I will explain to you, how to make your “wsl” or “wsl2” terminal just awesome! We’re installing Windows Terminal, which is a nice open-source project of Microsoft. And we’re installing the “zsh” shell, which will replace the default “bash” shell. This allows us to completely change the look and feel of our terminal and also enhance the functionality by installing additional zsh plugins.
Install Windows Terminal
Windows Terminal is a nice open-source project of Microsoft that can replace all your Windows terminals. It’s very powerful and offers a lot of customization features and also productivity features like tabs, tiling windows, and much more.
I followed this project since the preview version and it’s consistently improved by Microsoft’s developers. It’s very easy because you simply install it via the Microsoft Store on Windows.
Install Nerd-Fonts in Windows
To make Windows Terminal able to render the icons we’re using in “zsh” later, we need to install the Nerd-Fonts on our Windows. First, go to the Nerd-Font homepage and select a Font you like. Note that not all of them work well with all zsh themes, you may need to try out different ones. Fonts that work for me are “Anonymice Nerd Font” and “Droid Sans Mono Nerd Font”. Then, extract the archive and install all of the .otf Font files.
Install zsh shell in WSL / WSL2
Now we need to install the “zsh” shell in our wsl or wsl2. You can easily install it in the Ubuntu wsl by using the commands below. If you’re using a different Linux distribution, you may check out the zsh documentation or your package manager documentation.
We will also install oh-my-zsh which is a nice configuration extension to the “zsh” shell. That will allow us to easily customize anything, install a theme, and add plugins later.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install zsh -y
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"Install powerlevel10k zsh theme
Next, we will install the powerlevel10k theme, which really looks nice and offers great customization features. It also has a good configuration wizard that makes it extremely easy to set up the theme for your favorite design.
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10kTo activate the theme you need to edit your “~/.zshrc” file in your personal folder and replace ZSH_THEME=”robbyrussel” with ZSH_THEME=”powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k”. After the change, you need to close and restart your terminal.
Change Windows Terminal settings to use Nerd-Fonts
Because we want Windows Terminal to be able to render the icons in the powerlevel10k theme correctly, we need to change the Windows Terminal configuration to use the Nerd-Font we’ve downloaded before. Click on “Settings” in the Windows Terminal menu and edit the settings.json file with your favorite text editor.
Find your wsl or wsl2 profile and add the line “fontFace”: “<name-of-your-font>” according to this example:
"list":
[
{
"guid": "{<your-profile-id>}",
"hidden": false,
"name": "Ubuntu-20.04",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
"fontFace": "<name-of-your-font>"
}
]Make sure, you’re using the exact name of the font like it’s displayed in the “Font name” section when you open the .otf font file!
Some additional settings in Windows Terminal
The settings.json file of Windows Terminal can be configured with different options. You can change the name, the icon, the default folder, font-size and many other things.
If you want to have a look at the configuration I’m using in my Windows Terminal, you can check out my dotfiles.
How to install or enable plugins in zsh
Example: Auto-suggestion plugin
I found this nice auto-suggestion plugin for the “zsh” shell. Above all, it’s really nice and helps me a lot when working with the Linux terminal. It will suggest you auto-completes based on your command history.
git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/plugins/zsh-autosuggestionsEnable the plugins in zsh
To enable the auto-suggestion plugin or any other plugins in “zsh”, edit your “~/.zshrc” file in your personal folder. Simply change the default line plugins=(git) to plugins=(git zsh-autosuggestions <optional-other-plugins>). Of course, replace the <optional-other-plugins> with any other plugins you want to enable.
Great explanation and very helpful!
I was waiting for this. I’ve been using cmder on windows a long time but was always impressed with (oh-my-)zsh.
