I tried a new Linux (Ubuntu) terminal setup and it's a blast. I want to share it with you.
What will you setup?
- Terminator terminal to support splitting the terminal screen vertically and horizontally into multiple windows. Extremely useful when working with distributed systems like blockchain.
- ZSH framework to add productivity plugins and custom color themes.
- Powerlevel10k for "speed, flexibility and out-of-the-box experience."
Install the Terminator
sudo apt-get install terminator
Open it.
Install ZSH
sudo apt install zsh
And make it your default shell:
chsh -s $(which zsh)
Or checkout the official ZSH Github repo and choose your favorite installation process.
PowerLevel10k Theme
The great thing about ZSH is the level of personalization possible. I found this theme which looks pretty solid: https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k#meslo-nerd-font-patched-for-powerlevel10k
Install the theme
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ~/powerlevel10k
echo 'source ~/powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k.zsh-theme' >>! ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
Ready for the cool part? The theme comes with an interactive guide for setting everything as you wish, "to your gusto".
Configure a custom font [optional]
In case you have a weakness for a specific font, you can install it and configure it according to the PowerLevel10k's fonts instructions.
Configure colors, spaces, features
p10k configure
Enable battery plugin
The last personalization I did so far, was enabling the battery status inside the terminal screen.
You can do so by opening the vim $HOME/.p10k.zsh file and uncommenting this line:
You are done!
The theme even includes the time the last command took:
Let me know on Twitter if you like this setup!
Top comments (4)
I'm having troubles with the Meslo Nerd font in Terminator. It's fine in the Terminal, but does not work in Terminator. I have set the custom font to Meslo Nerd Regular in the preferences. But nothing. Any ideas?
Sorted, I was setting title bar font… new piece of software and rushing = chaos :)
This does not work with zsh 5.8 - is-at-least: function definition file not found
if you bypass this error you still get vcs_info: function definition file not found
It works with any correctly installed zsh >= 5.1.
Both is-at-least and vcs_info are included in zsh. If you get an error saying these functions are missing, it means that either you have a corrupted installation of zsh or you've manually removed standard zsh directories from fpath. The latter is similar to removing /bin from PATH -- the result is a broken system.