Editors on Fedora 45: nano ships by default, vim does not

Start by measuring what Fedora 45 Workstation actually ships.

Preinstalled: nano and the GNOME text editor

rpm -q gnome-text-editor nano vim-enhanced emacs neovim

gnome-text-editor-51~beta-1.fc45.x86_64
nano-9.2-1.fc45.x86_64
package vim-enhanced is not installed
package emacs is not installed
package neovim is not installed

vim is not preinstalled. That surprises people, because server editions usually include it.

Repository versions

dnf list --available vim-enhanced neovim emacs micro helix

Editor	Package	Version	Character
Vim	vim-enhanced	9.2.1129	classic modal editor, maximum portability
Neovim	neovim	0.12.5	modern fork, livelier plugin ecosystem
GNU Emacs	emacs	31.1	programmable editor with its own ecosystem
micro	micro	2.0.15	works immediately, conventional keybindings
Helix	helix	25.07.1	modern modal editor with built-in LSP
GNOME Text Editor	gnome-text-editor	51~beta	light graphical editor

Neovim, measured after install:

sudo dnf install neovim
nvim --version

NVIM v0.12.5
Build type: RelWithDebInfo

How to choose

Your situation	Pick
editing config files occasionally	nano (installed) or gnome-text-editor (installed)
servers and scripts, consistency everywhere	vim-enhanced
modern plugins and LSP	neovim
LSP and completion out of the box	helix
the Emacs ecosystem	emacs
no interest in modal editing	micro

Tip

To tweak one file under /etc you need to install nothing: nano is already there. Ctrl+O saves, Ctrl+X exits.

Minimal vim configuration

After installing vim-enhanced, ~/.vimrc:

set number
set relativenumber
set tabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab
set ignorecase smartcase
set incsearch hlsearch
set nowrap
syntax on

expandtab converts tabs to spaces, which matters for YAML and Python; smartcase ignores case for all-lowercase searches and matches exactly when a capital appears.

Minimal neovim configuration

Neovim reads ~/.config/nvim/init.lua (or init.vim). A dependency-free start:

vim.opt.number = true
vim.opt.relativenumber = true
vim.opt.tabstop = 4
vim.opt.shiftwidth = 4
vim.opt.expandtab = true
vim.opt.ignorecase = true
vim.opt.smartcase = true
vim.opt.termguicolors = true

Built-ins cover a lot already: :Tutor is an interactive tutorial and :checkhealth diagnoses environment problems.

Note

nvim and vim coexist: the commands are nvim and vim, and their config directories (~/.config/nvim and ~/.vim) do not interfere.

Graphical editor

gnome-text-editor is the default and can be launched from a shell:

gnome-text-editor path/to/file

It has no plugin system — good for config files and short documents. For project work, reach for a code editor or one of the terminal editors above.

Common traps

Symptom	Cause
vim: command not found	not preinstalled on F45; dnf install vim-enhanced
Chinese shows as boxes in vim	terminal font lacks CJK glyphs
indentation turns into tabs	expandtab not set
neovim plugin errors	the plugin needs a newer nvim; dnf upgrade neovim
no Chinese input in the graphical editor	input method not configured, see Chinese input

Related pages

• Terminals and shells — Ptyxis, bash, tmux
• Chinese input — typing Chinese inside editors
• Official: Vim docs · Neovim docs