My modified version of productive ZSH

The original medium blog is available here: Terminal can be much much more productive. The post is very extensive and is worth reading, but I find it a bit too extensive. That's why I adapted it to my needs through the time.

Install ZSH and set it to be a default shell

Installing ZSH

$ sudo apt install zsh
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  zsh-common
Suggested packages:
  zsh-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  zsh zsh-common
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4794 kB of archives.
After this operation, 18.2 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 zsh-common all 5.8.1-1 [3985 kB]
Get:2 https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 zsh amd64 5.8.1-1 [809 kB]
...

Set it to be a default shell

$ sudo usermod -s /usr/bin/zsh vagrant
$ echo $?
0

Verify it is set correctly

$ getent passwd vagrant
vagrant:x:1000:1000::/home/vagrant:/usr/bin/zsh

Initial setup of ZSH

After the first login follow the setup process offered by ZSH itself.

The resulting .zshrc looks like:

% cat .zshrc
# The following lines were added by compinstall
zstyle :compinstall filename '/home/vagrant/.zshrc'

autoload -Uz compinit
compinit
# End of lines added by compinstall
# Lines configured by zsh-newuser-install
HISTFILE=~/.zsh_histfile
HISTSIZE=100000
SAVEHIST=10000
# End of lines configured by zsh-newuser-install

Install Oh My Zsh

Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration. The GitHub repository of Oh-My-Zsh.

% sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
Cloning Oh My Zsh...
remote: Enumerating objects: 1340, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1340/1340), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1291/1291), done.
remote: Total 1340 (delta 27), reused 1153 (delta 25), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (1340/1340), 1.99 MiB | 734.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (27/27), done.
From https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh
 * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.
Already on 'master'
/home/vagrant
...

Add $HOME/bin PATH env variable

% cat ~/.zshrc
# If you come from bash you might have to change your $PATH.
export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

# Path to your oh-my-zsh installation.
export ZSH="$HOME/.oh-my-zsh"

...

Setting the ZSH theme

I prefer powerlevel10k and will use it in my setup.

% git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
Cloning into '/home/vagrant/.oh-my-zsh/custom/themes/powerlevel10k'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 92, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (92/92), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (76/76), done.
remote: Total 92 (delta 17), reused 65 (delta 12), pack-reused 0
Receiving objects: 100% (92/92), 346.80 KiB | 1.53 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (17/17), done.

Set the required variables in ~/.zshrc

% vim ~/.zshrc

% grep ZSH_THEME ~/.zshrc
# ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"
ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"
# Setting this variable when ZSH_THEME=random will cause zsh to load
# ZSH_THEME_RANDOM_CANDIDATES=( "robbyrussell" "agnoster" )

Log out and log in again to start using Oh My ZSH and the new theme

When logged in again answer a few questions prompted at the start.

My prefer settings are:

The lean style, so to the question about the prompt style I answer with 1
unicode character set
The number of colors 256
The 24h time format
Two line prompt
Disconnected prompt
No prompt frame
Sparse prompt spacing
Few icons
Concise prompt flow
Transient prompt
Verbose prompt mode

If not happy with the current configuration you can always start from scratch or change your ~/.p10k.zsh.

Add required plugins

I use only a few plugins. Some of them are part of Oh My Zsh, some must be additionally installed. If not mentioned anything about plugin, then this is a plugin that is part of Oh My Zsh.

❯ grep -A10 plugin ~/.zshrc                                                                                             ✘ INT 8s 18:44:05
# Which plugins would you like to load?
# Standard plugins can be found in $ZSH/plugins/
# Custom plugins may be added to $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/
# Example format: plugins=(rails git textmate ruby lighthouse)
# Add wisely, as too many plugins slow down shell startup.
plugins=(
  git
  kubectl
  zsh-syntax-highlighting
  zsh-autosuggestions
)

source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh
...

Install the plugin `zsh-syntax-highlighting`

This plugin is installed according its Installation instructions.

❯ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting
Cloning into '/home/vagrant/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 7041, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (128/128), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (71/71), done.
remote: Total 7041 (delta 63), reused 84 (delta 51), pack-reused 6913
Receiving objects: 100% (7041/7041), 1.52 MiB | 2.19 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (4738/4738), done.

Install the plugin `zsh-autosuggestions`

❯ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
Cloning into '/home/vagrant/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 2460, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (75/75), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (52/52), done.
remote: Total 2460 (delta 36), reused 50 (delta 21), pack-reused 2385
Receiving objects: 100% (2460/2460), 571.83 KiB | 984.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1567/1567), done.

Log out and log in to start using new plugins.

TLDR

Warning

This script is tested on Ubuntu 22.04.

If you want to save yourself some time and you don't have urge to know what is going on under the hood, you can run the command below, grab a cup of coffee and when the script is done, reboot the machine and you will be good to go.

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tbosnjak/bootstrap-working-environment/main/bootstrap.sh | sh