First off, the Vim that ships with Ubuntu 14.04 doesn’t support Python 3. Run: vim --version | grep python and you get: -python3 Two ways around it: compile it yourself with the right flags, or just use a ready-made PPA: sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pi-rho/dev sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install vim After installing, don’t forget to run that command again and check whether python3 has turned into a plus sign.