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Lazyvim or kickstart in Neovim? You should try both and I’ll show you how

I go over the pros and cons of installing either a neovim distribution or kickstart, and I'll show you how to set them up both.

Posted Updated
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By Christian Arzu
14 min read

Contents

YouTube video

Disclaimer

  • I use macOS, so keep that in mind

Introduction

  • After installing neovim, you’ll be wondering what to do next, if to whether build your setup from scratch using kickstart.nvim, use a neovim distribution like lazyvim.org or use my personal setup neobean
  • My personal advise is, use the lazyvim.org distro, but run the kickstart.nvim setup in parallel and go over it when you have some free time, and learn everything that you need to learn about neovim
  • So in this guide, I will now show you how to download, install and use the following 3 setups and use them in the same machine
  • I already have everything setup on this machine, so in the video you’ll see that I’ll go through the whole process by remotely managing other computer and starting from scratch
  • So you can copy all the commands
  • So you can also find all the links I share

If you like this, and want to support me

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Pros and cons of each

Using a distribution

  • You will have basically everything setup for you, it already comes with a lot of defaults and is really easy to get started if you know nothing about the Lua programming language, or the neovim configuration
  • The downside is that since you’re not familiar with anything in the neovim world, executing a simple change, will take you a long time and will be a bit difficult
    • By googling you’ll be able to figure things out, eventually
  • All of the different settings in a distribution will feel overwhelming, but start small, I started just editing markdown files
  • If some plugins are removed from the default install and made optional, you may see some “breaking” changes, which you can fix by reading the news section

Using kickstart.nvim

  • You will understand the ins and outs of neovim, kickstart even takes you through the process of trying out the :Tutor which goes over the very basics, like how to navigate in neovim, how to edit text, and all you need to know related to neovim commands
  • Kickstart also includes some useful links in case you want to get started with the Lua programming language (Brazil mentioned)
  • The downside of this, is that it will take you longer to achieve the configuration you want

Before you continue

Installation options

Which one do I choose?

  • In this guide you will have 3 options:
    • CHOOSE ONLY 1
  • The first 2 options make reference to my dotfiles, so you can get all the different neovim setup options from a single place

We will install the dependencies later, so you can see which ones are needed

Option 1: Download my neovim dir

Why should I download the dir?

  • This is the preferred method if you already have your dotfiles and just want to grab my neovim dir
  • You will need a github account for this, if you don’t have one, set it up

Remember that you only have to follow 1 of the 3 install methods

Download from github

  • First let’s create the directory where all the new files will live
    • If instead you already have your own dotfiles dir, you know what you’re doing so download it there
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# This is where the downloaded neovim files will live
#
# If you have your dotfiles in a different directory, specify that below instead
# of "github/linkarzu-dots"
my_working_directory="$HOME/github/linkarzu-dots"

# This creates the dir and switches to it
mkdir -p $my_working_directory
cd $my_working_directory

# This is where the different neovim configs will live, so create this dir
mkdir -p ~/.config
  • Do the following in Google Chrome
    • I tried safari and the download does not work
  • Sign in to your github account
  • Go to my dotfiles-latest repo
    • Star it 😉
  • Once there, press . (dot)
    • Or instead you can switch the github.com to github.dev on the top to go to the
  • Right click on the neovim directory and download it to the github/linkarzu-dots directory we created above
    • If instead you already have your own dotfiles dir, you know what you’re doing so download it there

Update .zshrc file

  • First open the file
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# I'm using vim to edit the file here, but use whichever text editor you want
# If the file already exists, its timestamp will be updated, but the existing
# content won't be affected by the 'touch' command below
touch ~/.zshrc
vim ~/.zshrc
  • Then add this to the bottom of the file
    • If you changed $my_working_directory above, update it here as well
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###############################################################################
#                     Set the same variable here again
###############################################################################
my_working_directory="$HOME/github/linkarzu-dots"

