After upgrading from sarge to Etch, vim encountered a few problems. Namely: Error detected while processing /usr/share/vim/vim70/syntax/syntax.vim: line 42: E216: No such group or event: filetypedetect BufRead Press ENTER or type command to continue

To solve this: vi /etc/vim/vimrc #change: set runtimepath=~/.vim/,~/.vim,/etc/vim,/usr/share/vim/vimfiles,/usr/share/vim/addons,/usr/share/vim/vim63,/usr/share/vim/vimfiles,/usr/share/vim/addons/after,~/.vim/after #to: set runtimepath=~/.vim/,~/.vim,/etc/vim,/usr/share/vim/vimfiles,/usr/share/vim/addons,/usr/share/vim/vim70,/usr/share/vim/vimfiles,/usr/share/vim/addons/after,~/.vim/after

This is because, I chose to leave /etc/vim/vimrc with the old version when upgrading. The files in /usr/share/vim/vim63 changed to /usr/share/vim/vim70.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=378073