Update 2014-08-21: The vim packages in Arch Linux have been reorganized:
https://www.archlinux.org/news/reorganization-of-vim-packages/.
The standard vim package should now contain Python support, so the
recompile is not necessary anymore.
For my vim configuration, I need a
version of Vim that was built with Python and Ruby support. Unfortunately, the
default version of Vim that is installed with pacman doesn’t support
Python/Ruby.
The easiest way to solve this problem is to install the gvim package instead
of vim (don’t worry, the gvim package also includes a vim binary). But
this brings along a huge amount of dependencies that I didn’t want on my
system, so there’s no way around a package recompilation.
To ease the reconfiguration-process I found pacbuilder, a script to easily
recompile single packages or even the whole system. Install it using yaourt (or
manually if you prefer):
$ yaourt -S pacbuilder-svn
Then rebuild the vim and vim-runtime packages with the –edit option:
$ pacbuilder --install --edit vim vim-runtime
When the script asks you whether you want to edit the PKGBUILD file, answer
with y. Then find the first line that looks like this:
./configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var/lib/vim --with-features=big --with-compiledby=ArchLinux --enable-gpm --enable-acl --with-x=no --disable-gui --enable-multibyte --enable-cscope --disable-netbeans --enable-perlinterp --disable-pythoninterp --disable-python3interp --disable-rubyinterp --disable-luainterp
Edit the configure options to your likings. In my case, I changed the following
things:
- –disable-pythoninterp ⇒ –enable-pythoninterp
- –disable-python3interp ⇒ –enable-python3interp
- –disable-rubyinterp ⇒ –enable-rubyinterp
- –with-compiledby=ArchLinux ⇒ –with-compiledby=”Custom Build (http://s.dbrgn.ch/uqK6)”
Also add python, python2 and ruby to the depends list inside the
package_vim() function. Then save and close the PKGBUILD file.
Pacbuilder will now go on to compile and install your custom build of Vim. You
can verify it with vim --version on the commandline.
Afterwards, if you want to prevent pacman from auto-upgrading your vim
package, you can add vim and vim-runtime to the IgnorePkg variable in
/etc/pacman.conf.