Install guide · Ubuntu 24.04 (noble)printed 27 Oct 2026, 07:25 UTC

Install Neovim 0.12 on Ubuntu 24.04

Ubuntu 24.04 ships Neovim 0.9.5. The current release is 0.12.6. freshdeb builds it for noble from upstream's release with Debian's packaging, so it replaces the distribution's package in place and updates with apt upgrade like the rest of the system.

Ubuntu 24.04 ships: 0.9.50.9.5-6ubuntu2
main: 0.12.6follows every upstream release, minors and majors included. Currently 0.12.6.
Built for: amd64 and arm64, natively

1Trust the signing key (once per machine)

sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://deb.freshdeb.com/freshdeb-archive-keyring.gpg \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/freshdeb-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null

Fingerprint 3BBD F03A 9C0B F890 F8CA 9510 7595 CC55 468F 3161. How to verify.

2Add the source for noble

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/freshdeb-neovim.sources >/dev/null <<EOF
Types: deb
URIs: https://deb.freshdeb.com/neovim
Suites: noble
Components: main
Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/freshdeb-archive-keyring.gpg
EOF

3Install

sudo apt update && sudo apt install neovim
apt policy neovim   # expect 0.12.6-1+freshdeb~ubuntu24.04

Already on Ubuntu 24.04's Neovim? The same command upgrades it: the freshdeb version sorts higher. What's different from Debian's package.

Upgrading from Neovim 0.9.5

What changed between Ubuntu 24.04's 0.9.5 and 0.12.6 that you may notice. Configuration and data stay where Debian put them.

Since 0.10: A new default color scheme (:colorscheme vim brings back the old one), and termguicolors is on when the terminal supports 24-bit color.
Since 0.11: Diagnostics no longer show as virtual text by default (vim.diagnostic.config({ virtual_text = true }) turns it back on), and new default LSP mappings start with gr (grn, grr, gri, gra), next to gO.
Since 0.12: <C-R> in Insert mode inserts a register literally, like a paste. <C-R>=@x gives the old behaviour.
Also: Your configuration in ~/.config/nvim carries over. Upstream's news lists every change.

Going back to 0.9.5

Delete /etc/apt/sources.list.d/freshdeb-neovim.sources, run sudo apt update, then sudo apt install neovim=0.9.5-6ubuntu2: apt asks before it downgrades. Name the other neovim packages you installed with their Ubuntu 24.04 version too.

Why a package

Upstream's AppImage and tarball are the same bundled build, but they don't update with apt and don't put nvim in /usr/bin. This package does both, and keeps Debian's split into neovim and neovim-runtime.

Neovim elsewhere

neovim: every release line, its contents and origin