I've tried putting (setq term-setup-hook 'vip-mode) in my .emacs file but this only seems to load the vip module and I have to manually call vip-change-mode-to-vi and C-z doesn't work as an alias for that method.
What am I doing wrong here?
p.s. Please spare me any religious sentiments.
You answered your own question, really: you need to call vip-change-mode-to-vi. EMACS is just a lisp interpreter with some glossy side-effects; if you want to always be in vip vi mode, call the function.
A couple things:
You should use add-hook. What you're using will remove any other hooks.
(add-hook 'term-setup-hook ...)
Consider using a lambda expression to stick things together, as
(add-hook 'term-setup-hook '(lambda () (vip-mode)))
That means you have one closure that you can put all this stuff into
I was able to get emacs started in vip-mode by doing what I found here. If you scroll to the bottom, there's a link to a .emacs file, and I copied the first three commands from there:
(setq term-setup-hook 'vip-mode)
(global-unset-key "\e\e")
(put 'eval-expression 'disabled nil)
I also saw an entry elsewhere from someone who just added to their .emacs:
(vip-mode)
I tried that, but the first time I started emacs with it, it prompted me with an "inhibit vip-mode something", to which I responded n, and after that, subsequent startups wouldn't use vip-mode.