Fix 'vi' Arrow Keys

[volobiz]

On may last laptop, an Acer, the up, down, left, right cursor arrow keys worked just fine inside of vi. But now when I use vi in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, on a brand new eMachines E525 laptop, I can't get the arrow keys to work. Instead, they display A, B, C, and D characters.

What's the fix to get this going?

Note that if I hold down the Alt key, the arrow keys seem to work properly.

[Dr_Willis]

the default 'vi' in ubuntu is a vi 'light' version that does not use the keys as you would expect. (actually its the vim-tiny package)

If you install the 'full' vim package - you do get the arrow keys working and other nice features such as color syntax.

Installing the 'vim' package should get you fixed up. There may be some other vim packages you might want as well.

sudo apt-get install vim

[volobiz]

You fixed me. Thanks.

Odd change in Ubuntu distributions. Okay, I'll have to remember that from here on out.

[Dr_Willis]

This was changed a few years back (a few releases back?) - I imagine the main reason was due to the size of the vim packages.

I make a little script that installs vim and about 30 things on every new install i make, so i rarely see the issue. About the only time i encounter this 'issue' (its not really a bug, its how vi works) is on other peoples machines.

[potatochip]

Thanks, that's a great tip