When I heard Mac OS has made zsh the default shell, then I began to wonder 🤔 ...there must be something someone isn't telling me. And amma find out today!

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Zsh Setup

The first problem I encountered was deciding what to call it (zssssh or z-shell🤷). After thinking a bit, I was like "fuck it!, let's get down to business".

The Z shell is a Unix shell that can be used as an interactive login shell and as a command interpreter for shell scripting. Zsh is an extended Bourne shell with many improvements, including some features of Bash, ksh, and tcsh.

Installing zsh (Z shell)

I installed zsh with this command:

$ sudo apt-get zsh

Then made zsh the default shell ..with this command on the terminal:

chsh -s $(which zsh)

And after that, you will be prompted to enter your pc password.

password: *****

Now we have zsh installed and it has been made the default shell

You may need to restart your computer for this to take effect.

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zsh configuration

Enter zsh on the terminal and hit enter ↵:

$ zsh

...and you will see this message. Enter 2 to get the default configuration

Now the zsh is up and running. Over to "Oh My Zsh".

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Oh My Zsh setup

Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration. Sounds boring. Let's try again. Oh My Zsh will not make you a 10x developer...but you may feel like one.

Install oh-my-zsh via curl

$ sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

you should see an output similar to this, while it installs:

Oh My Zsh is now installed, and we will use the .zshrc file for customizing the terminal

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Customizing Oh My Zsh

With the .zshrc file you can add plugins and change the theme of your terminal. The .zshrc file is located at the home directory ~/.zshrc

Oh My Zsh Plugins

Open the .zshrc file and find this line:

plugins = (git)

then add web-search to it, like this:

plugins = (git web-search)

save the .zshrc file and return to the terminal.

Now enter exec zsh on the terminal:

$ exec zsh

to reload the terminal.

the exec zsh for reloading the terminal is one of the "zsh goodies".

With the web-search plugin you added, you can now google for stuff from the terminal. Like this:

$ google what is zsh

and your browser will pop-up and search for "what is zsh"

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Oh My Zsh Theme

Open the .zshrc file and find this line:

ZSH_THEME = "robbyrussell"

and then change robbyrussel to agnoster, like this:

ZSH_THEME = "agnoster"

save the .zshrc file and return to the terminal Restart the shell or enter this command exec zsh to reload terminal.

$ exec zsh

And Voila, you have a pretty looking terminal.

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By default, the terminal will display something like this:

yourusername@yourmachinename ~/blah/blah/blah-directory

Here is how you get rid of the yourmachinename part:

• add this code at the end of the .zshrc file

  prompt_context() {
  if [[ "$USER" != "$DEFAULT_USER" || -n "$SSH_CLIENT" ]]; then
    prompt_segment black default "%(!.%{%F{yellow}%}.)$USER"
  fi
  }
  

  Save the file.

Then go to the terminal and enter exec zsh to reload:

$ exec zsh

That was how Zsh became my default shell and bash was ...bashed 💥.

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Extra Tip:

How to fix display error on vscode in-built terminal

If you open up your vscode terminal and it looks like this:

Don't be scared, there is nothing to worry about, it's just some font issue.

• Go to the vscode User settings.json file (for Ubutu users: the settings.json file lives here: /home/$USER/.config/Code/User/
• Add this command "terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "Ubuntu Mono, Monaco, PowerlineSymbols" to the file

{
// ...other vscode settings,

"terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "Ubuntu Mono, Monaco, PowerlineSymbols",
}

Save the file and restart vscode.

And we are all good 🥂 Don't forget to hit the like button. ❤️