Comment 10 for bug 62980

Nicolò, the arrow keys aren't mapped because compatibility mode acts exactly like the original vi, down to bugs if I recall correctly.

For this bug, I can understand the desire to have vi start vim. However, if someone wants to start vim, they need to run vim. One wouldn't use the command emacs and expect xemacs to start by default, would they?

IbeeX, a power user will not know how to fix this, because it is not easy to fix. It breaks the -v option to vim as well as breaking the vi command. The only way to fix it right now means setting compatible in vimrc, which then prevents them from running vim in nocompatible mode without changing the vimrc.

Finally, this isn't a bug - all documentation for vim states that vi and vim -v start vim in compatibility mode and read vimrc.tiny. What you are requesting is a change in the behaviour of vim, which, according to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/CommonTasks, should go to the appropriate mailing list instead of being discussed on launchpad. But do note that I have discussed this ubuntu-devel before, and was told by several people that vi should start vim in compatibility mode (I wanted vi to start vim at the time). Perhaps with more people, you will have more success.