Setup terminal with zsh on windows

Below diagram explains what we are going to do.

So to list the steps, we'll

• Install WSL (Windows subsystem for linux)
• Install Ubuntu from Microsoft store
• Install zsh shell
• Install oh my zsh
• Install PowerLevel10k
• Plugins
• Choose a terminal
• Points worth noting

Installations

WSL

I just enabled 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' in Windows Feature and restarted the system.

You can follow the instructions on Microsoft website.

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Ubuntu

For this, visit this Microsoft Store webpage and install it.

Download size 444.5MB on 05-12-2020

After it is installed. Open it from start menu to continue installation.

Setup will ask for a username for linux subsystem.

After entering username, the setup will finish.

Update the packages with following command

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

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ZSH

Install ZSH with following command

sudo apt-get install zsh

Make zsh the default shell with following command:

 chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh 

Restart the Ubuntu app and you should be greeted with following screen:

Complete the configuration as per your liking.

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OH MY ZSH

Next, lets install 'OH MY ZSH' with following command:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Below is the screenshot of completed installation.

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PowerLevel10k

Time to spice up the terminal with a nice theme.

But before that, Install the recommended font 'Meslo Nerd Font':

Why?

Icons will render properly with this font

You can download the fonts from this GitHub page.

To install a font, open it and click install button on top

Install PowerLevel10k

Now, for PowerLevel10k, you can follow the guide at https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k

Below are the steps I've taken:

1. Installation of PowerLevel10k for Oh My Zsh
   

   git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/themes/powerlevel10k
   

2. Set ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k" in ~/.zshrc.

3. Restart the Ubuntu app.

4. You will be prompted with the configuration wizard for PowerLevel10k. If not, type p10k configure if the configuration wizard doesn't start automatically.

After doing the configuration, my terminal looked like below:

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Plugins

zsh-autosuggestions

This plugin will suggest command as you write from the terminal history.

Just use → right arrow key to complete the command.

Link: https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions

Steps I followed:

1. Installation
   

   git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions
   

2. To activate the autosuggestions, add it to plugin list in your .zshrc:
   
   
   

3. You will also need to force reload of your .zshrc:
   

   source ~/.zshrc
   

Try typing any command if its available in the history, you will see suggestion as below and then you press -> right arrow key to complete it.

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Choose a terminal

So far we have just configured a shell, zsh in this case.

Time to pick a terminal of choice.

Terminals are dumb. They are just UI layer. They take input and pass it on (to a shell for example).
You can choose any terminal like Hyper, cmder, Windows Terminal etc etc.

Up till now, we have been using the Ubuntu app as our terminal. You can continue using that and it works fine.

In case you want to switch, below i have notes on few of them.

Windows Terminal

Install

Install it from Microsoft Store

Font

Open its settings from the dropdown and add fontFace to the profile named Ubuntu as shown below

Default Profile

By default it opens up PowerShell. You can change it by assigning the GUID of Ubuntu profile to the defaultProfile in the settings.

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Hyper

Install

• Download the installer from https://hyper.is/
• Install it

Font

Make hyper use the custom font we installed earlier.

Open Hyper Terminal config file with ctrl+, and add 'MesloLGS NF,' in front of the existing value for fontFamily key.

Shell

Lets tie hyper with Window's bash now.

• Open Hyper's configuration file with ctrl+,.
• Scroll down and edit shell's value to C:\\Windows\\System32\\bash.exe.
• Configuration we did in last step, will always open bash shell in Hyper. To switch to ZSH on startup, Open your bash profile with

vim ~/.bashrc

Add following in the very beginning of the file

zsh

• Save and relaunch Hyper.

Colors

The colors were a little bit bright for me. So I installed a theme for hyper terminal named 'hyper-material-theme' from Hyper Website using below command:

⚠ Make sure you are running the hyper command from windows terminal. Meaning you are out zsh or linux terminal per se.

Use exit command to get out of zsh.

hyper i hyper-material-theme

Now colors are nice!

Issue

One issue I noticed with hyper terminal is that it doesn't refresh/clear the screen after nano editor is closed.

As shown below, Hyper(on left) and Windows Terminal(on right) after closing nano editor.

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Cmder

Install

• Download the installer from https://cmder.net/
• Install it

Font

Make Cmder use the custom font we installed earlier.

Open settings and select 'MesloLGS NF' as shown below

Shell

Lets tie cmder with Window's bash now.

Add a new task in cmder's settings window as shown below

• Save and relaunch Cmder.

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Points worth noting:

• ⚠ Do not change Linux files using Windows apps and tools

• NodeJs Projects

  I have moved these node related notes to separate space here

• Misc

  • Do not try to copy text with ctrl+c while a command is running 😁.

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Thats it for this note.

HIH
~ RD

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This was originally published on https://www.therdnotes.com/setup-zsh-on-windows

And I keep updating my notes with new findings... ✌

Comments

[Ben Sinclair]

What you are doing in your .bashrc is really strange:

bash -c zsh

This means your system will load bash, then immediately load bash again, and finally load zsh.

If you use chsh you can set which login shell you use directly.

[RD]

hmm. thnx Ben.

chsh worked for me, only when I launch 'Ubuntu' app from start menu.

BUT, as I am using Hyper terminal and have configured its shell as below

shell: 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\bash.exe',

It always starts bash irrespective of the shell set in /etc/passwd either with chsh or usermod -s

So had to add bash -c zsh in .bashrc
Though, can be summoned with just zsh in the .bashrc.

Let me know, if there is any workaround to this situation!

[Ben Sinclair]

Hmm, not sure. I use Windows Terminal and it's configured to run wsl.exe -d Ubuntu instead of a shell directly.
Windows Terminal is alright. It's very slow, but last time I used Hyper Terminal that was even slower!

[RD]

Cool 👍

I just switched to Hyper. Lets see how it behaves with time.

Thanks

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For all,
Terminals are UI layer. The above setup will work fine with CMD too.
Below is the screenshot for same [with autosuggestion also]