3312]

Same happened to me hours ago...

[@mikejohnstonbob935]

amateur... just unplug the computer noob

[@9zQx86LT]

lol

[@AbhishekBM]

@@knightsofni0 But still relevant

[@hexagonist23]

Can't believe I had to watch a tutorial about how to use a text editor

[@HisVirusness]

If you're going to use the best text editor, you need to know how to properly exit it. Notepad has a simple X, because it is simple.

[@OndrejPopp]

Now who forced you into this? It was your free choice to watch this and so now you did and now.... your life will never be the same 😃

[@mgord9518]

With great power comes a great learning curve

[@Sk8erMorris]

@@OndrejPopp you program in Text Editors rather than IDEs? I'm new to Text Editor and still in Uni so im not sure if this a common choice?

[@OndrejPopp]

@@Sk8erMorris Personally I find IDEs a bit restrictive so although I have used them for a bit I just use a text editor and a desktop instead. However, that is not really vim. I have written my own editor years ago with the X library, also called motif, the editor being inspired on the standard text editor that came originally with the Apolllo workstations. See here, kzbin.info/www/bejne/aV7UY5-CjNeKY5I This was a great editor with rectangular copy and paste and mouse driven cursor placement so you could start typing in the editor window wherever you wanted. It did automatic whitespace insertion, spaces and newlines as needed, to get to any cursor position in the editor window. But... after HP acquired Apollo they dropped this editor and replaced it with one of their own which they called vue if I remember correctly, and that one was crippled compared to the original editor. The movie in the link above is already from the time after Hp acquired Apollo. 👨‍💻 So, then I wrote my own which I have been using ever since on my linux desktop 🖥️. However, just recently I have put together a Raspberry Pi 4B with a 7 inch touchscreen, just to have a little linux desktop away from my main computer, ok ok.. to be able to do some programming while lying in my 🛏️, and actually the only editor useful enough to be of any use on a 7 inch touchscreen, which turned out to be really small, so IDEs are not useful either because of the small screen, so the only editor that is useful on a screen like that appears to be vim! Yeah applause👏👏👏 So now I have learnt how to use vim as well, more than I ever thought 💭 I would. But the small touchscreen is still not very ergonomic so I am thinking about a portable 15 inch monitor to take with me to 🛏️... I have also the Hp Prime calculator on which I also program a lot holding it in my hand lying in my 🛏️ thinking about stuff... So that works great and so I am thinking how to do the same with a linux desktop, but I have not figured that out completely yet.. So for the meantime I have moved to my big computer again outside my 🛏️ which is still more ergonomic. I was getting sore elbows lying on my 🛏️ staring into a 7 inch screen... 😃

[@techenglish5584]

20:01 A little improvement here: instead small letter 'p' you can use capital 'P' (shift P) if you want to put the copied text on that line where you at (line 17th). Small letter 'p' is for "add copied line" and capital 'P' is for "insert copied line".

[@AdamTheGuitarist]

Finaly. After years stuck in the vi hell, I can finally close it :D

[@malluk4127]

Man great tutorial. You have put in a whole lot of work in these videos, the background colors, the layout of the screen, keystroke display on the screen...just awesome dude. I am recommending your tutorial to others who have tutorials of their own. Very well done.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Mallu!

[@davidrichardson2513]

Thanks Derek. My linux knowledge has got to a point where I wanted to learn how to use vim and your video has helped me enormously. I have written down copious notes which will be typed up for my own benefit later on. Looking forward to watching part 2 and making even more notes. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge in a simple and fun way.

[@torspedia]

Looking forward to this series, as Vim is something I have always wanted to learn.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Toran!

[@mustno3]

Tried quite a few introductions (in text and video form) and then came back here. The simplest and most straight to the point intro to vim IMO.

[@morpheusthewicked9090]

The best VIM tutorial out there.

[@StefanSchindewolf]

This video brought me to DT`s channel. VIM is just great and that anybody would make a video about in late 2018 was unimaginable for me 20 years ago when I learned it. Thank you, DT!

[@maxsiem8572]

Thanks a lot, DT. I’ve been busy learning to use Vim the last few weeks. So far, so good.

[@robertwelch2111]

Thanks for this; great tutorial. I sent a link to it to my daughter, who has landed a college internship that requires python programming. One observation: CTRL+[ will also take you out of insert mode, and it doesn't require your fingers to leave the home keys.

[@verushannaidoo9450]

I'm shocked that I've been using VIM for so long and did not know this! 😆 Thank you so much!

[@PontiacCZ]

Thanks to 4:52 I finally know why basic movement keys in Vim are h, j, k ,l. Thank you for the photo of the old terminal! :-)

[@timothyleffel3186]

dude is extremely good at making instructional vids - nice

[@brainscott]

Best Vim lesson ever

[@Yalchin403]

Seems like I found one more fav channel on Utube) Nice explanation and also visualization. Thanks for your time and effort. Appreciate it!

