Wensheng

Installing LunarVim with Github Copilot on Ubuntu 22.04 via Putty

 
  • Apr 01, 2023

I spent several hours setting up this combo on my home server, it’s finally working.

My home server is running Ubuntu 22.04, I access it remotely with Putty. I can technically hook up a keyboard/mouse/monitor and install a window manager then just set everything up the desktop way but I was too lazy to do that.

NeoVim

Do not use sudo apt install, it will install an older version of NeoVim. Instead download appimage from github, then unpack it and copy it to /usr/local.

# download nvim.appimage from github
./nvim.appimage --appimage-extract
sudo cp -rp squashfs-root/usr/* /usr/local/

Test with nvim to confirm it is installed.

LunarVim

Just copy the installation command from https://www.lunarvim.org/docs/installation and run it. Answer yes when prompted.

Launch lvim to verify.

Github Copilot

While in lvim dashboard (default with no file), press ‘c’ for configuration file. This will edit ~/.config/lvim/config.lua, add:

lvim.plugins = {
    {
      "github/copilot.vim",
    },
}
vim.g.copilot_no_tab_map = true
vim.g.copilot_assume_mapped = true
vim.g.copilot_tab_fallback = ""
local cmp = require "cmp"
lvim.builtin.cmp.mapping["<Tab>"] = function(fallback)
  if cmp.visible() then
    cmp.select_next_item()
  else
    local copilot_keys = vim.fn["copilot#Accept"]()
    if copilot_keys ~= "" then
      vim.api.nvim_feedkeys(copilot_keys, "i", true)
    else
      fallback()
    end
  end
end

to (near the end of) the file.

Then do a :Copilot setup, this will be un-successful because it will try to connect to Github via browser. But I was connected to the server with ssh and don’t have any browser on my server. See Next step.

Browser

To run a GUI I need to run an X server. I use XMing on Windows. I have to enable X11 forwarding (in Connection-SSH-X11) in Putty. I run xclock to verify it works. Now all I have to do is install a browser on the server.

It should be simple right? Just sudo apt install firefox. However the browser installed this way will not work. For some reason it can not connect to X server locally.

When using apt install, both firefox and Chromium will be installed from Snap, I got so confused and mad I completely deleted snap from my server.

I installed firefox with mozilla ppa (just google non-snap firefox), it successfully run on my windows, but it’s so slow it’s unusable.

I ended up donwload chrome from google (actualy get the link by copy link from downloaded file in Windows Chrome then wget the link). It finally worked fine.

Inside lvim, do :Copilot seteup again, everthing was set up.

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