a very minimal .vimrc

.vimrc

set nocompatible                " use vim settings instead of vi settings
filetype plugin indent on       " enable file type detection and do language-dependent indenting
syntax on                       " switch syntax highlighting oe it is there
set backspace=indent,eol,start  " sane backspace behavior
set smarttab                    " tab and backspace are smart
set number                      " line numbers
set autoindent                  " use indentation of previous line
set showmatch                   " show matching braces
set tabstop=4                   " tab width is 4 spaces
set shiftwidth=4                " indent also with 4 spaces
set expandtab                   " expand tabs to spaces
set ignorecase                  " case insensitive search
set smartcase                   " case-sensitive search if query contains caps
set hlsearch                    " highlight search results
set incsearch                   " search as you type
set wildmenu                    " menu has tab completion
set wildmode=longest:full,full  " comfortable menu tab settings
set hidden                      " automatically hide buffers with unsaved changes
set laststatus=2                " always show a status line
set ruler                       " show the line number on the status line
silent! colorscheme elflord     " use elflord colorscheme if you have it

Q) When I paste text from outside vim, autoindent makes it paste funky

A) You need to enable paste mode. You can bind something to toggle it or just manually adjust:

toggle
set pastetoggle=<Ins> " toggle paste mode

manual
:set paste
:set nopaste