VI annoyance

[matt-urrlRJtNKRMsHrnhXWJB8w at public.gmane.org (Matt Shields)]

On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 7:53 AM, Matt Shields <matt-urrlRJtNKRMsHrnhXWJB8w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> I've been using VI for about 5-6 years, previous I was a die-hard pico/nano
> user.  I was forced to switch during my last job where there could be
> multiple people working on the same systems, and possibly wanting to edit
> the same files.  So vi's file locking when one person's editing was the
> reason everyone was forced to use VI.
>
> Anyway, 99% of the systems I manage are RHEL/Fedora/CentOS flavors and I've
> been able to use the arrow keys instead of HJKL, I've also been able to hit
> either i, I, o, O, a or A to go into insert mode (yes, I know how each is
> different) and start typing/editing but also continue to use the arrow keys
> to move around while in edit mode, then continue editing till you finally
> hit ESC or CTRL-c.
>
> But, now I have a bunch of Ubuntu boxes I need to manage and I have this
> weird issue where I can go into insert mode but if I do anything other than
> type characters (like arrow keys, or delete) it stays in insert mode but the
> arrow keys start putting garbage characters and carriage returns into the
> file.  I also used to be able to not only insert, but while I was typing I
> used to be able to delete.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Also, does anyone have any .vimrc goodies?
>
> -matt
>

Just to add further notes.  I looked at the differences between my
RHEL/CentOS/Fedora systems and my Ubuntu systems and tried some of the
settings that were in /etc/vimrc and /etc/vim/vimrc (respectively).  I tried
a few of the differences out on one Ubuntu system and "set nocompatible"
seems to make vi act like I'm used to.  I'm still looking to see if there's
other functionality that I might be missing.

Another note, even though I said VI, I actually mean VIM.  both
RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Ubuntu all symlink vi to vim.

-matt