[@spqa2004]

This is so much better than reading a book. While i prefer books/paper/reading for quick references, learning is much easier when i can see it in action rather than trying to interpret someone's wordy description of all these commands.

[@araujopsy]

I'm just starting to migrate to vim (in fact, I'm using nvim) and found this video amazing. Vim has been surprising to me, light, fast, customizable and with many features.

[@grimfistgaming7694]

Howly cow, I am using Linux for years now, forever struggled with vi, but never knew there is a vimtutor app :D :D :D Thanks a lot, this will save me countless headaches

[@DistroTube]

30 minutes with vimtutor and you should know vim well enough to most basic editing.

[@IrizarryBrandon]

Wtf man, that's definitely the first thing you should've done.

[@jagardina]

I learned VI back in the 1980s when I cut my teeth as a Unix SA. I've tried learning Emacs but lacked motivation. The true strength is in using ed commands. Thanks for this video. Good job.

[@LinkLegend0]

thanks dude, it was either vim or installing a bunch of other stuff to add a hashtag to a config on a remote system

[@sunilmehrotra1380]

Thank you so much for such a helpful video. Also, you are blessed with such a clear voice . Content is really helpful

[@jasperzanjani]

I totally did not know about `vimtutor` or vim adventures! good lookin out

[@charliekim2939]

I am young at 70+ but feel old when nobody talks about (and praises) nedit. It is an old motif editor, largely ignored by most younger generations. Block copy (or cut) and paste is one of the most essential features of an editor, and nedit (or, xnedit if xorg fonts look too ancient) does it better than most, if not all, other editors. Although nedit (binary) may be found in major pkg repositories, xnedit is still build-it-yourself program. However, once one gets a hang of it (in a few days?) nedit or xnedit, both under 2 MB size, he/she will find what a really good text editor is like.

[@m.jamilrahman4971]

Great tutorial, i'm glad buying a 65% keyboard, the ESC button is the left side number 1 key

[@miguel0n338]

Thank you, thank you, and THANK YOU! Like so many other programmers, I've struggled with Vim. I love working in the shell, but always preferred nano. Then I had to use a machine that didn't have nano, and decided to learn Ed. I would take ANYTHING over Vim! But then I had to boot into Windows, and of course programs like Git Bash use it, so there was no way around it. But tonight, I wrote (and then edited, and even debugged) a simple C program using Vim. I'm far from an expert - I haven't even figured out cut and paste yet - but I'm actually liking it better than Ed. Only with an amazing tutorial like yours would I ever dream of saying such a thing. :D

[@akirubamiru6700]

Very clear explanation you saved my life Derek, thank you.

[@StefanBacic]

8:05 I just love that "text" file

[@habituallearner7680]

Thanks! I've been away from Linux and vim for a few years. This is a perfect refresher!

[@sirrealistically]

If you want to turn the line numbers on just press escape to go in normal mode and type :set nu then press enter

[@arkadianriver]

Well done! I like your tone. No judgement

[@testuser8977]

I am just learning about Vim and am finding it interesting. I had a colleague who used a mechanical keyboard and set key combinations for specific Vim commands. I may want to follow his footsteps.

[@Bryan7119]

Thank you for this video! You have influenced me to use/learn vim. I look forward to part2.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Bryan!

[@LinuxLuddite]

I have tried my hands on vim without any prior knowledge. I was like 'it's just a text editor, How hard it could it be'. Not knowing anything about it makes it look complicated. After watching this , I think Vim is what missing from my life.

[@rhyswells8725]

that voice, smooth like butter, damn

[@primalpenguin]

Funny you upload this today, I was just looking into VIM and learning about it :D

[@DistroTube]

Funny how that works out sometimes.

[@Randomizer92mx]

Same for me. I forgot how it works and was looking for a tutorial.

[@user-rw9qm1on4b]

Same thing. Thanks for the video!

[@DenisovichDev]

I'm finally getting used to vim, thanks man!

[@TheSchwartzable]

You have a perfect narrator voice, great tutorial! Now I'm trying to use vim commands to edit my youtube comments as I'm writing them xD

[@distroverse]

Vimtutor also have different language versions, just type 'vimtutor ', so e.g 'vimtutor pl' for Polish. Btw you can disable that text below ('--INSERT--' etc) powerline bar with 'set noshowmode'.

[@DistroTube]

Good tip on the language for vimtutor! And yes, you can easily disable the mode showing below the powerline. I have that line commented in my vimrc right now so that it's more obvious when I change modes. The colors of my powerline need to be tweaked a bit to make it more obvious what mode I'm in.

