first attempt a .vimrc in a long time.

.vimrc

" set UTF-8 encoding
set enc=utf-8
set fenc=utf-8
set termencoding=utf-8

" disable vi compatibility (emulation of old bugs)
set nocompatible

" use indentation of previous line
set autoindent

" use intelligent indentation for C
set smartindent

" configure tabwidth and insert spaces instead of tabs
set tabstop=4        " tab width is 4 spaces
set shiftwidth=4     " indent also with 4 spaces
set expandtab        " expand tabs to spaces

" wrap lines at 120 chars. 80 is somewaht antiquated with nowadays displays.
set textwidth=120

" turn syntax highlighting on
set t_Co=256
syntax on

" turn line numbers on
set number

" highlight matching braces
set showmatch