A first reading about Vim's command line options should be $man vim.

Vim can be started from the shell in different ways, e.g.:

• $vim The "normal" way, everything is default.
• $ex Start in Ex mode. Go to Normal mode with the ":vi" command.
• $view Start in read-only mode. You will be protected from writing the files.
• $gvim gview The GUI version. Starts a new window.

Also some common options are:

• -u allows to specify a file to use as configuration file other than the .vimrc
• -c allows to specify an ex mode command to be executed after the first file was read.
• -w allows to record in a file every keystrokes issued in Vim.

A first reading about Vim's command line options should be man vim.

Vim can be started from the shell in different ways, e.g.:

• vim The "normal" way, everything is default.
• ex Start in Ex mode. Go to Normal mode with the :vi command.
• view Start in read-only mode. You will be protected from writing the files.
• gvim/gview The GUI version. Starts a new window.

Also some common options are:

• -u allows to specify a file to use as configuration file other than the .vimrc
• -c allows to specify an ex mode command to be executed after the first file was read.
• -w allows to record in a file every keystrokes issued in Vim.

A first reading about Vim's command line options should be $man vim.

Vim can be started from the shell in different ways, e.g.:

• $vim The "normal" way, everything is default.
• $ex Start in Ex mode. Go to Normal mode with the ":vi" command.
• $view Start in read-only mode. You will be protected from writing the files.
• $gvim gview The GUI version. Starts a new window.

Also some common options are:

• -u allows to specify a file to use as configuration file other than the .vimrc
• -c allows to specify an ex mode command to be executed after the first file was read.
• -w allows to record in a file every keystrokes issued in Vim.