Usage

Application-specific requirements

Vim plugin requirements

The vim plugin requires a vim version with Python support compiled in. You can check if your vim supports Python by running vim --version | grep +python.

If your vim version doesn’t have support for Python, you’ll have to compile it with the --enable-pythoninterp flag (--enable-python3interp if you want Python 3 support instead). Note that this also requires the related Python headers to be installed on your system. Please consult your distribution’s documentation for details on how to compile and install packages.

Vim version 7.4 or newer is recommended for performance reasons, but Powerline is known to work on vim-7.0.112 (some segments may not work though as it was not actually tested).

Terminal emulator requirements

Powerline uses several special glyphs to get the arrow effect and some custom symbols for developers. This requires that you either have a symbol font or a patched font on your system. Your terminal emulator must also support either patched fonts or fontconfig for Powerline to work properly.

You can also enable 24-bit color support if your terminal emulator supports it.

Application/terminal emulator feature support matrix
Name OS Patched font support Fontconfig support 24-bit color support
Gvim Linux i_yes i_no i_yes
iTerm2 OS X i_yes i_no i_no
Konsole Linux i_yes i_yes i_yes
lxterminal Linux i_yes i_yes i_no
MacVim OS X i_yes i_no i_yes
rxvt-unicode Linux i_partial [1] i_no i_no
st Linux i_yes i_yes i_yes [2]
Terminal.app OS X i_yes i_no i_no
libvte-based [3] Linux i_yes i_yes i_yes [4]
xterm Linux i_yes i_no i_partial [5]
[1]Must be compiled with --enable-unicode3 for the patched font to work.
[2]Since version 0.5.
[3]Including XFCE terminal and GNOME terminal.
[4]Since version 0.36.
[5]Uses nearest color from 8-bit palette.