[thristian]

The remote features require a version of Vim with GUI features compiled in, but you don't have to run vim in GUI mode to use them. The only difference is that when started in console mode, Vim won't register itself as a server unless it's explicitly told to use a particular server name:

    vim --servername FOO

If you start vim in another tab with the same servername, you can open files in the first Vim, no problem:

    vim --servername FOO --remote-tab ~/.bashrc

[JoshTriplett]

> The remote features require a version of Vim with GUI features compiled in, but you don't have to run vim in GUI mode to use them.

You do have to have an X server available though; the client/server communication occurs via X.