A Plugin To Make Installing Plugins Easy

Before making any attempt to install a vim plugin, install the pathogen.vim plugin according to the following instructions:

mkdir -p ~/.vim/autoload ~/.vim/bundle
curl -LSso ~/.vim/autoload/pathogen.vim https://tpo.pe/pathogen.vim

Then, add the following to your ~/.vimrc:

execute pathogen#infect()

Now pathogen.vim is installed and set up.

Install Any Plugin

Installing any vim plugin is now as easy as in this example:

cd ~/.vim/bundle
git clone https://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible.git

That is, simply copy the plugin files to the ~/.vim/bundle directory.

Most vim plugins are hosted on GitHub, so they can be installed with the above method with git clone. For installing plugins from other sources, for example, the vim website, simply download the plugin files (unzip if necessary), and copy them to ~/.vim/bundle.