Your walkthrough is amazing. Some little feedback on vim. People warned me about it and I think it justified as I got stuck the first 5 seconds 🙂
Some notes so you can edit the file
Make your WSL / WSL2 terminal awesome with zsh, oh-my-zsh, nerd-fonts and powerlevel10k6. July 2020
I will explain to you, how to make your “wsl” or “wsl2” terminal just awesome! We’re installing Windows Terminal, which is a nice open-source project of Microsoft. And we’re installing the “zsh” shell, which will replace the default “bash” shell. This allows us to completely change the look and feel of our terminal and also enhance the functionality by installing additional zsh plugins.Install Windows Terminal
Windows Terminal is a nice open-source project of Microsoft that can replace all your Windows terminals. It’s very powerful and offers a lot of customization features and also productivity features like tabs, tiling windows, and much more.
I followed this project since the preview version and it’s consistently improved by Microsoft’s developers. It’s very easy because you simply install it via the Microsoft Store on Windows.
Download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-terminal/9n0dx20hk701
Documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/
GitHub: https://github.com/Microsoft/TerminalInstall Nerd-Fonts in Windows
To make Windows Terminal able to render the icons we’re using in “zsh” later, we need to install the Nerd-Fonts on our Windows. First, go to the Nerd-Font homepage and select a Font you like. Note that not all of them work well with all zsh themes, you may need to try out different ones. Fonts that work for me are “Anonymice Nerd Font” and “Droid Sans Mono Nerd Font”. Then, extract the archive and install all of the .otf Font files.
Download: https://www.nerdfonts.com/Install zsh shell in WSL / WSL2
Now we need to install the “zsh” shell in our wsl or wsl2. You can easily install it in the Ubuntu wsl by using the commands below. If you’re using a different Linux distribution, you may check out the zsh documentation or your package manager documentation.
We will also install oh-my-zsh which is a nice configuration extension to the “zsh” shell. That will allow us to easily customize anything, install a theme, and add plugins later.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install zsh -y
sh -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)”
Documentation: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/
Oh-My-Zsh: https://ohmyz.sh/Install powerlevel10k zsh theme
Next, we will install the powerlevel10k theme, which really looks nice and offers great customization features. It also has a good configuration wizard that makes it extremely easy to set up the theme for your favorite design.
git clone –depth=1 https://github.com/romkatv/powerlevel10k.git ${ZSH_CUSTOM:-~/.oh-my-zsh/custom}/themes/powerlevel10k
To activate the theme you need to edit your “~/.zshrc” file in your personal folder and replace ZSH_THEME=”robbyrussel” with ZSH_THEME=”powerlevel10k/powerlevel10k”. After the change, you need to close and restart your terminal.
$ vim ~/.zshrc
make the change
press ESC
press colon “:”
type x and enter
Thank you! Mabye a video or blog post on vim is a good idea?
I was waiting for this. I’ve been using cmder on windows a long time but was always impressed with (oh-my-)zsh.
Your walkthrough is amazing. Some little feedback on vim. People warned me about it and I think it justified as I got stuck the first 5 seconds 🙂
Some notes so you can edit the file
$ vim ~/.zshrc
make the change
press ESC
press colon “:”
type x and enter
Thank you! Mabye a video or blog post on vim is a good idea?
Hi,
bin ĂĽber Dein Video zum WSL/WSL2-Terminal-Eye-Candy Thema auf Deiner Seite gelandet
Im Video sieht man (als du die Transparenz vom Terminal auf Deinem eigentlichen Setup zeigst), dass du eine alternative Leiste oben am Bildschirm hast. Mein erster Gedanke war, dass das eine „getweakte“ Windows-Taskleiste ist – da Du diese aber unten auch hast, denke ich mal es ist eine alternative â la polybar für Win10, was mich dann gleich mal zum Google Peppi gebracht hat …. der weiß mir allerdings nicht zu helfen.
Was verwendest du dafür …. ich gehe mal davon aus, dass es kein „dynamisches hintergrundbild“ ist — das wär ja dann nicht funktional und fänd ich weniger elegant ?
Hi, das ist Rainmeter. Du findest meine Config auf meinem GitHub unter Dotfiles 🙂