# Symlinks section:
# These below are symbolic links (shortcuts) that point to the files we
# downloaded to $my_working_directory
#
# You can keep adding more distributions here if you want
ln -snf $my_working_directory/neovim/neobean ~/.config/neobean >/dev/null 2>&1
ln -snf $my_working_directory/neovim/kickstart.nvim ~/.config/kickstart.nvim >/dev/null 2>&1
ln -snf $my_working_directory/neovim/lazyvim ~/.config/lazyvim >/dev/null 2>&1
# Notice I also have the "nvim" directory below and I have it pointing to my
# "neobean" config.
# If I don't do this, my daily note with hyper+t+r won't work
# If you want to open the daily note with a different distro, update the "nvim"
# symlink, for example you can change it from "neobean" to "lazyvim"
# If you don't understand what hyper+t+r means go and watch my markdown workflow video
# https://youtu.be/c0cuvzK1SDo
ln -snf $my_working_directory/neovim/neobean/ ~/.config/nvim >/dev/null 2>&1

# You can use NVIM_APPNAME=nvim-NAME to maintain multiple configurations.
#
# NVIM_APPNAME is the name of the directory inside ~/.config
# For example, you can install the kickstart configuration
# in ~/.config/nvim-kickstart, the NVIM_APPNAME would be "nvim-kickstart"
#
# In my case, the neovim directories inside ~/.config/ are symlinks that point
# to their respective neovim directories stored in my $my_working_directory
#
# Notice that both "v" and "nvim" start "neobean"
# "vk" opens kickstart and "vl" opens lazyvim
alias v='export NVIM_APPNAME="neobean" && /opt/homebrew/bin/nvim'
alias vk='export NVIM_APPNAME="kickstart.nvim" && /opt/homebrew/bin/nvim'
alias vl='export NVIM_APPNAME="lazyvim" && /opt/homebrew/bin/nvim'
# I'm also leaving this "nvim" alias, which points to the "nvim" APPNAME, but
# that APPNAME in fact points to my "neobean" config in the symlinks section
# If I don't do this, my daily note doesn't work
#
# If you want to open the daily note with a different distro, update the "nvim"
# symlink in the symlinks section
#
# If you don't understand what I mean by "daily note" go and watch my markdown workflow video
# https://youtu.be/c0cuvzK1SDo
alias nvim='export NVIM_APPNAME="nvim" && /opt/homebrew/bin/nvim'
  • Save the changes with :wq and then apply them with
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source ~/.zshrc

Open kickstart to test

  • You can now open either of the 3 neovim versions we installed with v, vk or vl
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# For testing, I'll open the init.lua file using kickstart
# If you changed $my_working_directory above, make sure you specify the correct directory
vk ~/github/linkarzu-dots/neovim/kickstart.nvim/init.lua
  • To confirm you’re running kickstart run :checkhealth and should see:
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kickstart: require("kickstart.health").check()

Option 2: Clone my dotfiles-latest repo

Why should I clone?

Remember that you only have to follow 1 of the 3 install methods

  • This method is going to clone all my dotfiles, this includes my configuration for:
    • alacritty
    • kitty
    • bashrc
    • zshrc
    • vimrc
    • tmux
    • yabai
    • karabiner-elements
    • sketchybar
    • hammerspoon
    • neovim

This means that if you had existing configurations for the tools listed above, a backup will be created, and their configuration will be replaced with the configuration in my dotfiles

  • If you don’t even have those tools installed or don’t know what they are, don’t worry, you should expect no issues
  • If some day you decide to install those tools, they will be pointing to my configuration files, therefore using my configs
  • If you want to learn more of what happens in the background and also learn more about dotfiles, watch this video

How to clone

  • This will download my repo in GitHub and save it in your local machine
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# If the github dir already exists, no issues, you can still run the command
mkdir -p ~/github
cd ~/github/
git clone https://github.com/linkarzu/dotfiles-latest.git
  • This will backup your existing ~/.zshrc file and point to my downloaded config
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# Create a backup of your existing ~/.zshrc file
# If the original ~/.zshrc file does not exist, nothing will happen
#
# If you want to restore your configuration to your old zshrc file, just delete
# mine and rename the backup one to '.zshrc'
cp ~/.zshrc ~/.zshrc_backup_$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S) >/dev/null 2>&1

# Create the symlink to point .zshrc to the file in my dotfiles-latest repo
ln -snf ~/github/dotfiles-latest/zshrc/zshrc-file.sh ~/.zshrc

source ~/.zshrc
  • Every time you open your terminal, my configuration, by default will pull the latest changes from my repository
  • If you don’t want that to happen, make sure you edit the ~/.zshrc file
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vim ~/.zshrc
  • And comment the 3 lines inside the:
    • DISABLE AUTO-PULL SECTION

