'abort: no repository found' when trying to install Vim through Mercurial

Question

I'm new to Linux (which I'm setting up to start teaching myself web development). I am installing Vim, and in order to do so installed Mercurial.

hg clone https://vim.googlecode.com/hg vim seemed to work fine, but when I try to update to the newest version using hg pull and hg update I get this after hg pull:

abort: no repository found in '/home/steven' (.hg not found)!

Am I doing something wrong?

Some details on my setup: Dual boot computer with Windows on one SSD harddrive and Linux on a separate optical drive. Ubuntu 12.04

Answer 1

If you are facing this issue abort: no repository found in '/home/username/path/to/project' (.hg not found)!

then probably .hg is missing in that repository. Run this command in terminal

hg init

once it is done use rest of the command normally to push your code in the repository.

Answer 2

(I've posted the same answer on the same question over at SO)

1. You don't need Linux to learn Web dev: Windows and Mac OS X are equally fine.

2. You don't need to install Vim from the sources (and thus Mercurial) because it's already on your machine:

   1. summon the "Dash"

   2. type ter

   3. open Terminal

   4. type vim at the prompt and press <Enter>

   This CLI version of Vim is probably a "tiny" build which is going to lack a few useful features.

   A much proper Vim with a GUI frontend and more features is available through Ubuntu's package management system. To install it, you only need to launch Ubuntu Software Center, search for "gvim" and install it. This should be enough.

   If you need more control on the installation, you can install a second package manager called Synaptic which is less sexy than Software Center but a lot more detailed. In Synaptic, search for "vim-gnome" and/or "vim-nox".

3. To answer your question: the cloning created a "vim" directory in your "home": /home/steven/vim or ~/vim (~ being a shortcut for /home/steven). This "vim" directory is a self contained Mercurial repository and that's where you are supposed to issue any further Mercurial-related commands:

   $ hg clone https://vim.googlecode.com/hg vim
   $ cd vim <-- "change directory"
   $ hg something
   

   But you don't have to do that: the sources you get after the cloning are up to date and ready to be built.

Good luck and welcome on Linux (and SO).