ZSH as a shell

Today I discovered oh-my-zsh and i am never going back. well I should say, I discovered ZSH. ZSH is a shell designed for interactive use, although it is also a powerful scripting language. Many of the useful features of bash, ksh, and tcsh were incorporated into zsh; many original features were added. The shell offers many improvements over bash, such as:

Installing ZSH

Installing zsh is as simple as running the following command:

How to Install Zsh and Oh My Zsh on Ubuntu

If you’re looking to enhance your terminal experience on Ubuntu, switching to Zsh (Z Shell) and installing Oh My Zsh is a fantastic choice. Oh My Zsh is a framework that adds themes, plugins, and better usability to Zsh, making your terminal more powerful and enjoyable to use.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of installing Zsh and setting up Oh My Zsh on Ubuntu.

Why Use Zsh?

Zsh offers several advantages over Bash, the default shell in Ubuntu:

• Auto-correction for command typos.
• Suggestions and autocompletion for directories and commands.
• Plugins and themes to customize and enhance your workflow.
• Rich customization options.

When combined with Oh My Zsh, you unlock even more possibilities for improving productivity.

Step 1: Installing Zsh

1. Update your package list:

   sudo apt update
   

2. Install Zsh:

   sudo apt install zsh
   

3. Verify the installation:

   zsh --version
   

   You should see the version number of Zsh if it was installed correctly.

4. Make Zsh your default shell:

   chsh -s $(which zsh)
   

   After running this command, restart your terminal or log out and back in.

Step 2: Installing Oh My Zsh

1. Download and install Oh My Zsh using curl or wget:

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

   OR

   sh -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh -O -)"
   

2. Follow the prompts during the installation. If Zsh launches after installation, you’re good to go!

3. Confirm installation by checking your shell:

   echo $SHELL
   

   The output should display /usr/bin/zsh.

Step 3: Customizing Oh My Zsh

1. Changing the Theme:

• Open the Zsh configuration file:

   nano ~/.zshrc
  

• Look for the line that starts with ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell" (default theme).
• Replace robbyrussell with any theme from the Oh My Zsh theme list.
• Example:

   ZSH_THEME="agnoster"
  

• Save and exit (CTRL + O, ENTER, CTRL + X).
• Restart the terminal to see the changes:

   source ~/.zshrc
  

2. Adding Plugins:

• Oh My Zsh comes with useful plugins that can be enabled by editing .zshrc.
• To enable plugins like git or docker, modify the plugins line:

   plugins=(git docker)
  

• Save and reload:

   source ~/.zshrc
  

Step 4: Testing and Exploring

Now that you have Zsh and Oh My Zsh set up, explore the different themes and plugins to tailor your terminal experience. Oh My Zsh has a large community and rich documentation to help you customize further.

Troubleshooting Tips

• If Zsh doesn’t start by default:

   zsh
  

  Then, re-run the chsh command to set it as the default shell.

• If Oh My Zsh installation fails:
  Ensure you have curl or wget installed:

   sudo apt install curl wget