mgua's kickstart.nvim

Introduction

This project is heavily based on TJ DeVries amazing work to promote Neovim adoption and usage. Please see the original project nvim-lua/kickstart.nvim In my neovim journey I recently migrated from vimscript to lua, and I am still in the process of adjusting my setup.

I am working to make this kickstart a standard for my development team, which is easy to deploy on Windows Linux amd MacOSX systems. Kickstart is just a configuration procedure. It requires to have several components installed and prepared. In the following notes I will list the preparation activities to be performed on the different operating systems. A possible alternative approach is to use a neovim distribution, like

• LazyVim: maintained by @folke (the author of lazy.nvim package manager)

Neovim preparation and Installation for Linux

Ubuntu

from root:

• apt update
• apt upgrade
• apt install software-properties-common
• add-apt-repository ppa:neovim-ppa/stable
• apt update
• apt install ripgrep fd-find
• apt install neovim
• (for python development): apt install python3 python3-venv python3-pip
• (for perl development): cpan install Neovim::Ext

Kali

from root:

• apt update
• apt upgrade
• apt install ripgrep fd-find
• cd
• mkdir neovim
• cd neovim
• curl -LO https://github.com/neovim/neovim/releases/latest/download/nvim.appimage
• chmod +x nvim.appimage
• cp nvim.appimage /usr/bin/
• ln -s /usr/bin/nvim.appimage /usr/bin/nvim
• apt install python3 python3-venv python3-pip (for python development)
• cpan install Neovim::Ext (for perl development)

Almalinux

from root:

• yum update
• yum install ripgrep fd-find
• yum install neovim
• yum install python3 python3-venv python3-pip (for python development)
• cpan install Neovim::Ext (for perl development)

Neovim Kickstart Configuration for any linux distribution (in non privileged user context)

• Exit from nvim if open
• cd $HOME/.config
• mv nvim nvim_old
• mkdir nvim
• cd nvim
• git clone https://github.com/mgua/kickstart.nvim.git .

Start nvim now, and you should see the automatic download and updates by lazy

--

Neovim preparation and Installation for windows

Actions to be executed from administrator user:

1. Chocolatey package manager installation (see https://chocolatey.org/)

• run the following from powershell admin
• Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
• close and reopen admin window

2. Winget package manager installation ( see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/ )

• install winget from microsoft store

3. from an administrator console, execute:

• winget install gnuwin32.tar (bsdtar, installed in c:\Windows\WinSxS.. c:\cygwin64\bin...)
• winget install gnuwin32.findutils (grep)
• winget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal (if not from winget, it can be installed from microsoft https://aka.ms/terminal https://github.com/microsoft/terminal#other-install-methods https://github.com/microsoft/terminal (go on releases on right side...))
• choco install less bat gzip ripgrep grep fd fzf far netcat curl wget procexp mingw (choco installs the tools in c:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin these tools are needed for lsp config)
• nerdfonts are a nice to have extension. After font installation, they can be setup in Windows Terminal to be available for neovim interface. Go download nerdfonts https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/releases/download/v2.3.3/Hack.zip uncompress in a temporary folder. then select all the .ttf files and press right-click then install. Open MS terminal, press the top icon on the right of the "+", then choose Profile/Defaults on the left, then Appearance and in font face set Hack Nerd Font
• choco install python (for python development. (I experienced path issues when using python.org install, maybe due to Anaconda being on my system too))
• winget install StrawberryPerl.StrawberryPerl (for perl development)
• cpanm -n Neovim::Ext (or cpan install Neovim::Ext) (for perl development)

Neovim Kickstart Configuration for Windows (in non privileged user context)

• cd %HOMEPATH% (typically c:\Users<your-username>)
• py -m venv venv_nvim (for python development, we create a dedicated environment for nvim)
• .\venv_nvim\Scripts\activate (for python)
• py -m pip install pip --upgrade (for python, upgrade pip)
• py -m pip install neovim (for python, install neovim python package)
• mkdir %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\nvim\ (to avoid some path not found error)
• mkdir %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Temp\nvim\ (to avoid some path not found error from lsp)
• Exit from nvim if open
• cd %HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\
• ren nvim nvim_old
• mkdir nvim
• cd nvim
• git clone https://github.com/mgua/kickstart.nvim.git .

--

Example: Adding an autopairs plugin

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua, add:

-- File: lua/custom/plugins/autopairs.lua

return {
  "windwp/nvim-autopairs",
  config = function()
    require("nvim-autopairs").setup {}
  end,
}

This will automatically install nvim-autopairs and enable it on startup. For more information, see documentation for lazy.nvim.

Example: Adding a file tree plugin

In the file: lua/custom/plugins/filetree.lua, add:

-- Unless you are still migrating, remove the deprecated commands from v1.x
vim.cmd([[ let g:neo_tree_remove_legacy_commands = 1 ]])

return {
  "nvim-neo-tree/neo-tree.nvim",
  version = "*",
  dependencies = {
    "nvim-lua/plenary.nvim",
    "nvim-tree/nvim-web-devicons", -- not strictly required, but recommended
    "MunifTanjim/nui.nvim",
  },
  config = function ()
    require('neo-tree').setup {}
  end,
}

This will install the tree plugin and add the command :Neotree for you. You can explore the documentation at neo-tree.nvim for more information.

Example: Adding a file to change default options

To change default options, you can add a file in the /after/plugin/ folder (see :help load-plugins) to include your own options, keymaps, autogroups, and more. The following is an example defaults.lua file (located at $HOME/.config/nvim/after/plugin/defaults.lua).

vim.opt.relativenumber = true

vim.keymap.set('n', '<leader>sr', require('telescope.builtin').resume, { desc = '[S]earch [R]esume' })

Contribution

Pull-requests are welcome. The goal of this repo is not to create a Neovim configuration framework, but to offer a starting template that shows, by example, available features in Neovim. Some things that will not be included:

• Custom language server configuration (null-ls templates)
• Theming beyond a default colorscheme necessary for LSP highlight groups

Each PR, especially those which increase the line count, should have a description as to why the PR is necessary.

FAQ

• What should I do if I already have a pre-existing neovim configuration?
  • You should back it up, then delete all files associated with it.
  • This includes your existing init.lua and the neovim files in ~/.local which can be deleted with rm -rf ~/.local/share/nvim/
  • You may also want to look at the migration guide for lazy.nvim
• What if I want to "uninstall" this configuration:
  • See lazy.nvim uninstall information
• Are there any cool videos about this plugin?
  • Current iteration of kickstart (coming soon)
  • Here is one about the previous iteration of kickstart: video introduction to Kickstart.nvim.

Windows Installation

Installation may require installing build tools, and updating the run command for telescope-fzf-native

See telescope-fzf-native documentation for more details

This requires:

• Install CMake, and the Microsoft C++ Build Tools on Windows

{'nvim-telescope/telescope-fzf-native.nvim', build = 'cmake -S. -Bbuild -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cmake --build build --config Release && cmake --install build --prefix build' }