Test with kickstart

  • You can now open either of the 3 neovim versions we installed with v, vk or vl
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# For testing, I'll open the init.lua file using kickstart
# If you changed $my_working_directory above, make sure you specify the correct directory
vk ~/github/dotfiles-latest/neovim/kickstart.nvim/init.lua
  • To confirm you’re running kickstart run :checkhealth and should see:
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kickstart: require("kickstart.health").check()

Option 3: Manually go to each repo and download it

  • Here you don’t use my dotfiles at all, but instead go to the lazyvim.org page, and follow the instructions to install it, and do the same with kickstart

First time setup

LazyVim or neobean

  • The very first time you open either the LazyVim distro or my personal neobean setup, they will probably start installing packages on their own, close neovim and re-open it several times until it has installed everything
  • Then type :Lazy (or <leader>l) and uppercase U to perform any updates
  • Then run the command :checkhealth
    • Go through the list, look for ERRORS
      • We will fix those later on
    • You will see WARNINGS, mainly for languages, if you don’t program in those languages, don’t worry about those warnings
    • In my specif scenario, there will be the error:
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- $TERM: xterm-kitty
- ERROR $TERM should be "screen-256color" or "tmux-256color" in tmux. Colors might look wrong.
  - ADVICE:
    - Set default-terminal in ~/.tmux.conf:
      set-option -g default-terminal "screen-256color"
    - https://github.com/neovim/neovim/blob/master/BUILD.md#building
  • I will ignore this error on purpose, because I have my term set to xterm-kitty for the undercurl to work with spell checking
  • If you want to know more about how I set up spell checking and my entire markdown workflow, check out this video:

kickstart.nvim

  • For kickstart, you need to open the init.lua file and go from there
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# I'll open the init.lua file using kickstart

# Use this if you followed option 1
# Just make sure you specify the correct directory
vk ~/github/linkarzu-dots/neovim/kickstart.nvim/init.lua

# Use this if you followed option 2
vk ~/github/dotfiles-latest/neovim/kickstart.nvim/init.lua

Install Dependencies

  • You usually install these before installing neovim, but I’m doing it afterwards so you can see the dependencies that were missing
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# You can find these in the :checkhealth command
brew install git
brew install ripgrep
brew install fd
brew install wget

# This is optional, gives us an easier way to work with github repositories,
# basically a intuitive UI to push and pull changes
brew install jesseduffield/lazygit/lazygit

# In case you want to install node
brew install node

My complete Neovim markdown setup and workflow in 2024

  • If you like this current article, you will find this quite useful:

How to get your feet wet?

  • Start by taking notes in neovim, I mean editing markdown files
  • This file I’m editing right now for my blog post is markdown
  • If you use Obsidian, try switching the editing of your notes to Neovim
  • I have a video in which I go over my markdown workflow, so I highly recommend you check it out:
  • If you experience any errors or have any issues, let me know down in the comments and me or others can try to help

What do you want to see next?

  • Let me know down in the comments:
    • You want to go over kickstart.nvim?
    • Explain something about my configuration?

Timeline

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0:00 Intro
1:19 - Link to the blogpost in video description
1:29 - If you want to support me, buy me a ko-fi
1:39 - Pros Cons distro
2:42 - Pros Cons kickstart
3:34 - USE BOTH
3:46 - Pre-requisites
4:16 - Which installation option do I chose
4:46 - My dotfiles
5:07 - Option 1, download neovim dir
6:16 - Download using chrome
7:14 - Update zshrc file
9:13 - Test with kickstart
10:26 - Option 2, why clone dotfiles?
11:45 - How to clone the dotfiles
13:30 - Disable auto-pull
14:24 - Option 3, get everything yourself
14:38 - First time setup
17:05 - Run checkhealth
17:51 - Install dependencies
19:04 - Start by editing markdown
19:39 - What do you want to see next

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4:03 - RECOMMENDATION install neovim
4:13 - RECOMMENDATION install kitty
11:35 - RECOMMENDATION dotfiles
15:49 - RECOMMENDATION markdown workflow 2024
neovim
macos tutorial youtube video neovim
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.