From VSCode/VSCodium to Neovim

18. October 2024

I was using VSCode and later VSCodium for some years as my editor for everything. They are awesome tools and are getting the job done. But as you might know, VSCode is built by Microsoft, and has in my opinion some issues, like telemetry, proprietary extensions ecosystem and actually not being FOSS.

I think Microsoft did really a great job here and VSCode is a great tool. They especially started the development of the Language Server Protocol, that I use now also in Neovim.
But in the long term, I feel that a real FOSS editor with an open extension/plugin ecosystem, is the right choice.

Finding an alternative

It is not easy to find something similar to VSCode.
This are my minimal requirements, in ascending order by importance

Here some editors I tried to replace it

All without success. They are all great editors, but I simply had the feeling, that it was time to really try Vim.

It all started with a big bang Vim

So I chose Vim as my new text editor. I could immediately feel the advantage of sticking to the keyboard as much as possible. Everything is a few keystrokes away and is really fun.

After getting used to vim basics and motions, I wanted to give Neovim a try.
But lets check if my requirements fit Neovim.

FOSS, for real
Neovim is Apache 2.0, and is based on Vim, with it's own Vim License
Fast opening and editing
Opens instantly, even for big files
Language Server Protocol support
Full LSP support
Spell checker (since I make errors, a lot)
The simple command :set spell does the magic, already built-in!
No telemetry
Or maybe there is??

Getting the latest version on Debian

My current OS of choice is Debian 12 bookworm. Debian bookworm, at the time of writing, has Neovim version 0.7.2. You can check the current version in Debian stable here.
This version is not compatible with latest package managers and plugins. Most of them work with 0.9.5 upwards.
So I needed to get the latest Neovim from elsewhere...

AppImage

First I tried Neovim's official AppImage, you can find on Github. It was a good first start and an easy way to try the latest version on Debian.

Building from source

But after seeing ThePrimeagen building Neovim from source on YouTube, I also wanted to do that, to have a proper .deb package and drop the AppImage.

It was actually my first time, that I built a program from source and installed in on my machine. That makes it a lot easier to contribute back to a project! But well, for now I'm happy with my home built Neovim deb file.

Here a quick guide on how to build it by yourself.

Requirements

# first, install build deps
apt install -y ninja-build gettext cmake unzip curl build-essential

# clone neovim's repo
git clone https://github.com/neovim/neovim
cd neovim

Build and install

# check out stable tag, or specific version you prefer
git checkout stable
# build neovim
make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cd build && cpack -G DEB

# install it, as root
dpkg -i nvim-linux64.deb

Update

# switch back to master
git checkout master
git pull
git fetch --all
# check out stable tag, or specific version you prefer
git checkout stable

After getting the updates, you can build and install again.

Package manager(s)

There are so many package managers and Neovim distributions, that it can be overwhelming. I think everybody needs to explore this jungle on it's own, get hands dirty and find what fits the most.

Many recommend starting from kickstart, and maybe I also should have done that too. After days of restarting from scratch, trying this and trying that, I sticked with vim-plug for now.

Plugins

After thinking that Neovim has tons of package managers, I haven't yet seen the huge number of plugins. Multiple plugins that solve the same issue, just maybe written in Lua or with fancy icons. Many times there is no right or wrong, old or new. My recommendation is listen to your gut, and don't overthink it.

I saw many videos and articles on the web, where users had at least 50 plugins installed. There are even benchmarks the opening of Neovim in milliseconds where 40ms is the usual "fast enough" value. Since I'm still in my early Neovim days, I have around 20 plugins installed. But surely more are coming, and my first benchmark waits behind the corner.

But there is also the thing, that plugins might break during updates etc... I haven't encountered that yet, but I guess, less plugins is better in that sense.

Configure with init.lua

You can adapt Neovim as you prefer with all the plugins available. Or even write some own scripts in Lua.

But first you need a init.lua file.

mdir -p .config/nvim
touch .config/nvim/init.lua

Now you can watch hours of videos and read articles and books about vim. The grind will never stop, unless you finally admit that you are wasting to much time in configuring your editor. At some point you simply have to accept that it's good enough.

You can find my current Neovim configuration file on Codeberg or Github.

Look Ma, no mouse

Now that I'm keyboard addicted, I also started using shortcuts whenever I can.

I use sway, as my tiling window manager on Debian. With a few keystrokes you can switch workspaces, open terminals and align windows at the speed of typing. And everything is a configuration file, like in Neovim. So the next time you re-install your OS, you just need to get the file and get back where you left off. If something breaks or you don't like some changes, simply git revert everything.

I also started to use Firefox shortcuts, like open a new tab with ctrl+t, close it with ctrl+w or cycle trough tabs with ctrl+pgup and ctrl+pgdn. Then there is F6 to focus the address bar or ctrl+shift+p for private browsing.
I even tried Vimium, a Vim Firefox extension to get vim navigation. But there I drew the line and went back to endless scrolling, with the mouse...

As you can see, Neovim is not just an editor, it is a life style.

Every feedback is welcome

Feel free to write me an email at info@simondalvai.org and comment on Mastodon or HackerNews.

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