[@distroverse]

@@DistroTube I use the same color for all modes in my lightline theme (simpler statusbar than airline and vim-powerline is deprecated) and it isn't really a problem for me, I just know when I'm in which mode, but I guess that's personal thing :P.

[@kas1987kas]

Very nice tutorial. ZQ - quit without saving [p - past above current line

[@jsceo]

definitely worth learning vim

[@thomasrichards8055]

11:52 It might have been mentioned already by someone, but by default Ctrl-[ can also be used to exit insert mode.

[@mswai5020]

Awesome tutorial thank you! Shell is pimped, lowered suspension and bass bins.

[@migue7490]

Around 4 years using Linux, now full time user of arch, but I never felt comfortable using vim. Teach me dt :)

[@andrewpalm2103]

Derek, I think you hit a great balance in this tutorial. Even though vim is not my primary editor (Go Geany!), I still use it for quick editing of small system files. Also, learning vim keybindings means that one can use programs like Ranger (my primary file manager) that use those keybindings. But it can be tough being "GUI/Vim bilingual." I can't tell you the number of times I've opened a text file with a GUI editor and then promptly put a row of j's in the first line trying to scroll down. :-)

[@DistroTube]

Geany is great too. I use it alot too.

[@aliyoussef97]

So informative, thanks.

[@eoussama]

GG to start over from the first-second of the video.

[@skaruts]

I always just keep thinking IJKL would make so much more sense to me... Anyway, a good way to practice it is to move the cursor in CW and CCW circle patterns.

[@kamilkhursandov9989]

thank you for video and vim-adventures game ! :) I'm novice in vim and it is good start for me learn vim, thank you

[@RazgrizDuTTA]

12:28 I write "ii" everyday :') when I implementing tensor equations for my PhD (Thanks for the amazing tutorial!)

[@Ralph_Schumacher]

You made a good job of it!

[@csefthomas]

Great vid, thank you. I am a programmer I just started to learn vim a few days ago and all I can say is I am in love with it. Also it is very hard to learn which is a cool challenge.

[@CreativeJE]

oh man you are awesome i was wondering why they used hjkl i thought there wouldnt be any arrow keys those days so i was right

[@kokleongchan]

To change to the end of the line, you may use C (upper case c) also. 🤔👌🏻

[@TheApeMachine]

Thanks for the tutorial. Quick answer, the slight delay you are experiencing is probably mostly due to the powerline stuff, as writing text to the console can be slow, and writing fancy text is even slower ;)

[@sanjivgautam9063]

Thank you Hank.

[@archlinuxkatze1050]

Very nice video, also looking forward to the following parts. Best wishes and greetings from Germany! You're a very awesome guy

[@DistroTube]

Thanks!

[@anselm2906]

Really looking forward to this series, thumbs up!

[@DistroTube]

Much appreciated, Anselm!

[@dustinmorse8497]

Excellent tutorial. Looking forward to the series!

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Dustin!

[@guilherme5094]

Exactly what I needed, thank you DT.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Félix.

[@vladislavoliinyk4112]

Thank you so much for tutorial. Very clear and great lesson.

[@kaitsurugi3280]

Wow! This was a great vim tutorial! It's very clear and ready to follow. Thanks Distro Tube!

[@michaelhoefler5118]

I like skiing

[@junaidahmed9704]

vim is super awesome

[@AnzanHoshinRoshi]

Thank you, Derek. I'll give Vim yet another try. SAved for reference.

[@VulcanOnWheels]

2:24 I play VIM Adventures already. I'm at level 8. 9:20 I don't see it in mine. 10:51 I did not notice any delay. 15:36 I say as long as we understand what you mean, and I do. I'm sorry you didn't include the P command to paste on the line where the cursor is.

[@davidgomez79]

Great video DT

[@DistroTube]

Glad you enjoyed it, David.

[@jordanh9520]

And here I am always using ii as my iteration value in nested for loops

[@tanvirhossainfahim1788]

Thank you so much. It's helping me a lot.

[@ianpan0102]

[ Emacs User Alert! ] The biggest problem with Vim keybindings that I could think of is that it really gets deep in your brain, and you'll not be able to effectively edit text on other software or platform without constantly reminding yourself NOT to use 'hjkl' to navigate or press 'i' and 'ESC' to hop in and out of Insert Mode. While with Emacs bindings all the navigating shortcuts are prefixed with Ctrl or Meta (Alt) and can be ported to different platforms once you get used to it!

[@anangelsdiaries]

Vim is so dope

[@richey3474]

Just wanted to let you know that I subscribed ..... and even more important: I use arch.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Richey. :D

[@hyuseinyashar9137]

awesome voice awesome tutorial awesome everything, thank you, you helped me so much!!!! ❤️

[@rexhent2206]

DT: Vim is the default text editor and will be installed on any distro. Arch: I don't think so!

