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Install Neovimλ︎

Neovim releases

Neovim 8 is the minimum version for this configuration and Neovim 0.9.0 is currently being tested.

Follow the install Neovim guide for the specific operating system.

Suppoting Toolsλ︎

Install the following packages to support Neovim

  • ripgrep fast file contents search (used by telescope)
  • find-fd advanced search tool
  • xclip clipboard as a provider tools for Neovim copy/paste
  • luarocks for LSP servers (AstroNvim)
sudo apt install find-fd xclip luarocks

Add set clipboard+=unnamedplus to the Neovim configuration to use the Linux clipboard tool

Wayland requires wl-clipboard

Install the wl-clipboard package to use the Wayland desktop clipboard with Neovim

sudo apt install wl-clipboard

Install Neovimλ︎

Download the AppImage from the Neovim Release page and place the file on the executable path, e.g. $HOME/.local/bin

Make the AppImage executable

chmod u+x nvim.appimage

Run neovim from the AppImage

nvim.appimage

Create a symbolic link called nvim to the nvim.appimage

ln -s $HOME/.local/bin/nvim.appimage $HOME/.local/bin/nvim

Download the Linux AppImage from the Neovim Releases page

Or build Neovim from source and generate a .deb file from the build.

Linux version only packaged as AppImage from Neovim 0.9 onward

Neovim Build Prerequisites for each operating system

Ubuntu/Debian Packages

Install packages to support building Neovim

sudo apt-get install ninja-build gettext cmake unzip curl

Clone the Neovim GitHub repository

git clone --origin neovim https://github.com/neovim/neovim.git
Change into the cloned directory and change to the stable release to build version 0.9.0

git checkout stable

Build a release

make CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release                                                                                                              ─╯

Once the nvim release has been built, create a debian package for use with Ubuntu and Debian systems

cpack -G DEB

Post Install checksλ︎

Ensure supporting tools and binaries are available in the operating system by running the Neovim Heath Check.

nvim in a terminal to run NeoVim and check the installation is working without error.

NeoVim - default startup message

:checkhealth to run a check supporting tools are available to NeoVim.

A report is generated and shown in NeoVim

j / k to scroll through the checkhealth report

Review the warnings and install tooling that is required for languages that will be used.

NeoVim checkhealth report

Ignore Provider Warnings

It is safe to ignore language provider warnings.

Language Providers can be disabled in the Neovim configuration to remove the warnings from :checkhealth report. Examples of disabling language provders are in the practicalli/neovim-config-redux configuration, covered in the Neovim Config install step


Last update: August 14, 2023