12.11 Sources and Supported Operating Systems

The official WWW location for vile is http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile/vile.html. The ftp location is ftp://ftp.clark.net/pub/dickey/vile/vile.tar.gz. The file vile.tar.gz is always a symbolic link to the current version.

vile is written in ANSI C. It builds and runs on UNIX, VMS (with both VAX C and DEC C), MS-DOS, Win32 console and Win32 GUI, and OS/2.

Compiling vile is straightforward. Retrieve the distribution via ftp or from the web page. Uncompress and untar it, run the configure program, and then run make:

$ gzip -d < vile.tar.gz | tar -xvpf -
...
$ cd vile-8.0; ./configure
...
$ make
...

vile should configure and build with no problems. Use make install to install it.

NOTE: If you intend to use a Linux console and want syntax coloring to work, you may wish to run configure with the following option: --with-screen=ncurses.

Should you need to report a bug or problem in vile, send email to the address [email protected]. This is the preferred way to report bugs. If necessary, you can contact Tom Dickey directly at [email protected].