Hi 0xf10e,

Thanks for the comments. You are right about the "standard" Vim on Linux. I had forgotten. Recently when I set up a new Raspberry Pi (Raspbian) I found the issue you mention and had to install several extra vim-related components to get what I wanted.

I have actually put full-blown Vim on my server, then if I want gVim, I have transferred the screen back to my workstation over X. I use 

ssh -x user@server

to login, then when I type 'gvim file' the window appears on my desktop. I may have had to do other configuration that I have forgotten about to make this happen, probably something with 'xhost'.
