Zsh
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Zsh is a powerful shell that operates as both an interactive shell and as a scripting language interpreter. While being similar to Bash, it offers many advantages such as:
- Faster
- Improved tab completion
- Improved globbing
- Improved array handling
- Fully customisable
The Zsh FAQ offers more reasons to use Zsh as your shell.
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Installation Instructions
Before starting lets find out what shell is currently being used:
$ echo $SHELL
Installing
To install the package for Zsh, run:
# pacman -S zsh
Before proceeding with the next step to make Zsh your default shell, you should ensure that it has been installed correctly by running Zsh in a xterm or in a tty:
$ zsh
If the installation has gone smoothly you should now find yourself staring at a rather unfamiliar prompt, for now just type exit:
$ exit
Making Zsh your default shell
To change a user's default shell without root access, the chsh command is used. The chsh command can be used to change a user's default shell without root access if the shell is listed in /etc/shells. If you installed Zsh using pacman, Zsh should already have an entry in /etc/shells.
To proceed you need to know the full path for Zsh, so run:
$ which zsh
Change the default shell for the current user:
$ chsh -s /bin/zsh
An alternative way to change a user's default shell is with the command usermod. The disadvantage of this method is that you must have root access. But multiple users default shell can be changed quickly as root, using usermod or chsh.
Change the default shell for multiple users, using usermod:
# usermod -s /bin/zsh username
Change the default shell for multiple users, using chsh:
# chsh -s /bin/zsh username
After logging back in, the user can verify that Zsh is their default shell by:
$ echo $SHELL
If you do not have root access, and Zsh is not listed in /etc/shells but you would still like to use Zsh as your default shell, see this entry in the Zsh FAQ.
Configuration
Although Zsh is usable out of the box, it is almost certainly not set up the way you would like to use it, but due to the sheer amount of customisation available in Zsh, creating a Zsh config can be a daunting and time-consuming experience.
Included below is a sample configuration file, it provides a decent set of default options as well as giving examples of many ways that Zsh can be customised. In order to use this configuration save it as a file named .zshrc. You can then apply the changes without needing to logout and then back in by running:
$ source ~/.zshrc
Simple .zshrc
Here is a simple .zshrc, that should be sufficient to get you started:
autoload -U compinit promptinit compinit promptinit # This will set the default prompt to the walters theme prompt walters
/etc/zprofile
Much like the /etc/profile used for Bash, this file is for global Zsh settings & is a good place from which to run scripts from /etc/profile.d/ and set up environment variables such as $PATH. When setting up $PATH etc. in .zshrc and using a login-manager such as kdm, you may find those settings not being taken up by the window-manager, whereas they are when using /etc/zprofile.
Generally speaking, you can copy /etc/profile to /etc/zprofile.
An example configuration:
############### # Zsh profile # ############### export PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/opt/bin" export MANPATH="/usr/man:/usr/X11R6/man" export LESSCHARSET="latin1" export LESS="-R" # load profiles from /etc/profile.d # (to disable a profile, just remove execute permission on it) if [ `ls -A1 /etc/profile.d/
Command Completion
Perhaps the most compelling feature of Zsh is its advanced autocompletion abilities. At the very least, you will want to enable autocompletion in your .zshrc. To enable autocompletion, add the following to:
autoload -U compinit compinit
For autocompletion with an arrow-key driven interface, add the following to:
zstyle ':completion:*' menu select
Key Bindings
Zsh doesn't read /etc/inputrc, which tells the shell what commands sent by the terminal emulator mean. To have some standard key bindings working on Zsh, add something like this to:
# key bindings bindkey "\e[1~" beginning-of-line bindkey "\e[4~" end-of-line bindkey "\e[5~" beginning-of-history bindkey "\e[6~" end-of-history bindkey "\e[3~" delete-char bindkey "\e[2~" quoted-insert bindkey "\e[5C" forward-word bindkey "\eOc" emacs-forward-word bindkey "\e[5D" backward-word bindkey "\eOd" emacs-backward-word bindkey "\e\e[C" forward-word bindkey "\e\e[D" backward-word bindkey "^H" backward-delete-word # for rxvt bindkey "\e[8~" end-of-line bindkey "\e[7~" beginning-of-line # for non RH/Debian xterm, can't hurt for RH/DEbian xterm bindkey "\eOH" beginning-of-line bindkey "\eOF" end-of-line # for freebsd console bindkey "\e[H" beginning-of-line bindkey "\e[F" end-of-line # completion in the middle of a line bindkey '^i' expand-or-complete-prefix
Prompts
There is a quick and easy way to set up a colored prompt in Zsh. Make sure that prompt is set to autload in your .zshrc. This can be done by adding these lines to:
