[SOLVED] vimdiff is not available as 'vim'

vimdiff is not available as 'vim'

On Ubuntu 18.04, git mergetool --tool-help results in:

'git mergetool --tool=<tool>' may be set to one of the following:
        araxis

The following tools are valid, but not currently available:
    bc
    bc3
    codecompare
    deltawalker
    diffmerge
    diffuse
    ecmerge
    emerge
    examdiff
    kdiff3
    meld
    opendiff
    p4merge
    tkdiff
    tortoisemerge
    vimdiff
    vimdiff2
    vimdiff3
    winmerge
    xxdiff

I would like to use vimdiff with mergetool but after googling I can't get it listed as 'available'.

Solution

Actually, it turns out the answer is that vim is not shipped with Ubuntu 18.04 and other versions, even though I've been using vim.tiny for months via the vi command, which is in the PATH on installation.

Installing vim via apt install vim will also install vimdiff, among other utilities. Now the mergetool can be configured to vimdiff.