Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 7653
vim 5.4: improper use of X-windows
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:37:53 EDT
vim version 5.4 (the non X-windows version) for Red Hat 6.1 cannot be used remotely without proper x-windows display permission set--eventhough it is being run in a terminal. When run, this error message is displayed: X connection to xxx.yyy.edu:10.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown). I have to explicitly specify the X-windows display computer and allow the remote computer to accept X connections. This behaviour was not present in an earlier version of vim nor in the traditional vi command.
Get the 5.5 version from rawhide.
vim version 5.5 (19 Sep 1999) also has the same problem.
Using vim version 5.5 (1999 Sep 19): If the environmental variable $DISPLAY is defined, then vim (running through /bin/vi) will try to access X-windows on the computer specified in the $DISPLAY variable. If this variable is undefined, for example in bash: export DISPLAY="" or in csh: setenv DISPLAY "" then the program will run successfully without trying to access an X-windows connection. Since /bin/vi does not need X-windows to run, it should not be using the $DISPLAY variable. This causes problems when the $DISPLAY variable is set to a location which cannot be opened, or when the remote computer is not running X-windows.
This appears to be fixed in vim-5.6-4 in Raw Hide. Please reopen this bug if this is not the case. Thanks!