From AdminWiki

VI Improved is a common derivate of the default editor on Unix-like systems. Usually, $EDITOR is also set to vi or vim.

Package Names

vi is everywhere, but vim is not.

• RedHat: vim-enhanced
• Debian: vim

Minimalistic Configuration

A quick configuration which you can use to get basic stuff like syntax coloring, ready made to past into your .vimrc:

set nocompatible
syntax on
filetype plugin indent on
set hlsearch
set history=50
set showmode
set showcmd

cabbrev Wq wq
cabbrev W w

colorscheme desert

The desert colorscheme will let you read comments (which are normally dark-blue) also on wrong-configured terminals and looks pretty good elsewhere too.