Note that some Linux distros provide their own versions of vimrc that overrides the upstream default settings. Note also that newer Vim versions come with a "de

Note that some Linux distros provide their own versions of vimrc that overrides the upstream default settings. Note also that newer Vim versions come with a "defaults.vim" that you can load if you want, containing arguably sensible inoffensive defaults; if you or your distro loaded that, it might contain hlsearch as well.