> Possibly. Although, I think you might have "compatibility" set to on. > This forces compatibility with standard vi functionality. "set > nocompat" should turn this off and allow you to do syntax hilighting. > > The other thing you should check for is whether or not you're really > running vim or not. ;-) Debian uses a symlink-spagetti jungle to > specify default editors, such as 'vi', which can be served by elvis, > tiny-vi, vim, nvt, etc... Follow all symlinks to their source binary > or simply run the --version or appropriate command line option to find > out what you're running. ;-) [chrome at localhost:/home/httpd/html/twig/features/mail]$vi --version VIM - Vi IMproved 5.6 (2000 Jan 16, compiled Mar 7 2000 12:18:07) Included patches: 1-3, 5-6, 10-11 Compiled by root at porky.devel.redhat.com, with (+) or without (-): -autocmd -browse +builtin_terms -byte_offset -cindent -cmdline_compl -cmdline_info -comments -cryptv -cscope -dialog -digraphs -emacs_tags -eval -ex_extra -extra_search -farsi -file_in_path -osfiletype -find_in_path +fork() -GUI -hangul_input -insert_expand -langmap -linebreak -lispindent -menu -mksession -modify_fname -mouse -mouse_dec -mouse_gpm -mouse_netterm -mouse_xterm -multi_byte -perl -quickfix -python -rightleft -scrollbind -smartindent -sniff -statusline -syntax -tag_binary -tag_old_static -tag_any_white -tcl +terminfo -textobjects -title -user_commands -visualextra -viminfo -wildignore -wildmenu +writebackup -X11 -xfontset -xim -xterm_clipboard -xterm_save system vimrc file: "/usr/share/vim/vim56/macros/vimrc" user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc" user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc" fall-back for $VIM: "/usr/share/vim" Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -O2 -m486 -fno-strength-reduce -Wall Linking: gcc -o vim -ltermcap thanks for the advice. ok, as I read this information, it has syntax turned off ( -syntax). but why in the heck would they do that? argh. the really annoying thing is that even if I recompile vim so that I have syntax highlighting, and install it on my machine; other machines might not (likely won't?) have it. ;( Carl Soderstrom -- Network Engineer Real-Time Enterprises (952) 943-8700 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: tclug-list-unsubscribe at mn-linux.org For additional commands, e-mail: tclug-list-help at mn-linux.org