Shell configuration

What is a shell?

Shell configuration files

Commonly used shell config locations:

• ~/.bashrc
• ~/.zshrc
• ~/.config/fish/

.bashrc

This is where bash configs live.

.zshrc

Similar to .bashrc, also where configs live, but with a slightly different syntax.

Shell prompts

These are a few shell prompts:

Shell prompt Customization

• Manual configuration
• Templates from web
  • use an online generator
  • copy someones "dotfiles"
• Extensions
  • p10k (zsh)
  • tide (fish)
  • starship (many)

Starship prompt

• Starship is a rust-based cross platform prompt
  • Requires installing starship on each device
• Config in a toml file

Terminals

Terminals effect many things:

• Fonts
• Colors
• Ligatures
• and many more features

Fonts

• Many configs make use of fonts with fancy characters (nerdfonts)
  • Check out nerdfonts.com
• Installed on end machine and selected in the terminal application
• Monospaced fonts are good for terminals

Fonts cont.

• Some fonts include ligatures
  
• Common fonts:
  • Cascadia Code / Cascadia Cove
  • Fira Code / FiraCode Nerd Font
  • Iosevka

Shell extensions/plugins

• Some people may want extensions that add features or themes
• Often this is done via an plugin manager
  • oh-my-zsh (omz) for zsh
  • oh-my-bash? for bash
  • fisher for fish
• Plugins can offer things like:
  • Advanced autocomplete
  • Integration with other tools (password manager, etc.)
  • Preset keybindings

My recommendations

Minimal:

• should use minimal to no plugins
• one .bashrc file (to make copying to new machines easy)
• aliases for git commands
• aliases for ls
• history-based autocomplete with arrow keys
• show git status in prompt
• does not need nerdfonts/ligatures to be readable

My recommendations cont.

Maximal:

• Can be as large as desired (until it impacts performance noticeably)
• Use plugins for commonly used tools
  • Password manager
  • git
  • aws cli
• theme that utilizes special fonts
• aliases for ls and other commands
• better fuzzy search (fzf)

Other command line utilities

Alternatives for standard commands:

• bat fancy cat alternative
• fd fast find alternative
• fzf cli fuzzy finder
• tldr condensed examples, like man
• exa alternative to ls
• lsd alternative to ls
• ripgrep/rg alterative to grep