autoload -U promptinit promptinit
You can now see available prompts by running the command:
$ prompt -l
To try one of the commands that is listed, use the command prompt followed by the name of the prompt you like. For example, to use the "walters" prompt, you would enter:
$ prompt walters
Advanced .zshrc
This is an example of a more advanced .zshrc:
########################################################### # Options for Zsh export HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history export HISTSIZE=50000 export SAVEHIST=50000 eval `dircolors -b` autoload -U compinit compinit setopt autopushd pushdminus pushdsilent pushdtohome setopt autocd setopt cdablevars setopt ignoreeof setopt interactivecomments setopt nobanghist setopt noclobber setopt HIST_REDUCE_BLANKS setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE setopt SH_WORD_SPLIT setopt nohup # PS1 and PS2 export PS1="$(print '%{\e[1;34m%}%n%{\e[0m%}'):$(print '%{\e[0;34m%}%~%{\e[0m%}')$ " export PS2="$(print '%{\e[0;34m%}>%{\e[0m%}')" # Vars used later on by Zsh export EDITOR="gvim -geom 82x35" export BROWSER=links export XTERM="aterm +sb -geometry 80x29 -fg black -bg lightgoldenrodyellow -fn -xos4-terminus-medium-*-normal-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-iso8859-15" ################################################################## # Stuff to make my life easier # allow approximate zstyle ':completion:*' completer _complete _match _approximate zstyle ':completion:*:match:*' original only zstyle ':completion:*:approximate:*' max-errors 1 numeric # tab completion for PID :D zstyle ':completion:*:*:kill:*' menu yes select zstyle ':completion:*:kill:*' force-list always # cd not select parent dir zstyle ':completion:*:cd:*' ignore-parents parent pwd ################################################################## # Key bindings # http://mundy.yazzy.org/unix/zsh.php # http://www.zsh.org/mla/users/2000/msg00727.html typeset -g -A key bindkey '^?' backward-delete-char bindkey '^[[1~' beginning-of-line bindkey '^[[5~' up-line-or-history bindkey '^[[3~' delete-char bindkey '^[[4~' end-of-line bindkey '^[[6~' down-line-or-history bindkey '^[[A' up-line-or-search bindkey '^[[D' backward-char bindkey '^[[B' down-line-or-search bindkey '^[[C' forward-char ################################################################## # My aliases # Set up auto extension stuff alias -s html=$BROWSER alias -s org=$BROWSER alias -s php=$BROWSER alias -s com=$BROWSER alias -s net=$BROWSER alias -s png=feh alias -s jpg=feh alias -s gif=feg alias -s sxw=soffice alias -s doc=soffice alias -s gz=tar -xzvf alias -s bz2=tar -xjvf alias -s java=$EDITOR alias -s txt=$EDITOR alias -s PKGBUILD=$EDITOR # Normal aliases alias ls='ls --color=auto -F' alias lsd='ls -ld *(-/DN)' alias lsa='ls -ld .*' alias f='find |grep' alias c="clear" alias dir='ls -1' alias gvim='gvim -geom 82x35' alias ..='cd ..' alias nicotine='/home/paul/downloads/nicotine-1.0.8rc1/nicotine' alias ppp-on='sudo /usr/sbin/ppp-on' alias ppp-off='sudo /usr/sbin/ppp-off' alias firestarter='sudo su -c firestarter' alias mpg123='mpg123 -o oss' alias mpg321='mpg123 -o oss' alias vba='/home/paul/downloads/VisualBoyAdvance -f 4' alias hist="grep '$1' /home/paul/.zsh_history" alias irssi="irssi -c irc.freenode.net -n yyz" alias mem="free -m" alias msn="tmsnc -l hutchy@subdimension.com" # command L equivalent to command |less alias -g L='|less' # command S equivalent to command &> /dev/null & alias -g S='&> /dev/null &' # type a directory's name to cd to it compctl -/ cd
There are many more ways that you can customise Zsh, obviously far too many to list here, see the Zsh manual for more information.
Sample .zshrc files
Here is a list of .zshrc files. Feel free to add your own:
- Øyvind 'Mr.Elendig' Heggstad <=> Basic setup, with dynamic prompt and window title/hardinfo <=> http://arch.har-ikkje.net/configs/home/dot.zshrc
Enable Unicode (obsolete)
The latest versions of Zsh support unicode characters. To enable it, just rebuild the package with the Arch Build System.
And add the option --enable-multibyte to:
build() { cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-$pkgver ./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin \ --enable-etcdir=/etc/zsh \ --enable-zshenv=/etc/zsh/zshenv \ --enable-zlogin=/etc/zsh/zlogin \ --enable-zlogout=/etc/zsh/zlogout \ --enable-zprofile=/etc/profile \ --enable-zshrc=/etc/zsh/zshrc \ --enable-maildir-support \ --with-curses-terminfo \ --enable-zsh-secure-free \ --enable-multibyte
Uninstallation
If you decide that Zsh is not the shell for you and you want to return to Bash. You must first change your default shell back to Bash, before removing the Zsh package.
Follow, Zsh#Making Zsh your default shell to change the default shell back to Bash, just replace zsh with bash.
Now you can safely remove the Zsh package.
If you did not follow the above, you can still change the default shell back to Bash by editing /etc/passwd as root. For example:
from:
username:x:1000:1000:Full Name,,,:/home/username:/bin/zsh
to:
username:x:1000:1000:Full Name,,,:/home/username:/bin/bash
External Resources
- IRC channel: #zsh at irc.freenode.org