[@hexa3389]

It's not even installed in most debian based distros.

[@rexhent2206]

User Name in the struggle for minimalism we lose literally everything we actually use from the base packages

[@ulrichsamosii6058]

New to Linux thanks for this series

[@Jonathan-dm3pt]

Very good video DT, I enjoyed it - happy to see VIM getting some airtime! You might be just the person to demystify VIM. I think your calm and reassuring demeanour can certainly reduce some of the (unnecessary) scariness often associated with VIM! Key-bindings do take time to learn, especially to the level where they feel natural; daily use is key to making them second nature (as with most things). Looking forward to the next part. Your terminal is very easy on the eye, what terminal is it? and do you have your profile shared anywhere? it sure as hell looks a lot nicer than my own.

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Jon. The terminal I use is urxvt. The color scheme I use (if I'm not mistaken) is "dark ocean" although I might have modified it a bit. I will do a quick push to my GitLab page if you want my .Xresources file, which will include my urxvt settings and the color scheme I use. gitlab.com/dwt1/dotfiles

[@Jonathan-dm3pt]

@@DistroTube Brill, cheers !!

[@DaCosmoz]

Nice tutorial, I'm a bit disappointed because there is not part 2 yet.

[@DistroTube]

I've been thinking about doing part 2....this week maybe? Stay tuned!

[@parthokr]

Happy 100k subs 🎉

[@kl8786]

Hands down the best vi tutorial I've ever seen. Thanks dude!

[@mf-11111]

Where are you work? (It means for example, at Microsoft or MercadoLibre, Amazon, etc). You like really professional man. Thanks You for de Video! That´s Excellent-GREAT!

[@ioannistzavaras6873]

Thank you so much!

[@OrcsBR]

be sure to marry someone that looks to you with the same glee in the eye that derek has when talking about VIM

[@zondaken]

I don't get what the use of the "change command" is when you have the insert mode.

[@uuu12343]

“What’s the best text editor? Vim of course ........... Let’s get started “ Comedic timing Background laugh track ensues

[@stephenjames5745]

Great video as always!

[@DistroTube]

Thanks, Stephen.

[@Nnma-fw7cu]

I really want captions in more youtube videos. But great video, helped me to improve myself

[@andres2290]

** Seeing 23 min tutorial for BASIC COMMANDS. ** Me (screaming): WHY DID I NOT CHOOSE NANO!!!!

[@ClarenceCM3]

Great Tutorial! I leaned alot!

[@TON-vz3pe]

Great Job.. Thanks a lot.

[@MarkusBurrer]

hjkl never makes sense to me, and even if it would makes sense I can't use it because I don't use QWERTY or similar layout. But most important: I have arrow keys, backspace, delete, pgup/down and so on and even enter, ESC and Tab under my left hand on a layer. Why the hell should I use hjkl?

[@jeis93]

What is the program you're using to show your keystrokes within the screencast? Great tutorial, btw; Keep up the great work!

[@DistroTube]

I'm using screenkey to show the keystrokes. It's a common program that should be in most distro's repos.

[@manee427]

amazing video

[@sebaszwarc6028]

I always use arrow keys in VIM, it's simply more convenient

[@filipmadunicky6009]

Thank you bro, it was helpful tutorial :)

[@castelllan]

I just started to learn a bit of vim and this is a great video for it. I kinda like vim but some things just borders me. I mean, r for replace, ok, that makes sense. dd for deleting a line, bit strange but also totaly fine. ce for change a word, ok fair enough. But c$ for changing a line? That's just a bit odd to me. I mean, vim is very powerful and it is kinda cool just to know a bit of the basic stuff. But some commands are just a bit unintuitive to me.

[@user-en3kg1un1b]

Thank you sir. You helped me.

[@RameenFallschirmjager]

For last million years age every time I was in vim I thought my computer is crushing because I would do nothing! Now I know what!

[@i28v50]

If you want to disable arrow keys so you can practice the hjkl keys without your habits kicking in, you can add the following lines to your .vimrc: nnoremap nnoremap nnoremap nnoremap inoremap inoremap inoremap inoremap

[@someonehere4380]

hmmm idk if i wanna go through the pain

[@horatiopugwash9183]

I sometimes run vim inside emacs for laughs 😜

[@johnc3403]

Nooo, there's no way there's a delay of 1 sec when you come out of 'insert' mode @10:50 . Even SSH'ing into my raspberry pi and running Vim on that, switching from 'insert' mode to 'normal' mode is instant. I checked it just now a couple of times. All the same, nice video Derek. Thanks...

[@DistroTube]

It's not a delay really, at least in typing--it is instant. It's really just a delay on the status line display, at it takes it a second to switch "Insert" to "Normal". I should have been a little clearer with that.