On my MacBook I use Github Copilot in vim and wanted to add the plug-in in vim in my L5 too. But,
purism@pureos:~$ apt info vim 2>/dev/null | grep Version
Version: 2:8.2.2434-3+deb11u3
Following the installation guide at GitHub - github/copilot.vim: Neovim plugin for GitHub Copilot the version must be at least 9.0.0185.
Why PureOS is so much behind?
Microsoftās GitHub Copilot is a code thief and should be avoided.
I donāt use it for coding. I write technical documents in English or German and Copilot often proposes good how the sentence will continue and just pressing TAB saves a lot of typing.
Iāve cloned it from git and compiled it with:
sudo apt install libncurses5-dev
sudo apt install libtool-bin/byzantium
git clone https://github.com/vim/vim.git
cd vim/src
make
make test
./vim --version | head -2
VIM - Vi IMproved 9.1 (2024 Jan 02, compiled Apr 9 2025 15:19:33)
Included patches: 1-1288
It seems that a make install would install all below /usr/local/
make -n install | grep /usr | grep -v /usr/local
(nix)
Is it safe to install it or will it disturb the system?
Multiple packages of vim can coexist, managed by /etc/alternatives (vim.tiny vim.basic vim.gtk etc)
A vim installed to /usr/local should be OK provided you are certain everything will go to /usr/local
(In the old days the convention was to set the prefix during
./configure
and the default for many applications was /usr/local anyway.)
They donāt specify a minimum version for neovim, so if your OS has a neovim package you can probably just install that and free up a lot of space in /usr/local/src and other /usr/local/*
This is all driven by the Makfile where it says:
...
# 5. "make install" {{{1
# If the new Vim seems to be working OK you can install it and the
# documentation in the appropriate location. The default is
# "/usr/local". Change "prefix" below to change the location.
...
Where I work, a new person was hired whose lust for progress was sufficiently high that he felt compelled to use GitHub Copilot for progress even when corporate security folks told him to hold of using it until they got approval, or whatever.
At the office, watching the company be taken advantage by Microsoft convincing new recruits they have to send all code to Microsoft even before they hit the job market, in a world where I always took my profession as a software dev seriously and didnāt send internal code that could potentially be considered trade secrets outside the company without permissionā¦ Iām not anti-work enough to really speak up at the office, but here on my online persona, Iāll say it:
Tying someoneās sense of getting work done to a Microsoft server in that way seems altogether evil. As someone who saw GitHub Copilot from a distance, it feels like Satanic trash. Buy an RPI and run llama on it if you want to run Satanic trash, anyway.
Edit:
I know, some folks might say, all code should be open source ergo any notion of trade secrets is some moral failure. But the software here is almost always not in violation of the āany user must also be given access to the codeā concept. But the deal is that we are running the code in the office, to get in office things done, not sending it out to the world not even in binary form.
As a philosophical position, thatās fine but the bottom line is that it is not your decision / not my decision. The intellectual property is that of our respective employers, so itās their decision.
I guess the questions are ā¦ who owns those documents and are they ultimately intended for being made public anyway? If the answer to the first question is ānot youā then itās probably something that you should be discussing with the party who does own the documents.
As a slightly extreme example regarding āitās just a (technical) documentā, if you worked for a German security agency or the defence bureaucracy or a contractor/supplier to either of those ā¦ Iām pretty sure that they wouldnāt want parts of the documentās text randomly being uploaded to Microsoft (or anyone else).
Open source code and free software should and often does come with a license specifying proper attribution must be given, which Copilot doesnāt follow.
Of course there are many other reasons to avoid it and similar āAIā tools, like privacy and environmental concerns.
I am a bit concerned that my rant about how I donāt like copilot brought us off topic.
Returning to OPās original question, in my case, my PureOS is so much behind because I knowingly use the Byzantium behind version, sometimes. Am I correct in understanding OP is also using Byzantium? What if you try Crimson ā were the version numbers there any better?
Maybe that was already addressed and I missed it, but I figured it brings the discussion back on topic.
I do run Byzantium, kernel .83 and all installed apps are uptodate. As the L5 is my daily driver I canāt use other versions.