Zsh (The Z shell) is an 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 from Bash, ksh, and tcsh.

I use two laptops. My personal laptop and the laptop that I use for work. The laptop that I use for work is provided by the company, with Windows 10 enterprise installed and Ubuntu 20.04 distro ran in WSL. WSL + zsh + dracula theme + oh my zsh + Integrated terminal in VS Code works like a charm. Because of that, I will use zsh in my personal laptop with Ubuntu 20.04 installed. And here’s how :

1. Install zsh in Ubuntu using an apt package manager

sudo apt install zsh

2. The package manager will install the latest release of Zsh which is 5.8

zsh --version
zsh 5.8 (x86_64-ubuntu-linux-gnu)

3. We can also check with cat /etc/shells , to see if Zsh in available on the valid login shells. If Zsh has been setup, /usr/bin/zsh will exist in the list of valid login shells.

4. Set Zsh as default shell

chsh -s /usr/bin/zsh

5. Log out and then login again to your terminal to use the new Zsh shell.

echo $SHELL
/usr/bin/zsh

6. Install oh my zsh using curl

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

7. Use agnoster zsh theme

Edit the ~/.zshrc file, edit this following line

ZSH_THEME="robbyrussell"

Into

ZSH_THEME="agnoster" # (this is one of the fancy ones)
# see https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/wiki/Themes#agnoster

Save the file, and then open a new terminal to see the changes that we did

The powerline may looks broken as the screenshoot above. But don’t worry. What we need to do is install the powerline font. Run this command in the terminal :

sudo apt-get install fonts-powerline

Now open a new terminal

That’s better 😈

8. Install powerlevel10k for Oh my zsh

Run this following command :

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-$HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k

Now, edit the ZSH_THEME in ~/.zshrc file into :

ZSH_THEME="powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k"

Open a new terminal, and you should see the powerlevel10k theme has applied. If the p10k configuration wizard does not start automatically, you can run the configuration wizard the powerlevel10k theme with this command :

p10k configure

After you run the command above, p10k will prompt some questions, and you can choose the answer based on your personal preferences. Here’s the final look of my zsh :

9. Install Dracula theme for GNOME terminal

Install dconf-cli with following command :

sudo apt-get install dconf-cli

Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/dracula/gnome-terminal
cd gnome-terminal

Right click in the terminal, then choose preferences. In preferences, choose add profiles (the + button on the right), fill the new profile name i.e. dracula.

In the Colors tab, uncheck the ‘Use colors from system theme’ in Text and Background Color. Then, close the preferences.

Now run the installation script :

./install.sh

Then follow the instructions, when the prompt ask you to choose a profile, choose the profile that we have been created before.

Now back to preferences setting, set dracula as default profile.

Now, start a new terminal session, and see the dracula theme has been applied in the GNOME terminal

Install plugins (zsh-autosuggestions and zsh-syntax-highlighting)

Download zsh-autosuggestions :

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions 

Download zsh-syntax-higlighting :

git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting.git $ZSH_CUSTOM/plugins/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Edit ~/.zshrc file, find plugins=(git) replace plugins=(git) with :

plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting)

Reopen your terminal, now you should be able to use the auto suggestions and syntax highlighting.

Have fun with your terminal ! 🎉

References :

1. https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k#oh-my-zsh
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_shell
3. https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh
4. https://draculatheme.com/gnome-terminal
5. https://gist.github.com/dogrocker/1efb8fd9427779c827058f873b94df95